White Man Gets Life In Prison For Killing of Black Army 1st Lt. Richard Collins III

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Army 1st Lt. Richard Collins III, left, and Sean Urbanski. Urbanski was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for the murder of Collins in May 2017.

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Prosecutors pursued a hate crimes charge, but the judge threw it out for lack of evidence.

«I just wanted to make sure that it is clear that this was a hate crime, Braveboy told NPR.

«The limitations were in how the judge interpreted the hate crime statute, which was written in a way that would allow for the interpretation that he had, which was hate had to be the sole motive.

Months after Urbanski’s conviction, the Collins family along with Braveboy’s office pushed for the Maryland General Assembly to introduce the 2nd Lieutenant Richard Collins, III’s Law.

It expanded the state’s definition of a hate crime «to include certain actions motivated either in whole or in substantial part by another person’s or group’s race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, disability, or national origin, or because another person or group is homeless, according to the bill summary.

It became law October 1, WTOP reports.

In May 2020, the Department of Defense announce it was posthumously promoting Collins to 1st lieutenant.

«The Army considered the standards and criteria required for an honorary promotion and found that 2LT Collins displayed exemplary conduct in the performance of his duties commensurate with a first lieutenant, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said in a statement.

He added that though Collins’ «life was tragically cut short by a murder he also «exhibited character and exemplary conduct of an officer of a higher rank.