In Yazoo County, Mississippi, a jury recently found a father-son duo guilty of several offenses, including felony malicious mischief with a hate crime enhancement in connection with a September 2020 incident in which Wade Twiner and his son Lane Twiner chased down and shot at two Black teenagers riding ATVs near the men’s property.
On Wednesday, Aug. 25, following a three-day trial, a jury found Wade and Lane guilty of two counts of simple assault and felony malicious mischief, local station WLBT reported. In addition, the men who respectively were 48 and 22 years old at the time of their crimes, were found guilty of a hate crime enhancement, which has the potential to double their sentences to 20 years apiece.
Authorities say Wade and Lane admitted to shooting at the teens on Sunday, Sept. 27, when Yazoo County deputies responding to a call about the pursuit stopped the ATVs and the Twiners’ pickup truck. The men reportedly told authorities they were frustrated with joyriders operating their four-wheelers on the dirt road near their property; they owned land on both sides of the dirt path. However, the boys, who are identified as Steven Gibbs and Deveon Luckett, maintained that they were not trespassing on private land.
Mississippi, like many other states, bans ATV riding on public roads. However, the law is seldom enforced. As a result, the area where the two teens were chased is a familiar hot spot for people to use for ATVs and even horses and buggies.
Initially the two men accused the boys of riding erratically and claimed they were just trying to stop them and figure out who they were. But law enforcement said instead the pair chased the teens in their pickup truck, fired several gunshots at them, and later attempted to run them off the road. At one point, they even rammed their vehicle into the back of one teen’s ATV. Both teens survived the ordeal unharmed.
The Twiners’ case echoed that of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a white father-son duo in February 2020 after he was spotted jogging through their Brunswick, Georgia, neighborhood.
On March 8 the Twiners were indicted by a grand jury on multiple counts, including the hate crime charge, stemming from the incident.
“Not only did they shoot at him, they also ran into the back of his four-wheeler, and that could also have been murder right then and there,” the mother of the victims told WLBT shortly after the incident.
Wade and Lane are scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, Aug. 27.
