A federal judge sentenced Conrad Alvin Barrett on Friday to 71 months in prison for randomly attacking an elderly black man in Texas, breaking the victim’s jaw with a single punch, in what is dubbed the “knockout game,” the Huffington Post reports.
Barrett, 29, pleaded guilty last June to a federal hate crime charge for assaulting the 79-year-old man in 2013, identified in court by the initials R.C.
CNN reported in 2013 that Barrett made a cellphone video of the attack, in which he says “the plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised.” He then punches his unsuspecting victim, who falls to the ground. Barrett laughs and says “knockout” as he flees.
“The defendant committed this shocking and violent assault against this vulnerable elderly man simply because he was African American,” said Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the Post reports.
Barrett’s attorney told CNN two years ago that his client takes medication for bipolar disorder. During the trial, the defense told the court that Barrett was using prescription drugs and alcohol at the time of the attack, the Post reports.
Investigators discovered other videos on Barrett’s cellphone in which he contemplates attacks while using racial slurs. He reportedly says in one video that black people “haven’t fully experienced the blessing of evolution.” Barrett’s lawyer described his words as “nonsensical racist rants,” the Post reports.
In 2013 authorities investigated a sudden increase of knockout-game incidents in several states. Some of them were suspected hate crimes, such as one in New York City involving a man suspected of targeting Jews.
Read more at the Huffington Post and CNN.