Driver tries to run Black dad off Florida road, says he wants to ‘kill people,’ feds say
After a driver tried forcing a Black father and his family off a Florida road while shouting slurs — in what was described as a racially-motivated attack — he made “violent and disturbing comments” to law enforcement, court documents state.
Following his arrest the night of Aug. 8, 2021, Jordan Patrick Leahy, 29, told an officer “[d]o you know how bad I want to kill people,” sentencing documents show.
When asked about the attack on the family along a road in Seminole, he is accused of saying “I just remember throwing up the Nazi salute and trying to pick a fight with some random-a-- (expletive) colored people, bro, that’s all I remember.”
About one year later, a federal jury in Tampa found Leahy guilty of a hate crime on Aug. 24, McClatchy News previously reported.
In the wake of the jury verdict, Leahy and his defense asked for a prison sentence of four to 10 months, arguing the attack “wasn’t a hate crime” and he only meant to scare the father for “attention,” according to court documents submitted by his attorney.
Now a judge sentenced Leahy to two years in federal prison on Monday, Nov. 7 in connection with the hate crime, the Justice Department announced in a news release.
McClatchy News contacted Leahy’s attorneys for comment on Nov. 8 and was awaiting a response.
“This federal court has sentenced Jordan Leahy to prison for his decision to weaponize his vehicle in a racist attack on (the father’s) family,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.
“All persons should be free to travel on the public roadways without fear of being harmed because of who they are,” Clarke added.
The roadway attack
On Aug. 8, 2021, Leahy drove around “excessively drunk” and previously pleaded guilty in state court to a DUI in connection with the roadway attack, court documents state.
That evening, the father was driving his 4-year-old daughter and girlfriend home from a family dinner in Seminole before encountering Leahy, McClatchy News reported.
As the father drove southward in the left lane on Starkey Road, Leahy “zoomed up” next to them with his car and pretended to shoot at the family using gun hand gestures, according to court documents. He is also accused of shouting racial slurs at the father.
“I’ve never seen that much hate,” the father’s girlfriend told ABC News in an interview. “You just hear (racial slurs) flying at us.”
Then, Leahy swerved into the family’s lane, trying to run their car off the road, before tailgating them as the father tried to drive away, prosecutors say.
Leahy’s “pursuit” of the family went on for roughly a mile and half until he sideswiped their car, causing the cars’ mirrors to collide, according to court documents. Then Leahy sped off down the road.
However, the encounter didn’t end there because the father wanted to take a photo of Leahy’s car in order to report the attack to authorities, court documents state. As a result, the father followed him down Starkey Road until both cars came to a red light.
At the red light, prosecutors say Leahy got out of his car, charged and tried assaulting the father while hurling more racial slurs at him — but the father fought back in self defense.
The incident ended when the father dodged a closed fist from Leahy, and put him in a chokehold until Pinellas County deputies arrived, according to court documents.
Driver’s alleged motives
After the incident, according to court documents, Leahy explained his “remorse” and stated that:
“What I did was wrong. I terrorized a group of people. I had no idea his daughter was in the car. It wasn’t a hate crime. I stand by my innocence. It wasn’t because he was Black or because of a road. I feel bad. I am sorry to the victims, for sure. I was doing it for attention.”
In a sentencing memo, Leahy’s attorney wrote that his family explained Leahy “was not raised in a racist household, and that he frequently associated with Black people and supported Black public figures like football players and President Obama.”
However, when he previously went to prison in connection with stalking an ex-girlfriend, his “outward expressions toward Black people changed” when he saw those in prison “sorting themselves by race,” the memo states.
Ultimately, Leahy’s defense argued the attack on the father and his family had nothing to do with race, but more with Leahy’s history of shocking people “to get attention,” according to the memo.
But prosecutors argued that Leahy has shown “animosity toward Black people for years” and previously expressed violent intentions, including stating his “desire to become a ‘mass murderer’” in their own sentencing memo.
“Just as the jury found and the evidence at trial established, the defendant intentionally selected (the father) because he was Black,” prosecutors wrote.
Leahy’s prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release, according to prosecutors.
Pinellas County is on Florida’s Gulf Coast, just west of Tampa.
This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 2:09 PM with the headline "Driver tries to run Black dad off Florida road, says he wants to ‘kill people,’ feds say."
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