The white former police officer was sentenced to less than half the prison time his defense lawyers had asked for, after he was convicted for his role in the beating of an undercover Black colleague during the racial justice protests in the city.
The sentencing ofDustin Boone was for aiding and abetting the deprivation of civil rights under color of law. He was found guilty after a nine-day trial.
The defense team asked for just over two years, while the prosecutors wanted him to be imprisoned for 10 years.
Hall will be eligible to have time taken off of his sentence for good behavior if he is sentenced to one day over the one-year sentence.
The light sentence made Hall and his supporters walk out of the courtroom in disgust.
The incident occurred during a time of protests in St. Louis after the acquittal of a former police officer in the Anthony Lamar Smith case.
On the evening of Sept. 17, 2017, Hall had been undercover when he was pinned to the ground by a third officer, Randy Hays, who mistook him for a protester.
The beating left Hall with permanent injuries and pain, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, because he had not violated any laws and was not resisting arrest. He reached a $5 million settlement with the department.
Evidence was released by prosecutors showing that he had been showing off to his girlfriend by using a video call.
She had told him that the footage was very cool, but after learning that he had attacked a fellow officer, he wrote to her saying, "nothing about that story to anyone please." Not something I am proud of.
The prosecutors released text messages that showed that he was ready to squash the protests.
He wrote in one message that it would be a lot of fun beating the shit out of these people once the sun goes down.
They released evidence showing that months before, he had bragged about being violent with people he had arrested, and that he had used the n-word in a text with another officer.
The government wanted a 10-year prison sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offense and deter criminal conduct by officers.
"Our society has delegated the use of appropriate force to our law enforcement officers," prosecutors wrote. The majority of police officers take this responsibility very seriously. The person did not.
The defense attorneys argued that the attack on Hall was initiated by Boone by kneeing on Hall's back and using his hands to hold down the undercover officer's neck.
They said that the police culture of excessive force was pervasive in his own department, but that he should be judged for his actions and not made a "sacrifice" for every police officer.
The defense attorneys admitted that the texts were offensive, but included statements from friends and family that the officer was not a racist.
In response to that defense, prosecutors released racist text messages between him and his family.
The text messages showed the father, mother, and sister comparing the Black protesters to monkeys and saying the demonstrators were doing a rain dance.
The family's contention that the texts don't reflect the real person is contradicted by their own offensive texts.
According to the Post-Dispatch, in his sentencing, he said he believed that officers had used unreasonable force on Hall because he is Black, but that he was not one of the officers who beat or kicked him.
Hays, the former officer who struck Hall with a baton, was sentenced to four years in prison.
Three years of supervised release and two weekends in prison were given to a third former officer for lying to a grand jury.
One of the attorneys representing the victim, Hall, was not ready to speak with the media.
Hall believed the prior two sentences were not shown to African American defendants.
Hall told the judge that he had increased the racial divide in the city.
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