A man involved in the burning down of the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct during the riots that followed the death of George Floyd last summer was sentenced to prison this week and ordered to pay $12 million in restitution.
Bryce Michael Williams, 27, was sentenced to 27 months in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages for destroying government property, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota.
“All four defendants charged in federal court have now been sentenced for their individual roles in the burning and near-total destruction of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building,” acting U.S. Attorney Anders Folk said in a statement. “Mr. Williams and his co-defendants have been held accountable for their dangerous and destructive actions. I thank our federal, state, and local partners who pursued justice in these cases.”
During the riot on May 28, 2020, Williams and several other co-conspirators breached the fence outside the 3rd Precinct building while other demonstrators chanted, “Burn it down! Burn it down!”
Williams was seen in a video that he posted on TikTok carrying a Molotov cocktail that was lit and carried into the building by co-conspirator Davon De-Andre Turner.
After a blaze in the building erupted, Williams threw a box on the fire, according to the Minnesota Star-Tribune.
In November, Williams pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit arson.
At his sentencing on Monday, Judge Patrick Schiltz said he would not grant the extensive prison sentence prosecutors sought because Williams is “a good person who made a terrible mistake.”
Prosecutors, however, argued Williams was “not a follower” during the violence that ensued, but a leader.
Williams’ three fellow conspirators have all been charged as well.
Turner was sentenced to three years in prison, Dylan Shakespeare Robinson was sentenced to four years behind bars, and Branden Michael Wolfe will serve time for three to five months.
All four men have been ordered to pay $12 million each.
