Hamlin white supremacist prosecutors say wanted to 'shoot and kill' Black people to be sentenced

By Edward Era Barbacena

Federal prosecutors are asking for the maximum sentence for a Hamlin man with a history of racist crimes who has admitted to illegally having firearms.

Stephen Pattison is scheduled to be sentenced Monday, May 23, by U.S. District Judge David Larimer, and federal prosecutors have asked for the maximum sentence of 10 years.

In court papers, federal prosecutors portray Pattison as "a convicted violent felon and white supremacist who illegally possessed two firearms and ammunition after stating his intention to shoot and kill (Black Lives Matter) protesters and African-Americans at a 'genocidal rate.' "

Pattison's sentencing will come just over a week after the mass fatal shooting of 10 Black people in a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, a crime in which the accused touted white supremacist beliefs and made clear in online proclamations that he was specifically targeting Black people.

Federal prosecutors filed papers seeking the maximum sentence for Pattison months before the Buffalo killings.

It's likely that Pattison's defense lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Steven Slawinski, will maintain that the two men — Pattison and the suspected Buffalo killer — are very different, as are the criminal cases.

Slawinski has argued in court papers that there is no evidence that Pattison intended to use the guns for violence, but instead feared that he and others could be endangered by protesters with Black Lives Matter, or BLM.

Could not legally own guns

Enraged by the protests in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man asphyxiated by a police officer in Minneapolis, Pattison made numerous social media postings with threats against Black Lives Matter and Antifa, the latter which began as an anti-fascist movement but has no centralized organization.

"In the months preceding his acquisition of the firearms and ammunition, the defendant expressed his rage about racial minorities and BLM/ANTIFA (and) stated that he was ready for a Racial Holy War," prosecutor Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Harvey wrote in court papers.

A convicted felon, Pattison could not own guns. He was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in October 2020 on an outstanding warrant from Missouri, where he absconded from parole after conviction of a domestic violence crime. 

"In the months preceding his acquisition of the firearms and ammunition, the defendant expressed his rage about racial minorities and BLM/ANTIFA (and) stated that he was ready for a Racial Holy War," prosecutor Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Harvey wrote in court papers.

A convicted felon, Pattison could not own guns. He was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in October 2020 on an outstanding warrant from Missouri, where he absconded from parole after conviction of a domestic violence crime. 

In that 2016 crime in Missouri, Pattison "struck his girlfriend in the legs, grabbed her by the neck with both arms and choked her so hard she was unable to breathe, punched her in the back of the head, threatened to drown and smother her to death, and threatened to have his cousin 'shoot [her] in the face,' " court records say.

After his arrest as a parole absconder, deputies with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office searched Pattison's Hamlin residence and found a shotgun, rifle, and ammunition.

According to federal prosecutors, Pattison's racist animus has also been evident in other misdemeanor crimes. In 2009, he was convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime in Macedon in which he "called the victim a “n***; and broke the victim’s patio furniture and threw it at the victim’s residence."

Violent and racist threats

In East Rochester in 2013 he and another individual walked down a street yelling "white supremacy" and he ripped down a woman's Mexican flag from her porch, pushed her face and called her an ethic slur. In 2018 in Tonawanda, Erie County he yelled racist epithets in a pub, was asked to leave, shattered the mirror of a truck in the parking lot, and began waving a hunting knife at an individual, shouting, “I will kill everyone in this house and I will kill myself before going back to prison.”

With the firearms crime, prosecutors say, Pattison made telephone calls from the jail in which he tried to get others to say the guns were theirs.

Donald O'Shier, a local man, has pleaded guilty to giving Pattison the shotgun and ammunition while knowing Pattison was a felon. O'Shier knew that Pattison also said he planned to shoot BLM or Antifa members "if they came to his neighborhood," according to the plea of O'Shier, who has yet to be sentenced.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory for judges, Pattison's sentence would be between 46 to 57 months. With the plea, prosecutors reserved the right to ask for a more punitive sentence, up to the maximum of 10 years.

"Such a sentence would promote respect for the law and deter the defendant, and others in this District and elsewhere in the United States, from illegally possessing firearms and ammunition, and threatening racial violence," Assistant U.S. Attorney Harvey wrote in court papers.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Slawinski has countered that Pattison's words may be reprehensible, but he did not show signs of using the guns for violence. 

"In spite of the language in his messages, the government concedes that there is no evidence that Pattison committed any violent act here," Slawinski wrote.