Missouri man sentenced to 21 years in prison for shooting 16-year-old teen 8 times for being gay.
A Missouri man was sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison Thursday for a hate crime after shooting a gay teen in May 2019.
Malachi Robinson, 25, shot the teen, who is referred to as M.S. in court documents, eight times after meeting him at the Kansas City Public Library and luring him into the woods under the guise of looking for a place to engage in a sexual act, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri. On the day Robinson met M.S., who was 16 at the time, he messaged his girlfriend about M.S. and said, “He tryna set me up on sumn now, gonna unfriend him, might shoot this boy if he try some gay shit,” according to court documents.
In the days after the shooting, Robinson told a friend in a message that he had shot someone because “he was being gay af and following me like a mf,” according to court documents. Before his arrest on June 3, 2019, Robinson Googled phrases including “how to get away with murder in real life” and the victim’s name with the word “shot,” according to the documents.
According to the facts of the indictment, following a chance meeting at the Kansas City Public Library on May 29, 2019, Robinson and M.S. talked briefly over Facebook Messenger before meeting outside the library. Surveillance footage of the area showed the youth beginning to walk away, but being followed by Robinson. Robinson catches up to the youth, and the two walk together for a while before stopping near a wooded area.
Prosecutors claimed that Robinson allegedly suggested that the two walk further into the wooded area under the guise of finding a place to engage in a sex act. Around the same time, Robinson wrote separately to his girlfriend that he “might shoot this boy” because of the youth’s sexual orientation.
The pair first met by chance outside the Kansas City Public Library on May 29, 2019, and then continued to communicate online via Facebook. They met again at the library and walked around the Swoop Park area. Surveillance footage from the library showed M.S. walking across the street and away from Robinson before Robinson quickly followed him.
According to court documents, Robinson then suggested the pair go into nearby woods to engage in a sex act. Around this time Robinson texted his girlfriend saying he “might shoot this boy” because he was gay. Once in the woods, M.S. changed his mind and attempted to walk away.
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