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Quincy resident who used his car to twice ram a Vietnamese man and push him into a ditch while yelling at him to go back to China only gets 18 months because he's old and remorseful

A federal judge today sentenced John Sullivan, 78, to 18 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to attacking a man of Vietnamese origin he didn't know with both his mouth and his car, screaming at both the man and his family he would kill them all and that they should go back to China before hitting the accelerator and ramming the man twice outside a Quincy post office. Or as prosecutors put it:

Sullivan started driving and hit G.N. [the victim], forcing G.N. onto the hood of Sullivan's car. Sullivan drove about 200 feet down the street with G.N. on the hood of his car, keeping pace with traffic. G.N. was holding on to the hood and windshield wipers while screaming for help. Sullivan then slammed on his breaks, stopping abruptly, and G.N. fell off the hood. G.N. slapped the hood of Sullivan's vehicle in apparent anger while trying to regain his balance. Sullivan admitted that he then accelerated and drove his vehicle into G.N. a second time, causing him to fall face first into a 10-foot-deep construction ditch. A construction worker on the scene heard Sullivan say, "go back to China!" as Sullivan slammed his car door shut. Sullivan drove away and was arrested two miles from where he had hit G.N. the second time.

The attack began as the victim's brother-in-law was waiting by his car for the victim, his wife - the victim's sister - and their three children, all under 12, to come out of the post office on Dec. 2, 2022. Sullivan pulled his car behind, honked at the brother-in-law, cursed him, and yelled at him to "Go back to China!" a scream he repeated when G.N. and the other family members came out of the post office, after which he then pointed his finger at each one of them and vowed to kill them - except for the youngest child, whom he said he would let live, according to a sentencing recommendation by prosecutors. Sullivan did not know any of them.

Sullivan pleaded guilty April 3 to a charge of violating the federal hate-crimes act by willfully causing bodily injury to a victim through the use of a dangerous weapon because of his actual and perceived race and national origin.

Prosecutors recommended that US District Court Judge Denise Casper sentence Sullivan to 24 months - lower than the 37-46 months federal sentencing guidelines called for based on the nature of the crime. Prosecutors explained:

If the defendant were not a senior citizen and did not suffer from physical infirmities, the government would be recommending a sentence within the relevant guidelines.

Sullivan's lawyers, though, called for a sentence with no prison time at all, but instead just six months of home confinement:

There are bad people who do bad things and good people that do a bad thing. Jack Sullivan is a good person who made a bad decision on the date of this offense.

Why, they wrote, here is a man who once helped a complete stranger change a tire. A loyal Elk, he was devoted to charity work, such as distributing Thanksgiving turkeys to the needy. Even as a lad, the fifth of fifteen brothers, he helped rear his siblings. And:

Jack was a hard worker from a young age. He worked shining shoes, shoveling snow and collecting metal to obtain money at a young age

Later, with three children of their own, he proved a devoted father, who would attend their birthdays, spots matches and graduations, and later helped his son with countless hours doing home improvements on his house.

Jack’s life is best characterized by dedication to his family and friends, kindness and a pattern of charity.

And in 78 years, he had never been convicted of anything, they continued. And now, in his golden years, he has had six surgeries since 2014 and is currently in remission from colon cancer and suffering from wet macular degeneration, an eye problem that could cause him to go blind.

Mr. Sullivan takes full responsibility for his conduct in this case. He is embarrassed by his conduct and wears the shame associated with his conduct. Mr. Sullivan recognizes there is no place in this world for any type of hate-based conduct, especially when the conduct occurs based on a person’s perceived ethnicity. Though his conduct on the date of this offense based on the race and national origin of the victim, there is nothing in his background suggesting this is a pattern of conduct. Instead, a fair read of his conduct is that it was an isolated incident, aberrant behavior. ...

A sentence of 6-months of home confinement is 'sufficient, but not greater than necessary' to recognize the seriousness of the offense. Further, a sentence of 6 months home confinement will serve to punish Mr. Sullivan for his conduct. Given his advanced age and his medical issues, the sentence promotes respect for the law and is a just punishment for the crimes committed in this case.

Casper reserved judgment for later on how much, if anything, Sullivan should pay the victim in restitution.

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Comments

In this story is well deserved.

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Voting closed 87

Well, where the (expletive) are they? Go check on this old racist before he actually hurts (EDIT: kills) somebody. And, for Chrissakes, take his keys.

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Voting closed 78

Go check on this old racist before he actually kills somebody! Take his keys away, have him tried for and charged with attempted murder in a court of law, and put him behind bars, where he belongs!

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Voting closed 70

Running a man down twice is attempted murder regardless of your age or physical condition! Was the judge one of his 15 brothers children? A travesty of justice is what this is.

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Voting closed 26

but I have to believe that this is not the first time in his long life he's expressed violent racism, and I would not at all be surprised if at least one of his kids or others in his family didn't turn out very similar, or are at least sympathetic.

you don't just trip and oops! become a racist attempted murderer for a second.

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Voting closed 61

...he actually already hurt someone.

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Voting closed 35

Edited.

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Voting closed 21

Kill lots of children. But he profits from it and they aren't in his backyard.

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Voting closed 15

And off-topic

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Voting closed 10

The "hate crime" aspect suffers from cause and effect. It sounds like the old guy got riled up about the victim blocking the road. Basically road rage. The racial talk resulted from the rage, not the other way around.

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Voting closed 26

The racist talk resulted from what is in the mans head and heart. It's not someone else's fault that he got angry enough that he could not contain his inner racist. You can get big mad and express frustration or even anger without being a blatant racist, or at least most of us can.

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Voting closed 113

It wouldn't be OK for him to have gotten angry at a white man who dared to wait for someone outside the post office, and then assault him and threaten to kill him and his family, while screaming at him to "go to Hell."

Most people can go through their entire lives without getting so angry at a stranger who hasn't harmed or threatened them that they use their car to try to kill that person. Most drivers, even if they get angry over relative trivia, will stay in their cars and use obscenities, call the other drivers things like "you idiot," and demand that they get off the road.

It's not an accident that the white "road rager" attacked someone he thought was Chinese, not a fellow white man. It's not an accident that he threatened to kill four other people, two of them children, for daring to be on the sidewalk while he was angry at their companion. Whatever else we know about the incident, we know that those under-12 children weren't behind the wheel of a car.

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Voting closed 72

Lots of parking around the Quincy Post Office locations and no need to block the travel lanes. Not to imply that if he had been blocking the road, that would have justified Sullivan's behavior.

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Voting closed 32

Jack Sullivan is a good person

I don't believe that.

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Voting closed 133

Asian members of the Elks to speak on his behalf.

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Voting closed 32

Evidently a number of other people do.

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Voting closed 14

Anyone who reads this account (that has multiple witnesses to support it) and thinks he's a "good person" is an idiot.

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Voting closed 44

…. because they are the same as he.

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Voting closed 35

6 months of home confinement would have been... probably not a change from his usual activities.

this is ridiculous. here's exactly the type to bellow about "personal responsibility" whining about having to take any responsibility.

who cares if he helped his own white family members, did exactly the things a minimally responsible parent should be doing anyway (not exemplary!) and donated a dead bird a few times? the victims surely help others and are generous with their community and families, does that not warrant justice for them? what about the children who had to witness this and will take this with them for the rest of their lives?

John Sullivan of Quincy doesn't care about them.
John Sullivan of Quincy deserves much much worse punishment, and the judge and prosecutors in this case should be ashamed.

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Voting closed 81

donated a dead bird a few times

...a dead bird that was paid for by someone else/a charity. Those turkeys didn't come out of his pocket, you can bet.

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Voting closed 27

To a blind kid?

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Voting closed 18

n/t

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Voting closed 15

I took care of it

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Voting closed 18

Your car is a fully acceptable weapon to use however you like. No consequences. You’ll still get to be called a good person.

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Voting closed 65

A loyal Elk,

Oh well, in that case . . .

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Voting closed 46

So these were federal charges tried in a federal court. I'm not a lawyer, but does that mean he can still be charged by the state, say with attempted murder?

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Voting closed 40

A hate crime of passion?

I’ll be trite and say no one should commit hatecrimes, or act violently- period.

Here’s the big but, people use words to wound.

One shouldn’t be hung in a country with a First Amendment. It’s a slippery slope.

Yeah, there’s the Elk’s club, which puts a chink in his armour, and the open question: would he have done that to a person of different race?

But, the bar for a hatecrime should be high.

10:07, 09052024, I’m not saying this isn’t a hatecrime, just to define it as that requires a pattern and background, history and remorse. People under the monkey brain of passion can say the most acute and potently hurtful things. Plus, there are cases where the circumstances make for patently evident hatecrimes and hatespeech such as words deeply rooted in antisemitism, such as “Zionist” is used as an epithet. The USA is an incredibly, wonderfully heterogeneous society (especially compared to monoculture societies where racism is so culturally engrained and enforced that it’s not even recognized) with stark examples of racism, but we’re working it out to form a more perfect union. It is when racism is exposed that it is exorcised and healing begins, but when it is driven underground by “language police” we risk balkanizing and dividing.

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Voting closed 20

The first amendment is not relevant here since it is concerned with government limits on speech. He is not prohibited from saying what he said. He is facing the consequences for this actions, and what he said is evidence of motive.

The motive? Since at least 2014, when those surgeries started, he's been sitting in front of Fox and then eventually NewsMax nodding along like a good little cult follower as he's told that all of the problems in the country are because of the illegals, that they want to make whites a minority, that the caravan filled with cartel members is coming etc...

I also think he's a pretty typical 80 year old MAGA nut - the elite of the (perceived) left behind.

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Voting closed 46

seems like a pretty friggin' obvious hate crime to me.

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Voting closed 69

...you should have a better understanding of the concept of "hate crime".

which puts a chink in his armour

Is this an attempt to be cute?

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Voting closed 39

No. I don’t know that much about the Elks, but two commenters implied they’re a racist organization and that the perp’s association with them colors his motive with racial animus.

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Voting closed 12

So you were unaware that a certain word is a slur for people of Chinese ancestry.

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Voting closed 14

TBF they seem clueless about a lot of things.

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Voting closed 14

… and May I Just Prompt this Conversation have yet to be seen together.
Magoo did announce it’s leave of absence.
I’ll take this over some of the others though.

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Voting closed 8

so it really doesn't seem obviously intentional to me.

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Voting closed 12

I don't see anybody implying that the Elks are a racist org. The only prior comments I can find about the Elks are:

A member of the Elks who helped pass out some turkeys does not a saint make.

and

A loyal Elk,

Oh well, in that case . . .

Both of which are clearly just making the point that it's not exculpatory.

and

He should have found some Asian members of the Elks to speak on his behalf.

Which could be construed as implying the Elks has no Asian members, I suppose, but that takes A LOT of assumptions... I think you may be bringing your own priors to this one.

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Voting closed 7

… what puts an end to hate crimes.

This has nothing to do with language police, division or isolation.

Making excuses for racist and violent behavior condones it.

It comes back to people feeling guilty because maybe it could be them that loses it someday and they hear a racist slur in their head or coming out of their mouth. Maybe they’ve relished the thought of using the power of violence. They get scared they could fail next.

Just like how we excuse murder by “car accident”.

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Voting closed 38

It comes back to people feeling guilty because maybe it could be them that loses it someday and they hear a racist slur in their head or coming out of their mouth. Maybe they’ve relished the thought of using the power of violence. They get scared they could fail next.

Nailed it.

When people express confusion or discomfort at the concept of hate crimes, I think they must either be exceptionally privileged and sheltered, or they're the proverbial hit dogs hollering.

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Voting closed 30

That last paragraph is so clearly written by AI... you should proofread and edit next time, or at least remove the timestamp and query id.

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Voting closed 8

"Crime of Passion" is the go-to get out of jail free card for representatives of patriarchal power to escape consequences for violent outbursts and lack of self control.

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Voting closed 7

marky mark wahlberg

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Voting closed 46

The actor who used a two by four to beat an elderly Asian man?

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Voting closed 40

… has incited riots in the past.

That “good man” and his prosecutor pals may need to look over their shoulders.

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Voting closed 31

Mark Wahlberg has really let himself go.

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Voting closed 29

I'd be curious if they've done medical testing for the beginnings of dementia. In addition to the hours likely spent in front of FOX TV, some of his actions sound like there is something else going on. And the car keys need to be taken away no matter what.

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Voting closed 21

… suggesting a mental deficiency is responsible.
Not all elderly are demented, contrary to what many assume.
Keys need to go away forever because of his use of his car as a deadly weapon. Not because, well you know old folks drive so slow and with care and that irks me.

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Voting closed 20

With my father, I was simply positing the idea.

I'm being generous and taking the witnesses at face value: that this was "not him". In the instance of a marked change in personality, the first thing staff at assisted living homes do is send a resident to the hospital for a geriatric psych check. This is simply my (very recent) personal experience.

It's not an out, just a question if this was done. This guy could well be a racist ass. Or he's declining mentally. If it's not checked, no one will know.

And his keys need to be taken away, not for driving slow and "with care", but as you said, for violence.

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Voting closed 20

… having to defend from ignorant people who chose to talk over them to me, whose basic rights they try to deny, who even accost them physically because their movements are necessarily slow and measured.
This person chose to give up driving on their own
Out of character behavior in their case turned out to be reversible hyponeutremia and dehydration rather than the onset of Alzheimer’s as everyone with no medical education was claiming.
Even as this person’s mental abilities do now appear begin to decline and are better some days and other not, they still know when they are being bullshitted, condescended to and conned. They are still who they have always been and would never run over anyone intentionally and call them racist names. If that stage ever comes, there will have been plenty of already acknowledged forewarnings.
But strangers and some acquaintances seem to know better. Fortunately medical professionals and friends with experience are better trained and do their best to respect the dignity of older aging people.

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Voting closed 20

Same with my father. However, with his hospitalization, the shift nurses told us different stories than the doctors. He has *this* infection. No he doesn't. He's got that eye issue. No he doesn't. Then they wanted to send him back to his assisted living without going to rehab to get some basics back under control. We were always advocating for him.

We made sure he was part of every single decision made. Dementia is not fun, but there is still a valuable human being there.

I wish you luck with your loved one.

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Voting closed 13

You as well! Similar experiences with nurses who often know an individual more than the docs and who are less concerned with insurance demands than patient needs.

Conversation patterns change but are sometimes surprisingly more fulfilling. The companionship too. At this stage anyway.

Best wishes!

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Voting closed 7

I'm being generous and taking the witnesses at face value: that this was "not him".

Hold on. You're talking about character "witnesses", i.e., people who did not witness the crime, but who know the perpetrator. Bearing in mind that according to actual witnesses, this was not a simple outburst but a prolonged series of deliberately harmful actions, I don't think character witnesses should swing a lot of weight here, except as possible indicators of whether he is likely to re-offend -- and when the motivator seems to be racism, a bunch of friends-and-family from the perpetrator's same demographic are less likely to have seen that side of him. Remember that the subject here is the disproportionately light sentence for a crime, and that his attorney had every opportunity to present a diminished mental state as a defense. Instead he spoke of "physical infirmities"[emphasis mine] and said:

Mr. Sullivan takes full responsibility for his conduct in this case. He is embarrassed by his conduct and wears the shame associated with his conduct.

So, either a psych evaluation was done and found nothing, or a psych evaluation was done and found something (but for whatever reason the attorney did not feel it would help the case), or there was no psych evaluation, possibly because the perpetrator refused to cooperate. It might be a good idea to have one, I agree, but I can imagine reasons why the attorney would not want that information to come out.

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Voting closed 16

that he received an incredibly light sentence and ask the question of a psych eval.

I was trying to look at this guy's purported change in character holistically.

Lastly, I sincerely hope G.N. recovers and his sister, brother in law, and their kids get any help they need for going through this. That had to be terrifying.

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Voting closed 9

Dementia can do weird shit to people.

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Voting closed 10

.. out of character.
A member of the Elks who helped pass out some turkeys does not a saint make.

If there was a medical explanation and defense you can be sure that would have been exploited.
Was anything mentioned? If so, I missed it.
He was found guilty and should have been sentenced like anyone else would have been. Justice has not been served and protection of the public ignored.

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Voting closed 21

Well said, Lee

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Voting closed 15

This miscarriage of justice particularly bothers me for many reasons. Judge Casper, the little I follow her, seemed to have a good head on her shoulders last time I was in her courtroom.

This sort of verdict would make me want to picket outside, had I been there. It seems it was unexpected.

We still prosecute Nazi war criminals. This minor local dickhead, is not on their level because he was not part of a murderous organization, but he is just as guilty as any of them of attempted murder.
Or in the Nazi’s cases, murder as well.

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Voting closed 10

Baseball, football, Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Married with Children, 24...

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Voting closed 18

Amazing as it is... Fox Television is not Fox News.

Remember Fox News and Fox Television are entities under News Corp.

With other networks. their news division is subbed under the Television parent. So NBC News is an entity under "The National Broadcasting Company" aka NBC.. not to be confused with the parent of "The National Broadcasting Company"... NBC Universal.

Its because of this arrangement that Fox Television can air such liberal programming, and Fox News can be a vapid dump of conservative nonsense.

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Voting closed 16

nō longər yoozzes ħə fox logo for lokul nooz kuvvrej beekuz ħay wər loozzing ratings frum ħə deepest bloo state (eventhō ħair prime-time skyooz hevvillee left leening).

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Voting closed 10