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Man pleads in 2010 shooting where passerby wounded
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges he wounded a passer-by as he fired several rounds during a 2010 melee on the South Side told Judge Maureen Sweeney he was just trying to protect himself.
Kshaun Weaver, 23, apologized to the victim, Kenneth Woods Jr., just before Weaver was sentenced in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to nine years in prison for the November 2010 shooting that injured Woods at the intersection of Erie Street and East Lucius Avenue.
“It was never my intention to hurt you at the time,” Weaver said. “I was just protecting myself and my unborn child.”
Weaver pleaded guilty to charges of felonious assault, being a felon in possession of a firearm and a firearm specification. A bench trial in his case was set to begin Wednesday but he entered his plea after about two hours of negotiations.
Rob Andrews, an assistant county prosecutor, said Woods was driving to his mother’s house to take her to work when he stumbled upon a huge brawl in the street that was an offshoot of an argument two women had the day before. The argument continued, attracting more people and moving onto the street.
Weaver’s attorney, Thomas Zena, said the scene was utter chaos. He said there were accidents and people all over, and his client and another man were racing toward a vehicle that Weaver’s pregnant girlfriend was in along with another pregnant woman.
Zena said there was a man on top of that vehicle who was kicking Weaver’s girlfriend through a skylight in the roof. Zena said Weaver fired several rounds from a handgun into the air in order to disperse the crowd. Zena said if the case had gone to trial, other witnesses would have testified that at least one other person there had a gun, and no one could determine what kind of bullet hit Woods, who was shot in the back of the neck and had to undergo rehabilitation because of his injuries.
Zena added that Weaver’s girlfriend suffered a fractured jaw in the brawl.
Andrews said officers collected 13 0.40-caliber shell casings at the scene, and when Weaver was arrested, they found a box of 0.40-caliber ammunition he had that could have been the same kind used in the Woods shooting. Andrews said Weaver went way beyond the norm in trying to defend himself or others.
“He didn’t need to fire a gun,” Andrews said. “He didn’t need to fire a gun 13 times.”
Woods spoke briefly and said the experience was an ordeal.
“I didn’t have nothing to do with it [brawl],” Woods said. Andrews recommended a sentence of 10 years while Zena asked for seven.
Weaver’s sentences will run concurrent to an 18-month sentence he is serving now for a sentence in an unrelated drug case.