{"id":315251,"date":"2026-06-22T03:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T03:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/315251\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T03:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T03:30:09","slug":"forrest-pemberton-indicted-for-hate-crime-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/315251\/","title":{"rendered":"Forrest Pemberton indicted for hate crime in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 eJzHXc body-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida has indicted Forrest Kendall Pemberton, 27, of Gainesville, on federal hate crime and firearm offenses. Pemberton allegedly attempted a mass shooting on Dec. 23, 2024, targeting Jewish victims because of their race and religion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 eJzHXc body-paragraph\">According to court records, Pemberton armed himself with an AR-15-style rifle equipped with a silencer. He traveled to the office of a non-profit organization dedicated to lobbying the U.S. government in support of Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 eJzHXc body-paragraph\">If convicted, Pemberton faces a maximum penalty of life in prison on the attempted hate crime count. He also faces a mandatory consecutive sentence of up to 30 years in prison on the firearm count and a maximum penalty of five years in prison on the possession count.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 eJzHXc body-paragraph\">The FBI Jacksonville Field Office is investigating the case, with assistance from FBI Miami, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Miami Field Office, the Gainesville Police Department, and the Tallahassee Police Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 eJzHXc body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/mobile-apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/mobile-apps\">Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/video\/\">click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wftvapps.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782099009_406_APP DOWNLOAD LOCAL_1541693885678.jpg_13622062_ver1.0.jpg\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM WFTV CHANNEL 9<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 eJzHXc body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida has indicted Forrest Kendall Pemberton, 27,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[45972,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-315251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-doj","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}