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Inset: Douglas Wayne Cornett (Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office). Background: The gas station where Cornett shot two men because he believed they were illegal immigrants (Google Maps).
A Virginia man, 58, who harbored an intense fixation on cable news, has been sentenced to life imprisonment after targeting and shooting two Latino men in a fit of anger over illegal immigration.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Roderick C. Young handed down a life sentence to Douglas Wayne Cornett. Cornett had previously pleaded guilty to two federal hate crime charges, each involving attempted murder, and to unlawfully discharging a firearm during a federal crime of violence.
The sentencing was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, confirming the severe penalty for Cornett’s actions.
As previously detailed by Law & Crime, on the night of February 28, 2024, Cornett left his residence in Spotsylvania, brandishing a 9 mm handgun with a 17-round magazine. Around 9 p.m., he encountered a white box truck driving along Interstate 95, operated by “Victim 1.” Cornett honked his horn, prompting the driver to let him pass. However, Cornett continued trailing the truck until it exited the highway and stopped at a gas station.
The criminal complaint reveals that the driver, sensing danger, called a nearby friend for help. This friend, identified as “Victim 2” and also a Latino male, arrived at the scene and confronted Cornett, inquiring why he was pursuing the truck. Cornett, who had pulled up at a gas pump beside the truck, responded by questioning how long Victim 1 had been in the United States.
Victim 1 said he had been in the country about “a year and a half” and Cornett then “pulled out the Sig Sauer P320 handgun and opened fire from his vehicle, discharging six rounds, four of which struck Victim 1 and Victim 2.”
Victim 1 was shot twice in the stomach and once in the arm while Victim 2 was shot once in the stomach. Cornett then drove home and informed his roommates that he had just shot two men.
Cornett was quickly identified as the shooter and arrested on Feb. 29, 2024. Investigators said he immediately admitted to shooting the men, telling federal authorities, “my intentions were clear in my brain, at the time,” per the criminal complaint.
“Cornett then described his anger at illegal immigration, telling the detective that he was ‘p—ed’ about undocumented migrants receiving welfare funds, phones, and health insurance, and that he had ‘driven around before with the same thought,’” court documents state. “Cornett later asked the detective whether he could be ‘charged for my thoughts,’ and went on to explain that he fantasized about flying an Apache helicopter gunship to the border and firing on undocumented migrants traveling into the United States in order ‘to deter’ other undocumented migrants from attempting to cross the border.”
In an interview with investigators, Cornett’s housemates said that he was “a heavy consumer of cable television news” who “was kind of obsessed by the news that he viewed regarding the entry of non-citizens into the United States at the southern border.”
In addition to the life sentences for each of the hate crimes, Young also sentenced Cornett to 10 years on the firearms charge, to be served consecutively.