Michigan man sentenced for threatening community with nooses and racist notes
George Floyd’s death in May 2020 led to a summer of worldwide protests calling for justice. In the wake of his murder, Starbucks announced it was providing 250,000 Black Lives Matter T-shirts for its employees to wear. This didn’t sit well with Saginaw, Michigan resident Kenneth Pilon, who was just sentenced to 10 months in prison on hate crime charges.
Pilon was charged in April 2022 with six hate crime counts of interfering with federally protected activities — in this case, protesting. He pleaded guilty to two of them in December 2022. Nearly a year to the day after he was charged, U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington sentenced Pilon to 10 months in federal prison and one year of supervised release.
Throughout June and July 2020, Pilon allegedly called nine Starbucks stores across the state and threatened those wearing the BLM T-shirts. He also expressed his desire to kill Black people. An affidavit obtained by NBC News detailed how Pilon also went into stores in Saginaw and left nooses with notes attached that read, “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy protesting!” One noose was even found in a neighbor’s car after he reportedly saw a woman wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt that her son made her.
“Pilon intimidated and attempted to intimidate citizens from participating lawfully in speech and peaceful assembly opposing the denial of Black people’s right to enjoy police protection and services free from brutality,” the April 2022 criminal complaint read, according to NPR.
The Department of Justice‘s Civil Rights Division took on the case and worked to bring Pilon to justice. For Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the evidence was cut and dry. “The nooses, the threat letters, and the calls to Starbucks were all intended to terrorize the targeted victims solely because of their race,” she said, per NBC.
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