Before U.S. District Judge Michael Davis sentenced Bradley Neal Crowder to two years in prison, he said he needed to understand how the Austin man with no criminal background made the leap from social activism to making firebombs.
"I made bad decisions," Crowder said. "I engaged in activities that were indefensible."
Davis told Crowder everyone makes bad decisions. "I was young once, too," he said. "I need to know why you crossed that line."
Crowder said he didn't want to scapegoat Brandon Darby, the government informant in the case, but said the Austin man had become "very influential" in his life and he looked up to him.
Darby was a longtime activist who earned a national reputation for his relief work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Crowder and his co-defendant, David Guy McKay, didn't know the FBI had used Darby to infiltrate their group.
Davis asked Crowder whether Darby had anything to do with his making Molotov cocktails. Not in a direct way, Crowder answered.
The question Davis posed was at the center of the case.
McKay went to trial claiming Darby entrapped him, and his first trial ended with a hung jury. On the eve of his scheduled retrial in March, he changed his plea and admitted guilt to all three counts of possession of an unregistered firearm, which is how federal law classifies a Molotov cocktail. He is to be sentenced next Thursday.
Crowder pleaded guilty in January to a single count of possession of an unregistered firearm; two other counts were dismissed.
Crowder and McKay were members of a small "affinity group" of activists in Austin who came to St. Paul to disrupt the RNC. McKay said they built eight Molotov cocktails after learning police had seized their U-Haul trailer filled with homemade riot shields.
At first, their intended target was a truck-mounted JumboTron screen parked by the Cathedral of St. Paul. Later, after Crowder was arrested in a street demonstration, McKay allegedly decided a better target would be law-enforcement vehicles parked in a lot near the Dayton Avenue apartment he was staying in.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Paulsen said Crowder crossed the line because "he was mad at the police because they took his shields."
Davis pointed out that Darby was about 10 years older than the defendants and "extremely experienced in organizing."
Though Darby had nothing to do with either man making the firebombs, Davis said, "changing the mentality and thought processes of young adults seems to be what is being projected here with Mr. Darby." He asked Paulsen for his thoughts.
"It didn't happen that way," Paulsen said. Darby didn't want Crowder and McKay "going down that road," he said. One of Darby's roles at the RNC was to prevent violence, not incite it, Paulsen said.
Crowder's mother, Twila Crowder, addressed Davis before he sentenced her son.
"He is passionate," said the Midland, Texas, woman who was joined in the courtroom by other relatives from Texas and New Mexico. "He would never hurt anybody on purpose. I don't know how he got into this."
Crowder's "history of social activism goes back to grade school," said federal public defender Andrew Mohring. But what was more remarkable, Mohring said, was that Crowder's beliefs arose in Midland, where they weren't common or supported. Crowder worked in a soup kitchen, marched to protest the KKK and wrote and handed out anti-racist literature, Mohring said.
Paulsen argued Davis should follow the sentencing guidelines and send Crowder to prison for three years and one month to three years and 10 months. There will be future political conventions, and "there has to be deterrence," Paulsen said.
Mohring asked that Crowder be sentenced to no more than a year and a day in prison.
Davis sentenced Crowder to two years in prison and said he could serve it in Texas, to be close to his family. He also ordered three years of supervised release.
Before he goes to prison, Davis said Crowder should be taken to the Ramsey County jail to answer a second-degree assault charge filed against him in state court. He is accused of throwing a traffic sign from an overpass and onto Interstate 94, missing a police officer by three feet, according to a criminal complaint.
"You're young," Davis said. "Take this opportunity to learn from your egregious, bad mistakes."
More from St. Paul Pioneer Press | Top of Page
Useful article? Use these tools to let someone know:
Send & Share | Print | Access RSS Feed for Syndication
