The leader of a Black militia that marched through Louisville two times during the 2020 protests will spend several years behind bars on charges that he’d pointed a rifle at law enforcement officials more than two years ago.

John Johnson, also known as Grandmaster Jay, was sentenced Wednesday to seven years and two months in prison after being found guilty of assaulting and brandishing a firearm towards state and federal officers on the eve of the 2020 Kentucky Derby, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice. Johnson, 59, had initially been indicted by a federal grand jury in February 2021 and subsequently found guilty in May of this year.

Aside from his prison sentence, Johnson will also have to serve 3 years of supervised release, with no option of parole, according to the release.

A Cincinnati-area resident, Johnson came to Louisville on Sept. 4, 2020, with the militia group he leads, the “Not F—— Around Coalition,” to participate in protests over the police killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman shot by Louisville Metro Police officers serving a no-knock warrant at her apartment in March 2020.

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During his time in Louisville that September – his second trip to the city following a demonstration earlier in the summer – Johnson was accused of pointing his AR-15 rifle toward a roof where an FBI agent, a Secret Service agent and three LMPD officers had been stationed, according to a federal complaint, which said the officers were “blinded by a light which they shortly thereafter determined was a flashlight mounted to the rifle being aimed at them by Johnson.”

Johnson was later found guilty of one count of assaulting a federal officer and one count of brandishing a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, with the Department of Justice arguing he’d “forcibly assaulted, resisted, opposed, impeded, intimidated, and interfered with a federally deputized task force officer who was performing official duties” at the time of the incident.

An attorney listed as having represented Johnson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

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Reach reporter Ana Rocío Álvarez Bríñez at [email protected].