A Little Rock man who shot a 14-year-old girl in a case of mistaken identity outside a city elementary school was sent to prison on Wednesday and ordered to pay the girl's medical bills, which could run as much as $244,518.
Kevin Lamar Blackmon Jr., 19, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting Alexandria Hughes in the stomach in December 2014 at Wakefield Elementary school on Westminister Drive.
Blackmon and the girl were part of a group of children and teenagers who had gone to watch a fight at the school when someone starting shooting at people, deputy prosecutor John Hout said.
Blackmon wrongly believed that Hughes, now 15, or a friend with her, 18-year-old Tanaka Spriggs of Little Rock, had shot at him, so he opened fire at them from a car, the prosecutor said. Several people witnessed the shooting, Hout said.
Police say the bullet went through the girl's stomach and out her back, inflicting injuries that forced surgeons to remove a substantial amount of her intestines.
Circuit Judge Leon Johnson also ordered Blackmon, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, to follow up his prison time with a 10-year suspended sentence in which he will repay the girl's medical costs, which her mother said would run $244,518 since the family's insurance and Medicaid has run out.
The judge, acknowledging the potential for futility, ordered Blackmon to pay $50 a month beginning six months after he gets out of prison. He said that he had to set an affordable amount for Blackmon and that Blackmon's suspended sentence could be extended if he doesn't pay.
The judge said he'll also reduce the restitution amount if the girl's family overestimated what is owed.
Blackmon's attorney, Ron Davis, said his client was willing to take responsibility for what he'd done, but argued that the girl's family had not provided any proof of how much is owed on the bills.
Blackmon would have a hard time finding a job once he gets out of prison and setting such a large restitution was setting the young man up for failure, which could mean a return to prison, Davis said.
But the judge said he didn't want to take a chance the girl and her family would get stuck with a bill they couldn't pay.
In a letter to the judge, Blackmon asked for a sentence that would allow him to be with his two children and grandmother.
"I apologize for putting myself in this situation. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time," he wrote. "I hope you give me a little freedom because this is my first time ever getting in trouble. Really, it ain't that I did the situation."
Blackmon was arrested a week after the shooting and the day after police announced to the press that they were searching for him.
He pleaded guilty in March to unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle, a Class Y felony that carries a potential life sentence, for the shooting in exchange for prosecutors leaving the sentencing decision up to the judge.
As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors also dropped a first-degree battery count and drug charges stemming from Blackmon's June 2015 arrest at Wright and Battery streets while he was out on bond in the shooting case.
According to arrest reports, Blackmon was found to be driving with a suspended license. Police seized several rocks of crack cocaine from the vehicle.
Court records show Blackmon was arrested again at Asher and Woodrow streets on Nov. 1 with enough drugs to draw a misdemeanor charge. His trial in Little Rock District Court is scheduled for June.
Metro on 05/19/2016