GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A southwestern Montana man has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison after being convicted of a hate crime and firearms charges for threatening a woman with violent, homophobic slurs and shooting at her house with an assault rifle as part of a self-described “mission” to rid a small town of its LGBTQ community.

John Russell Howald, 46, was convicted in February and sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls for the March 2020 shooting.

His indictment in June 2021 was part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s increased enforcement of hate crimes under U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

...Local residents who were leaving church that Sunday and knew Howald were able to stall him long enough for a sheriff’s deputy to respond. One resident inadvertently recorded Howald yelling and firing more rounds with the same rifle while expressing his hatred toward the community’s gay and lesbian residents and his plan to “clean” them from the town of about 270 residents, prosecutors said.