A 28-year-old Little Rock pizza restaurant worker who killed an unarmed man he had been feuding with in a shooting recorded on the store's video surveillance was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday night.
The jury convened by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Karen Whately found Domeque Latice Jones guilty of manslaughter after a two-day trial. He faced up to 25 years in prison on the Class C felony because a gun was involved. Prosecutors contended the August 2019 shooting was deliberate first-degree murder.
Jones said he shot Marcus Dominique Fleming, 33, of Little Rock in self-defense at the Little Caesars Pizza restaurant on South University Avenue when the older man stormed back into the restaurant after briefly leaving following a heated argument between the pair.
Jones said Fleming claimed to have a gun and acted as if he had a weapon, although Jones did not see one. Authorities said Fleming was unarmed.
The soundless video shows Fleming reacting to the gunshots, falling to the floor as Jones, standing behind the 4-foot counter, keeps shooting him as Fleming crawls into the parking lot.
Fleming died at the feet of his girlfriend. He had 13 gunshot wounds and four bullets lodged in his body.
Jones left the restaurant, where he had been assistant manager, before police arrived but was arrested the following day while making arrangements to surrender.
The animosity between the men was due to Fleming's belief that Jones knew something about the unsolved murder of Fleming's sister, April Harris, who was killed in North Little Rock about 18 months before the fatal confrontation between the men.
Jones said Harris had dated a close friend but he knew nothing about her killing. Jones said Fleming had been bothering him for months, and that he knew Fleming to have a bad temper and to be violent.
This was the second jury to hear the case this year. Jones' first trial in March ended in mistrial with jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict.