A New Jersey husband has been sentenced to three years behind bars after fatally punching a man who had been harassing his family with racial slurs for months.
41-year-old Anthony Collins plead guilty to manslaughter over an assault that took place early September 2023. Collins and his wife were leaving a store when 70-year-old Robert May purposely ran his bike into Collins’ wife.
After running into Collin’s wife, May turned to Collin’s and called him a racial slur which caused Collins to punch May.
The punch caused him to fall to the ground where he lay unresponsive with blood coming from his head and mouth. He was treated at the scene but refused additional medical assistance.
According to reports, police were told that he was acting erratic after the fall so he was taken to a hospital where he died. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be blunt-force trauma, and the manner of death was homicide.
Collins argued that his actions were justified self-defense after having to deal with May’s constant racist attacks. However, the judge argued that Collins was much younger and stronger than May, and that Collins should’ve called the police instead. Collins is required to serve almost 31 months of the sentence before he is eligible for parole.
