HOLLIDAYSBURG — A Tyrone man accused last year of threatening to shoot a Black woman and calling her a racial slur has been sentenced to four years’ probation in Blair County court.

President Judge Wade A. Kagarise handed down the sentence on Sept. 16 to Melvin Lynn Miller, 80, who has been free on unsecured supervised bail since the July 3, 2023, incident.

Miller, in early April, rendered guilty pleas to felony charges of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation and related misdemeanor charges of terroristic threats, simple assault and disorderly conduct.

First Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith asked Kagarise to impose a state prison sentence with one to five years’ incarceration to address Miller’s criminal offenses.

“I have a hard time understanding how we are in 2024 and I’m still having to talk about why people of different skin colors are not subpar to other people,” the prosecutor told Kagarise.

Defense attorney Ted Krol asked for a probationary sentence in light of Miller’s lifetime history of no criminal record and his admission to inappropriate behavior.

“He made a mistake and is deeply remorseful for the consequences it caused,” Krol said.

Kagarise, while not condoning Miller’s behavior and describing the situation as serious, said he wouldn’t impose incarceration.

“The reality is clear,” the judge said. “He’s 80 years old with no prior record … and as inappropriate as his conduct is, this court also sees it as inappropriate to overlook 80 years and put him in prison.”

District Attorney Pete Weeks said the judge’s deviation from the standard range of the state’s sentencing guidelines is deeply concerning.

“Most reprehensible is the defendant’s conduct, where he called a woman a highly derogatory racial slur while pointing a shotgun at her,” Weeks said.

During the sentencing hearing, Miller said he was intoxicated on the day of the incident. He said he was drinking to deal with the depression over the deaths of his wife and his sister.

The woman who was the target of Miller’s remarks told Kagarise she had gone to the 1100 block of Lincoln Avenue in Tyrone to retrieve a young child who had run off. She said that her attention was on the child when Miller started making remarks in her direction.

“He said ‘I’m tired of your kind being in my neighborhood’ … and then I heard Mr. Miller call me the n-word,” the woman told Kagarise.

The woman said she responded by telling Miller that she lives around the corner and that she was trying to address the child’s behavior.

George Kulp, who described Miller as “the best neighbor I ever had,” said he heard the woman yelling and he saw Miller with the shotgun.

The woman told Kagarise that Miller aimed the shotgun at her.

“My heart just dropped,” she said. “I thought: I’m going to die here.”

Miller’s son, Michael, who intervened and took the gun from his father, said at the sentencing hearing that day was uncharacteristic of his father, someone known for being respectful and for treating others with kindness.

Defense attorney Ted Krol told the judge that Miller’s behavior wasn’t racially motivated but sparked by hearing the woman raise her voice to the child.

“Afterward, he went too far,” Krol said. “But no one got hurt.”

Smith told Kagarise that the criminal charges filed against Miller reflect not only his behavior with the woman but also his behavior while in the custody of a Tyrone police officer.

While being escorted to the police station, Miller told the officers he should have killed the woman, who he again referred to by use of a racial slur. And the police said Miller spoke of returning to kill her.

Miller apologized in court to the woman and insisted that he has nothing against her. He spoke of his service in the Navy, when he said “colored people called me ‘cracker’ and I called them colored people.”

In handing down Miller’s probationary sentence, Kagarise told him to have no contact with the woman. The judge also told Miller that he won’t be able to possess firearms or consume alcohol.

“I can’t let this kind of behavior happen again,” Kagarise said.

“I gave the guns away,” Miller said in response.

Blair County NAACP President Andrae Holsey submitted a statement read during Miller’s sentencing hearing, asking for accountability in matters exposing trends of hostility toward minorities.

“We all pay the price when hate goes unchecked,” Holsey wrote.

Kagarise, when addressing the victim, told her there’s no place in today’s society for the kind of statements that were uttered.

Kagarise also recognized that there are people of Miller’s age who may exhibit behavior, intentionally or subconsciously, reflective of a time when the country was in a worse place. But the judge said he had no time for racially motivated statements or the behavior that Miller exhibited.

Krol told the judge that Miller enrolled in drug and alcohol and grief loss counseling while his charges were pending.

While on probation, the county parole and probation office will supervise counseling recommendations and compliance.

Smith also asked Kagarise if he could add a probationary condition requiring Miller to enroll in a racial sensitivity course.

Upon hearing that Miller doesn’t use a computer, Kagarise said he would add the racial sensitivity course if deemed appropriate by the parole and probation office.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.