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Shooter gets 13 years in the death of bystander
The victim was an innocent bystander, a prosecutor says.
YOUNGSTOWN — A Campbell man who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in a shooting at an East Side gasoline station has been sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Tremaine A. McDonald, 28, of Eastern Avenue, drew the sentence Thursday from Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
The prison term consists of eight years for the homicide, plus a mandatory three consecutive years for the gun specification, and a two-year consecutive sentence for being a convicted felon in illegal possession of a gun.
The victim, Rodney Brown, 45, of Devon Avenue, who was fatally shot in the thigh July 9, 2007, was a bystander in the Speed Check parking lot at Albert Street and McGuffey Road, said J. Michael Thompson, assistant county prosecutor.
McDonald was one of several people in a crowd of 50 to 60 people at the gas station who returned fire when a shotgun blast erupted from a passing car with unidentified occupants, Thompson said.
Police found the gun in a car McDonald occupied when they made a July 24 traffic stop in Youngstown and matched it with the slug recovered from Brown’s body, Thompson said.
The prosecutor said he made the plea agreement to reduce the charge from murder to involuntary manslaughter because of the risk that a jury could have acquitted McDonald on the basis of self-defense and because the victim’s mother didn’t want to undergo the ordeal of a trial.
Had he been convicted of the original murder charge, McDonald would have faced 18 years to life in prison.
“We experience anger. We feel emptiness. ... Thirteen years cannot replace the loss,” said Galen Roberts of Youngstown, Brown’s sister. “We’ve had to go through almost a year with nothing but pain. How do we heal from this?” she asked.
“My actions were careless and irresponsible,” McDonald said. He added he shouldn’t have had a gun that night, but he explained that he was carrying it after two robbers beat and seriously injured him. “I speak from a heart filled with grief,” he told the judge.
“This never would have happened but for your having that weapon that you weren’t supposed to have,” Judge Krichbaum told McDonald.
“One of the things that needs to be done is to get guns off of the streets and out of the hands of so many people who possess them illegally,” the judge added.
milliken@vindy.com