By Joseph A. Slobodzian
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — A West Philadelphia man found guilty of opening fire on neighborhood teens after one gave him a “funny look” was sentenced Tuesday to 121/2 to 25 years in prison.
Antwon Sanders, 19, said nothing before his sentencing by Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Dempsey for the Feb. 20, 2009, shooting that seriously wounded Fateem Gresham, 15.
“This went from looks and then to words,” Dempsey told Sanders. “There was no justification - legal or moral - existing to justify discharging a firearm.”
Three months ago, Sanders was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault and firearms charges in the encounter at 60th and Spruce Streets. Police said he was walking when he encountered three neighborhood teens. The trio passed Sanders, but one apparently gave him a look or made a face at him.
Sanders turned around and said, “What?”
The confrontation quickly escalated, with Sanders drawing a semiautomatic pistol and firing at the teens. Gresham was hit in the back and seriously wounded. DeShaoun Williams, 15, was shot at but not hit.
Gresham underwent 10 surgeries and today uses a cane to walk, said Assistant District Attorney William Davis.
The incident precipitated a retaliatory shooting five days later. Unable to find Sanders, authorities said, friends of Gresham’s located Sanders’ 12-year-old stepbrother sitting in a car with his mother and shot him. Although wounded in the chest and hand, the boy survived.
Three teens were charged in that shooting: DeShaoun Williams, now 16; his brother Christian, 18; and Shaheem Willis, 19.
The younger Williams pleaded guilty in Juvenile Court. Christian Williams and Willis are to go to trial July 12 in Common Pleas Court.
At Sanders’ sentencing on Tuesday, defense attorney Gary S. Server asked the judge for leniency. “Legally he is an adult. Nevertheless, he is a child. His mother was never in the picture. He was raised by a father and stepmother,” Server said.
Davis argued for a 20- to 40-year prison term. He noted that a psychiatric report showed no evidence of mental illness and that Sanders has a record of increasing violence, including a prior armed robbery.
The Gresham shooting, Davis said, came just four months after Sanders was released from a school for delinquent juveniles.
Referring to research showing that teens often outgrow criminality as they hit middle age, Davis told the judge: “I don’t know what to do except to sentence him to prison until he is an older adult.”
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