Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 27, 1992 TAG: 9202270279
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TEEN KILLER SENT TO JUVENILE HOME
A 16-year-old Roanoke boy who fatally shot a man and then proclaimed "he got his" got his own punishment Wednesday - confinement to a juvenile home.The youth, who is not being identified because of his age, was convicted last month of killing 20-year-old Sonni R. Warren.
Testimony in Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court showed that on the night of Oct. 17, the youth chased Warren down Mulberry Street Northwest, pulled a semiautomatic pistol from his pocket, fired a fatal shot at the fleeing man, then returned to tell his friends: "He got his."
Judge Fred Hoback said Wednesday that "society would demand" incarceration for such a crime. He ordered the 16-year-old to serve an indeterminate sentence in the state's correctional system for juveniles.
Hoback explained that under the sentence, the youth could be released within six months or be held until his 21st birthday, depending on the progress he makes toward rehabilitation. "It's kind of up to you," the judge told him.
Facts of the case have become a commonplace scenario in Roanoke courtrooms: kids armed with guns, and with an attitude to use them.
Betty Jo Anthony, chief assistant commonwealth's attorney, had argued that, despite the defendant's age, he should receive an adult sentence for an adult crime.
"Mrs. Warren's son is no less dead if there was a juvenile's hand on the trigger than if it was an adult's hand," Anthony said as Warren's mother, seated in the courtroom, began to sob loudly.
But Assistant Public Defender John Varney asked for leniency, noting that the first time his client ever stepped into a courtroom was to face this murder charge.
Prosecutors had sought to have the youth tried as an adult, but the case was sent back to juvenile court on appeal, in part because of his lack of a criminal record.
George Clemons, a juvenile probation officer, testified Wednesday that the youth has expressed remorse for the shooting, but also feels he may have been "set up" by other teen-agers who were with him that night.
Other teens have said that a group of four youths began to chase Warren because they suspected he was trying to steal a bicycle. Warren's family has disputed that account, saying he was a law-abiding and college-bound young man.
The 16-year-old admitted that he chased Warren but testified he did not know where the shot that killed him came from. But other teens said it was from a pistol in the youth's hand.
The youth, who had remained free on bond until Wednesday morning, began to cry as he was led into custody by a sheriff's deputy.
But Warren's mother, Mary, said after the youth was convicted last month that people like her must bear the heaviest burden from the results of teen-age gunplay.
"It has gotten to be a thing of the norm, and I'm just one of the parents who has to bear the price," she said then.
"I think we as parents and citizens of the Roanoke Valley need to get together and put pressure on the local authorities, the state authorities and the federal authorities.
"Because until something is done, the killing will continue."
Keywords:
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