Man to be sentenced for threatening officials, police

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - A man who helped organize rallies in southwestern Indiana during a nationwide reckoning on racial injustice will be sentenced this week after pleading guilty to threatening the lives of city officials and police officers.

Ebon Ellis, 26, is set for sentencing Friday in a Vanderburgh County court after he pleaded guilty last month to three counts of felony intimidation, the Evansville Courier & Press reported.

Ellis was arrested on July 8 after he made the threats in live videos posted on Facebook. Police said he made threats against Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke, City Council President Alex Burton, Police Chief Billy Bolin and Officer Phil Smith.

'œThis is what's going to happen one by one,'ť Davis said in one video the Evansville Police Department provided to news outlets in which he pretended that his hand was a gun, pulled the trigger and made gunshot noises.

Before his July arrest, Ellis helped organize an anti-violence rally in Evansville at the end of May, followed by a protest a couple weeks later over the dress code at several local bars.

Those protests followed the police killings of Black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, that sparked a nationwide reckoning on racial injustice.