Man who torched state police car during Philly’s racial injustice protests sentenced to less than 1 year

The first protester to face sentencing for setting police cars ablaze during the 2020 racial injustice protests in Philadelphia received a 364-day federal prison term on Monday — nearly nine months less than the time he’s already spent behind bars since his 2020 arrest.

Ayoub Tabri, 25, of Arlington, Va., has been incarcerated since he confessed to FBI investigators that he threw a lit road flare into a Pennsylvania State Police car during the demonstrations that erupted in Center City after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

But it remains to be seen whether his sentence was a sign of a softening stance toward those charged with similar offenses during the May 30, 2020, unrest or an outlier influenced by the unique immigration consequences that Tabri — a citizen of Morocco who has lived in the U.S. as a green card holder since he was 6 years old — faced because of his crimes.

In announcing the punishment Monday, U.S. District Judge Joel M. Slomsky acknowledged he’d been persuaded to impose a sentence of less than one year because anything longer would classify the crime as an aggravated felony, which would almost certainly lead to Tabri’s deportation to a country in which he knows no one and does not speak the language.

He will now be released to serve three years’ probation and was ordered Monday to pay $87,000 in restitution to cover the damage to the squad car.

“I hope you realize the gravity of what you did and the second chance you’re being given here today,” the judge said, addressing Tabri. “Third chances are tough.”

For his part, Tabri said he hadn’t even intended on attending the protests when he came to town that weekend to visit friends in Philadelphia’s skateboarding community. He got caught up in the moment, he said, after a day of drinking.

“My actions were immature and irresponsible,” he added. “And I deeply regret what I did that day.”

Tabri is one of six defendants who have been charged locally with torching squad cars during the May 2020 protests in Philadelphia.

Federal prosecutors initially charged all six with an arson count that carried a seven-year mandatory minimum sentence — a move defense lawyers decried as a “political decision” while arguing less punitive charges were available that would have given the courts more flexibility to consider the crimes as spontaneous acts of protest against police brutality.

But then-U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain balked at that thinking and threatened on Twitter to pursue lengthy prison terms, saying the fires they set endangered the lives of hundreds of peaceful demonstrators gathered that day.

Since McSwain left office last year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia has extended plea offers to several of the defendants, offering to let them avoid the threat of a seven-year mandatory sentence by pleading guilty to a lesser charge with a maximum punishment of five years.

Tabri was among the first to accept that deal, pleading guilty in March to one count of obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder.

In court Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Vineet Gauri described the plea agreement and the government’s reconsideration of the arson charge as part of “the Justice Department’s holistic view of these cases around the country.”

Still, he pushed the judge to sentence Tabri to between three and four years — a punishment that would have triggered the deportation consequences that Tabri was hoping to avoid.

“The defendant’s act of throwing a lit flare into a police vehicle that was situated in an area densely populated with both law enforcement officers and protesters no doubt created a substantial risk of death and serious bodily harm to others,” he said in court filings in advance of the hearing.

Tabri was among the raucous crowd of protesters that surrounded two Pennsylvania State Police cars parked near the intersection of Broad and Vine Streets that day to keep demonstrators off I-676. Demonstrators attacked the cars with a scooter, a hammer, skateboards, a bike lock, a crowbar and even their hands and fists.

Video of the scene shared on social media showed Tabri — dressed in a black mask and T-shirt — carrying a skateboard in one hand and a lit road flare in another, tossing the flare into one of the damaged cars.

Prosecutors acknowledged Monday that several other flares were thrown into the vehicle by others in the crowd — one of which hit a Pennsylvania state trooper standing nearby, lighting his uniform ablaze and burning his hand — but so far investigators had identified only one other member of the crowd who they could federally charge.

That man — Lester Fulton Smith, 26, of Philadelphia — is set to plead guilty next week.

As for Tabri, his attorney, federal public defender Nancy MacEoin, described him as an otherwise law-abiding young man who worked in a D.C.-area restaurant owned by his family. He’d only come into Philadelphia that day, she said, to visit friends in the local skateboarding community.

She noted as soon as the FBI identified him from video and photos posted on social media, he confessed, expressed remorse, and agreed to let investigators search his online accounts for further evidence.

“This was a moment where he was caught up and chose — regrettably — to express his anger,” MacEoin said. “And for that he accepts full responsibility.”

The four other pending arson cases stemming from the demonstrations involve the torching of Philadelphia police cars parked outside City Hall that day. One defendant — Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal, a 35-year-old massage therapist from Jenkintown — pleaded guilty as part of a deal similar to Tabri’s in March.

The remaining three — against prominent Philadelphia activist and social studies teacher Anthony “Ant” Smith, 31; Khalif Miller, 26, of Philadelphia; and Carlos Matchett, 32, of Atlantic City — are scheduled for trial later this year.