KKK member gets more than three years for driving into BLM protesters

A Ku Klux Klan member was sentenced to more than three years in jail on Tuesday after driving into Black Lives Matter protesters in Virginia last summer.

Harry Rogers was sentenced to three years and eight months by Henrico Circuit Judge L.A. Harris Jr. after pleading guilty to five misdemeanors, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. 

Rogers purposely drove his truck through protesters on June 7, with one of them having to get evaluated for injuries after the incident. 

The Henrico County incident took place less than two hours from Charlottesville, where a white supremacist killed a counter-protester with his car during a far-right rally in August 2017.

The misdemeanors to which Rogers pleaded guilty were three counts of assault, a hit-and-run and destruction of property.

Prosecutor Shannon Taylor had asked the judge to give Rogers the maximum penalty of five years in prison, but his attorney said they were only asking for the maximum penalty because of Rogers’s status as a KKK member. 

The judge made clear that he was being punished for his actions and not due to his membership with the KKK, according to the Times Dispatch. 

Black Lives Matter protests erupted all over the country last summer following the killing of George Floyd in May.