Michael Frederick Jr. of Warren, Michigan, terrorized his Black neighbors for weeks in 2020, damaging vehicles, painting graffiti on their home and breaking windows. During sentencing for his crimes, Frederick claimed he had no ill will towards the couple — he just didn’t like the Black Lives Matter sign they had on display.
The Associated Press reported that even though Frederick “shot at a Black family’s Michigan home, slashed tires on a vehicle and wrote racist graffiti on a pickup truck,” he later told Judge Diane Druzinski during sentencing in Macomb County Circuit Court that “his actions weren’t an attack on Eddie and Candace Hall ‘personally.’”
Instead, Frederick claimed, “I targeted these people because I didn’t like their political sign that they had in the window. I think you guys are some great people and didn’t deserve this at all.”
Not buying into the 25-year-old’s obviously racist lies, Judge Druzinski sentenced Frederick to four and 10 years in prison for his actions.
According to the AP, Frederick’s attacks on the Hall family began in fall 2020.
“Shots were fired in September at the Halls’ home in Warren, which borders Detroit,” AP reported. “Two days later, a swastika was painted on one of their vehicles, tires were slashed, and a large stone was thrown through their front window. Someone also had written ‘terrorist Black Lives Matter,’ ‘not welcome’ and a phrase containing an expletive on their pickup.”
The next day, Frederick also fired a bullet into the couple’s home, shooting directly through the couple’s front window.
Frederick, who lived nearby, was arrested several days later. In July 2021, he pled no contest to “ethnic intimidation, discharging a firearm at a building, using a firearm during a felony and malicious destruction of property.”
Speaking to Frederick during his sentencing, Candace Hall said, “I’m not angry, I’m not. I’m forgiving. You’re a good kid and have a chance. You made a bad choice, and we understand that. We have children ourselves. We’re not hateful people. We’re Christians.”
“With so much of the bad that happened, so much good came out of this,” she said. “Even though it was an evil, hateful act, it actually brought us — the neighborhood — together with love and comfort and compassion, even including [Frederick’s] parents.”
Struck by Hall’s words, Judge Druzinski told the Halls that she was “in awe” of their “strength, wisdom and forgiveness.”
“I wish I was as good as people as you,” the judge added.
In addition to his attacks on the Halls, the AP reported that “Frederick also pleaded no contest to malicious destruction of property after vandalizing the home of a white homeowner where a sign for a then-presidential candidate, Joe Biden, was displayed.”
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