The father of hate-crime-attack victim Shane McClellan was in Judge Carol Schapira‘s courtroom downtown to hear the sentence for one of his son’s attackers. Before the hearing, Tim McClellan told WSB and TV photographers in the hallway, “Today’s his birthday.” [Afterward, he spoke to the media – part of the interview is in our clip above; we’ll upload a longer clip when we’re back at HQ.]
On Shane’s 17th birthday – eight months after he was beaten and tortured for hours on a Highland Park stairway, by two men who voiced a racist motivation – one of his attackers, 23-year-old Ahmed Y. Mohamed (photo below), has just been sentenced to 69 months in prison, three months short of what prosecutors had asked for.
(Added 4:47 pm, Seattle Times photo by Greg Gilbert, used with permission)
Judge Schapira said this case is “more than a headline. .. We are here not to judge you as a person, but there are consequences for the very serious act to which you have pleaded guilty. … The offense makes no sense to me. … You are a very young man; as negative as this experience as been, as negative as being in prison will be. We hope you will put this behind you, as we all do when making very serious mistakes.”
Prosecutors had recommended the high end of the “standard sentencing range,” which would have been six years. In court, prosecutor Erin Becker said, “This robbery and the actions that occurred during this robbery went far, far beyond (the average robbery) … The (attackers) held him for hours, burned him with lit cigarettes, urinated on him … The victim was a juvenile at the time, and it seems what they were aiming at was not simply robbery.” Tim McClellan decided at the last minute that he would speak to the judge, saying, with difficulty, he “can’t imagine the duration” of what happened to his son, who he says “is doing a lot better.” (Shane was not in court.)
The lawyer for Mohamed said his client was sorry and said alcohol had something to do with it … saying it was his client’s “first experience with alcohol” and noting Mohamed had been drinking Four Loko, the subsequently banned beverage. He also talked about Mohamed, who is a US citizen, having been born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and living in refugee camps when very young. Mohamed’s mother also spoke, apologizing to all involved for her son’s actions, and talking about how he helps care for his disabled sister; he spoke for himself too, apologizing, saying he felt peer pressure to drink, but saying he knows he can become “a better man.” Family members/supporters in the gallery cried as they spoke.
The judge opened her remarks after that by saying she felt sympathy for so many of those involved. But in the end, she pronounced a sentence just short of what prosecutors wanted. Technically, it breaks down to 45 months for the robbery charge, with 12 months concurrent for the malicious-harassment charge; after that, 24 months for the weapons enhancement (a knife was used during the robbery/attack). Mohamed already has been in jail about three months, which will count against the sentence.
WSB was first to report that Mohamed had pleaded guilty to robbery (with weapons enhancement) and malicious harassment (hate crime) – it happened in December, but no one in the news media had noticed; we turned it up while combing through court records on routine followups at the start of January. The second person arrested last fall, 21-year-old Jonathan Baquiring, is in the King County Jail, awaiting trial next month on the same charges.
ADDED 2:46 PM: Tim McClellan spoke to the media after the sentencing, saying he accepts Mohamed’s apology, and that he is generally pleased with how this turned out. He says Shane is doing OK. See part of the interview in the clip we added atop this story; more to come.
| 14 COMMENTS