WASHINGTON (AP) — A 19-year-old man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for trying to carjack a car occupied by two U.S. Marshals Service deputies who were members of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s security detail.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, in handing down the sentence Thursday, also ordered Kentrell Flowers to have five years of supervised release after his prison term.
Flowers pleaded guilty in February to using a firearm during a crime of violence.
Around 1 a.m. on July 5, 2024, two deputies dressed in Marshals Service shirts were on duty in an unmarked government car in Washington when Flowers exited a minivan, approached the vehicle and pointed a loaded gun at one of the deputies through a window. The deputy fired four shots at Flowers, hitting him in the mouth.
The deputy administered first aid to Flowers while two other unknown suspects fled — one in the minivan and the other on foot. Flowers, then 18, was treated at a hospital for roughly a week after the shooting.
Sotomayor was not named in court documents. The Marshals Service has said the deputies were part of the detail protecting Supreme Court justices. The deputies were stationed near Sotomayor’s home, but there was no indication she was targeted.
Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year prison sentence for Flowers.
“Simply put, the defendant’s actions were chilling and most disturbing and a total disregard for (the deputy) or this community,” they wrote.
Defense attorney Maria Jacob asked for a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in prison for Flowers, who didn't have a criminal record before the shooting. Jacob said Flowers "made the biggest mistake of his life" that night.
"Given how many shots were fired in his direction, it is unbelievable that only one bullet struck him," Jacob wrote.
FILE - The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - U.S. Marshals patrol outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in Chevy Chase, Md., June 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.
The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.
Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.
“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.
Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.
Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.
She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.
The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.
The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.
Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.
“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”
Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.
The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.
That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.
Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.
For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.
Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.
"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”
An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
