The United States Department of Justice shared that a man from Mississippi will spend 3 ½ years in prison after he burned a cross in his front yard in an attempt to intimidate a Black family that lived near him.
Axel Cox, 24, received his 42-month sentence in connection to the cross burning last week. The incident took place in December 2020 and was a violation of the Fair Housing Act, a press release from the DOJ said.
During his trial, Cox “admitted that he lit the cross on fire because the victims were Black and that he intended to scare them into moving out of the neighborhood.”
The Justice Department said that Cox did what he did because he had gotten into a dispute with the victims.
“Cox wedged two pieces of wood together to form a cross, placed it in clear view of the victims’ residence, doused it in oil and set it alight,” the release said. “During this incident, Cox yelled threats and racial slurs toward the occupants of the house.”
Eventually Cox was tried for the crime, which led to a federal grand jury indicting him in September 2022 for interfering with the victims’ housing rights and for using fire to commit a federal felony.
Following his prison term, Cox will be under supervised release for three years, the DOJ shared. Along with the sentence, he will have to pay $7,810 in restitution.
“While one might think cross-burnings and white supremacist threats and violence are things of the past, the unfortunate reality is that these incidents continue today,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said.
Clarke further comments on Cox’s actions, calling them an “abhorrent act that used a traditional symbol of hatred and violence to stoke fear and drive a Black family out of their home.”
“This sentence demonstrates the importance of holding people accountable for threatening the safety and security of Black people in their homes because of the color of their skin or where they are from,” Clarke said.
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