YORK, Penn. (AP) -- Two black men convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting of a white police officer during race riots in 1969 in this small central Pennsylvania city were sentenced to prison Monday.
York County President Judge John H. Chronister sentenced Stephen Freeland to a term of nine to 19 years, and co-defendant Leon Wright to 4 1/2 to 10 years, ending the second of two murder trials stemming from race riots 34 years ago that left two dead and dozens injured.
The men had faced up to 10 to 20 years in the death of Patrolman Henry Schaad, and received the exact same sentences handed out to two white men convicted in the first trial.
In that trial six months ago, Robert Messersmith was given nine to 19 years and Gregory Neff to 4 1/2 to 10 years in the slaying of Lillie Belle Allen, a 27-year-old black woman from South Carolina who was the other person killed during the race riots.
The city’s former mayor was acquitted of murder in Allen’s death, while seven other white men pleaded guilty or no contest to lesser charges.
Monday, however, wasn’t necessarily the end of the prosecution in the case; Prosecutor William Graff said he will charge Wright’s brother, Michael, who surprised everybody when he testified in the trial that both he and the defendants had fired at the armored truck.
Prosecutors would not say what charges they plan to file. A telephone number for Wright, 53, of Baltimore, could be confirmed, and Graff said Wright does not have an attorney.
Schaad, 22, was mortally wounded by gunfire July 18, 1969, the second day of rioting, when he and two other officers rode in an armored police truck through a black neighborhood on their way to check on a wounded motorcyclist. Schaad died two weeks later and remains the only York officer killed in the line of duty.
Freeland, 51, was accused of firing the fatal shot and Wright, 54, was accused of being among a group of black men who fired at the truck.
Chronister told those gathered in the small, crowded courtroom that the sentences handed down in the first trial were instructive in this case, and that he felt it was prudent to punish Freeland more severely because of evidence that he possessed a high-powered rifle capable of piercing the armored truck.
Schaad’s family said the convictions brought no closure, and that the family instead wanted justice. When Henry’s older brother, Barry, asked Chronister to impose maximum sentences, he sobbed as he told the judge how the family had suffered without Henry.
Afterward, family members stifled disappointment.
``We were prepared to accept this,’' Barry Schaad told reporters on the courthouse steps, ``and we’re going to accept this.’'
Attorneys for Freeland and Wright said they would appeal.
Wright’s attorney, William Fulton, said his client was prosecuted because he would not testify against Freeland. Wright did not address the judge; as sheriff’s deputies cuffed him in the courtroom, he turned to supporters in the gallery and said, ``Bye.’'
Freeland, who has spent most of his life in prison and currently is serving an unrelated drug sentence, maintained his innocence.
Racism reigns in York, he told the judge, and a black man cannot receive a fair trial.
``I’ve been convicted illegally from every standpoint that can be imagined,’' he said.
Relatives have stood by Freeland throughout. When Chronister noted that Freeland would be near the end of his life when he is released, Freeland’s nephew William Scott became upset and left the courtroom.
Graff insisted the pair had received a fair trial.
``Nobody set them up,’' he told reporters. ``They committed the crime. They got what they deserved.’'
Three days after Schaad was shot, Allen was gunned down while she and her family were trying to drive through a predominantly white neighborhood.
Hundreds of state troopers and National Guardsmen were finally called in to quell the riots, which were touched off by simmering violence between white and black youths and which left entire blocks in this struggling manufacturing city charred.
A state police investigation and a federal civil rights probe both ended without charges decades ago. Both cases remained dormant for years before prosecutors, saying they had new information, reopened them in 1999. The first arrests were made in 2001.