As part of a plea deal, a man from Missouri has pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime after he shot a queer teen eight times.
The incident took place on May 29, 2019. Malachi Robinson, 26, of Kansas City, met the teen, referred to only as MS in court documents, at a branch of the Kansas City Public Library.
They got talking, and the MS asked Robinson if he could add him as a Facebook friend.
Via Facebook messenger, MS then asked Robinson about his sexual orientation and suggested they hook up in the bathroom.
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Robinson replied that he was not gay but would allow the teen to perform oral sex on him for $5 outside the library.
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They left and walked to the Swope Park area. At the same time, Robinson texted his girlfriend screenshots of what was going on, saying he might “Might shoot this boy if he try some gay shit.”
They arrived at a wooded area and MS made to leave before anything sexual occurred. That’s when Robinson shot him: three times in the chest, three times in his right arm, once in his left buttocks, and once in his right hand.
The teen survived after spending two weeks in hospital. He is still undergoing treatment for the injuries he sustained.
Robinson later wrote on a Facebook message to someone else, saying, “I shot a nigga … He was being gay af and following me like a mf.”
Robinson also googled questions, such as “How to know if the police are looking for you,” “When will police arrest you after a murder,” and “How to get away with murder in real life.” He also took steps to change his appearance.
Robinson was arrested in June 2019 and has been in custody since that time. He yesterday pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. He admitted to shooting his victim with a 9mm pistol in an attempted murder. Missouri does not have a gay panic defense ban, but Robinson’s guilty plea makes a lengthy jail sentence likely.
He will be sentenced on December 15 and potentially faces life without parole.
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“Violence against others, motivated by hatred of their sexual orientation, is unacceptable,” said U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore of the Western District of Missouri in a statement. “Such callous disregard for the life of a teenage victim, gravely wounded in a failed murder attempt, must be challenged by a commitment to protect the civil rights of all our citizens. When those rights are threatened, the Justice Department will act to hold the violators accountable.”
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division added, “This attempted murder is a reminder that hate crimes against the LGBTQI+ community are real and must be confronted. Violent acts targeting people based on their sexual orientation are heinous crimes that have no place in our country.”
MystiRivers
What a colorful story.
Neoprene
Bada BOOM!
jt1990
MystiRivers no kidding! Just the title was enough to help me correctly guess the color of the perpetrator. The rest was a dead giveaway.
Bosch
Racism! So retro. Talking to Americans is like time travel.
SUPREME
jt, how long did it take you to correctly guess the color of the July 4th shooter in Highland Park, ill? or did you think he was black as well? bigot piece of trash!!!!!!!
MISTERJETT
yeah, and gay people molest little children, right?
Cato
Calling it “gay panic” would be quite a stretch after texting his girlfriend and walking to a park. Definitely premeditated.
Chrisk
If this isn’t first degree attempted murder then I don’t know what is. He literally lured him into the bathroom with a promise of sex and then attempted to kill him and covered it up.
Throw the effing book at him. This sociopath will kill again no doubt.
BigE
Where’s the charge for sex trafficking a minor? They only use just your initials in court if you’re a minor.
jt1990
Good point! The ‘teen’ could be 18 or 19, or a minor. If the victim is white, I can understand why the dark skinned sociopath wasn’t charged further. Hopefully the teenager absorbed not only the 8 or so bullets, but also a valuable lesson in race realism. Many folks don’t survive these kinds of mistakes!
Bosch
“Race realism”. JT, are you aware of how many mass shootings you have in your country every week? Guess what percentage of those murderers are white.
Kangol2
JT is an outright White supremacist as his garbage response reveals. He’s also the same nutcase who claimed those right-wing anti-gay White men in Idaho who were planning to attack the LGBTQ Pride Event there were not really right-wingers. That’s some racist insanity or “race realism” for you!
Kangol2
So he agreed to have sex with a minor (crime 1), then texted his girlfriend he might kill someone (crime 2), then accompanied the minor to a spot where he then tried to kill (crime 3), plus more I’m sure. And then he admitted it on Facebook, of course! Thankfully he’ll be rotting in prison for some time to come, but I’m surprised he was only charged on the one violation, and not more felony counts, because premeditated and attempted murder are serious class felonies. I hope the teenager fully recovers, and takes a different route in the future to find potential sex partners.
Donston
This is why unless a guy has made it clear that he’s interested or (frankly) it’s very obvious that he’s queer, I always avoided hitting on randoms. While one of my niece’s friends recently got her car shot up for stupidly exposing her DL cheating ex online. You never know what male insecurities, toxic masculinity, gay panic, gay resentments, desperation to appear “straight”, psychological traumas, etc. will lead some guys to do. And hooking up with randoms in general is always a big risk. But he was teenager. It’s apparent that he didn’t follow that man. It was premeditated, so offended that a guy would unabashedly hit on him that he had to kill him.
ohiogreg
He should have been charged for soliciting for sex too.
bachy
Imagine if every time a straight man made a pass at a straight woman who wasn’t interested, she felt justified to shoot him 8 times with a 9mm pistol.
Instead of just saying “no thanks, not interested.”
Of course, if the NRA has its way, such incidents will become even more commonplace.
monty clift
I’m glad the kid survived. That SOB should be killed.
CityguyUSA
@Bosch and so you stereotype all Americans as racist?