PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A former Clackamas County surveyor has been sentenced to 90 days in jail with five years supervised probation, after he pled guilty to defacing a Black man’s memorial with hate symbols.
Prior to sentencing, 21-year-old Collin Michael Williams pleaded guilty to a second-degree bias crime, second-degree and third-degree criminal mischief, and abuse of a memorial to the dead.
Williams was arrested in August of 2021 for spray-painting a Nazi swastika at the site of a public memorial for Jermelle Madison Jr., a Black man who attempted suicide while in custody at the Clackamas County Jail.
He died from his injuries in a hospital days later.
According to Oregon City Police, Williams filmed himself in the act as he defaced the memorial and smashed candles and framed photos, only to later upload footage of the crime to social media under a pseudonym.
Under Oregon law, Williams could have faced a maximum sentence of up to three years in jail and $20,000 in fines for the four charges he plead guilty to.
Lynette Madison, the grandmother of Jermelle Madison, told KOIN 6 News she was disappointed to hear that Williams had not received more jail time.
She said she hopes Williams will use his remaining time behind bars to reflect and “think about what he did.”