White Couple Sobs While Receiving 35-Year Sentence For Terrorizing Black Family With Confederate Flags & Shotgun

A Douglas County, Georgia couple who pulled up to a black 8-year-old’s birthday party with a Confederate flag, threatened the child’s family with a shotgun, and shouted racial slurs at them has been handed lengthy prison sentences.

Kayla Norton, 25, and Jose Torres, 26, sobbed in court Monday as they received their sentences for their roles in the July 2015 incident, according to the NY Daily News. Norton was sentenced to 15 years, serving six, for terroristic threats and street gang terrorism, while Torres got 20 years, serving 13 of them, for aggravated assault, terroristic threats, and street gang terrorism.

Though the state of Georgia does not have a hate crime statute, as the Daily News pointed out, Superior Court Judge William McClain said he believed the pair’s actions "were motivated by racial hatred."

The couple was part of a group called "Respect the Flag," which had gone on a drunken rampage through Douglas and Paulding counties in late July 2015 — less than a month after white supremacist Dylann Roof shot up a black church in Charleston, North Carolina, in an effort to start a race war.

According to WSB-TV, the group tore through the area in pickup trucks flying Confederate flags on July 28 and 29, yelling at and threatening black motorists and shoppers as they drove by.

At least seven vehicles carrying members of Respect The Flag, including Norton and Torres, pulled up to the birthday party on Melissa Alford’s property. They were armed and threatened to "kill y’all n*****s."

"I’m okay with the flags, I’m okay with riding around with the flags," Alford in an interview with WSB-TV. "I’m not okay with them going around threatening people and using racial slurs. I’m not okay with that."

Hyesha Bryant, another woman who was at the party, said she "never thought this would be something I’d have to endure in 2017."

Bryant later forgave Torres and Norton in court: "I don’t have any hate in my heart," she said. "Life is too short for that."

Norton, who’s the mother of Torres’ three children, said that not refusing to ride with Respect the Flag’s parade that day was "the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life."