Colton Partin, 22, of Apison, received six months of house arrest while James Smiley, 27, and Kyle Montgomery, 22, both of Chattanooga, got one year in prison. Each pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights on Jan. 6.A federal judge has sentenced three men who pleaded guilty to launching fireworks and shouting racial slurs at black residents of public housing.
Colton Partin, 22, of Apison, received six months of house arrest while James Smiley, 27, and Kyle Montgomery, 22, both of Chattanooga, got one year in prison. Each pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights on Jan. 6.
Between 3:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. on July 9, 2011 Partin drove a pickup truck with passengers Smiley and Montgomery as the trio rode through East Lake Courts public housing.
The three men launched "mortar-style rockets from a cylinder" at a group of five black residents gathered on an apartment porch.
The victims ran as one of the rockets smashed a window pane of the apartment of a woman asleep with her infant child and boyfriend's juvenile siblings, according to court documents.
The three defendants were originally arrested and brought before Hamilton County General Sessions Court but state charges were dropped in the grand jury in lieu of federal charges brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
For more see tomorrow's Times Free Press.