Army drill sergeant Jonathan Pentland was convicted of third-degree assault and battery months after a viral video showed him shoving and threatening Deandre Williams.
Judge Diedra Wilson Hightower ruled Pentland must serve 30 days in jail or pay a $1,087 fine, reported The Post and Courier. The sentence came after a two-day bench trial that included testimony from more than a dozen witnesses.
The incident occurred in April on the sidewalk of a neighborhood in Columbia, South Carolina. Video footage of the incident showed Pentland screaming in Williams’ face and demanding the 22-year-old leave the community. Pentland is a white man and Williams is Black.
I went for a walk yesterday evening and I encountered a young man (Deandre)in distress. I decided to record the incident in order to protect this black man from possibly becoming a statistic pic.twitter.com/fdgfAmc6zb
— Shadae (@ShadaeMccallum) April 14, 2021
Pentland claimed Williams was “aggressing on the neighborhood” made a couple threats.
“You either walk away or I’m going to carry your ass out of here,” Pentland said.
“I did not do anything,” Williams responded.
“I am about to do something to you. You better start walking,” Pentland added. “You’re in the wrong neighborhood motherf–ker. Get out.”
The video went viral and led to protests outside of Pentland’s home. He was also suspended from the Army, according to Army Times.
During the trial, Williams said he was minding his business when Pentland approached him aggressively.
“I’m walking, and he’s on my shoulder,” Williams recalled. “I wasn’t in a place to try and have a confrontation with anyone.”
Pentland insisted he was defensive because Williams’ behavior made him uncomfortable. Kimberly Hernandez, who lives across the street from Pentland, testified she asked him to intervene after Williams was acting strangely towards her daughter.
Williams’ father, Demetrius, testified his son’s cognitive functioning was impaired because of brain swelling caused by cancer.
“He doesn’t quite understand things as we would,” the elder Williams said.
Despite his strong words in the video, Pentland told the court he did not plan to harm Williams.
“I would never have put my hands on him, except in self-defense. I would never have harmed him,” Pentland said. “Never mean to inflict harm on anybody. All I was trying to do was to keep him focused on me. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight.”
Pentland admitted it looked bad but stood by his actions.
“It’s embarrassing to the community, I’m sorry for the way it escalated, anybody looking back at this, you can watch that video and 100 percent see that it looks worse than it is,” he said from the stand. “I did what I felt I had to do to protect my friends and family.”
Pentland will not face any charges from the military.
