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Antonio Pruitt, a suspected gang member charged in connection with a 2005 rolling shootout on North Tryon Street, pleaded guilty Friday to murder and was sentenced to at least 18 years in prison.
Juan Lawrence, 22, was shot three times - including once in the head - with an assault rifle, Mecklenburg Assistant District Attorney Glenn Cole said during Friday's hearing.
Before being sentenced, Pruitt, 23, turned to Lawrence's family and apologized.
"I'm deeply sorry ...," he said. "I never chased your son down and ambushed him...I'm not a gang banger murderer...I'm not a bad person."
A few minutes earlier, Sondre Lawrence had stared at her son's killer. "My son didn't live to see his daughter turn 1 year old," she told him.
The Nov. 28, 2005, shootout along North Tryon Street was part of a fight six hours earlier that sparked gunfire inside Eastland Mall, authorities said. About six miles from Eastland, men started shooting at each other from a Cadillac and Lincoln Continental as the two vehicles drove south on North Tryon near Sugar Creek Road just before 8 p.m.
The Cadillac collided head-on with a northbound car. The Lincoln careened off North Tryon, ran across grass and cut between two buildings.
Inside the Cadillac, police found a woman who had been shot in the shoulder. Lawrence was found on the front lawn of a home on nearby Ritch Avenue. He died in surgery.
Pruitt was one of five men charged with murder in connection with Lawrence's killing.
Police said then that the opposing groups in the shootout were all associated with the Hidden Valley Kings gang and had been feuding for months.
Toney Riychaad Robinson, one of the other four men charged with murder, pleaded guilty Friday to felony assaults and was sentenced to at least six years and 11 months in prison. His plea deal calls for the murder charge to be dismissed.
The three other defendants have also pleaded guilty to felony assaults, prosecutors said, and are awaiting sentencing. The murder charges against them also will be dismissed.
During Friday's hearing, Assistant District Attorney Cole told the judge there had been ongoing confrontations between Pruitt and Lawrence. The defendants planned to ambush Lawrence after luring him to North Tryon Street, the prosecutor said.
"If they hadn't tried to settle it between themselves, a lot of people wouldn't be in jail and Juan Lawrence wouldn't be dead now," Cole said.
Defense attorney James Exum told Superior Court Judge Yvonne Mims Evans that Lawrence had been shooting at his client. "Anywhere Antonio was, he was shot at," he said.
The defense lawyer denied that there had been a plan to ambush Lawrence.
"They saw Juan Lawrence. Juan Lawrence saw them," Exum said. "Juan Lawrence began shooting. They shot back."
"It was either shoot or be shot."
The defense lawyer said Pruitt had lost three brothers. All three were murdered, he said.
After apologizing for killing Lawrence, Pruitt turned to the judge to explain.
He said Lawrence had been shooting at him. "Every day he saw me, he shot at me," he said.
Pruitt described what happened when he and Lawrence came face to face on the night of the shootout on North Tryon Street. "He went for his gun. The only thing I could think of was defending myself ...," he said. "It was either me or him."
Pruitt also denied being a gang member. "I'm being labeled as a menace. A gang member. That person ain't me."
Sondre Lawrence wasn't happy with the sentence for her son's killer. She said she thought Pruitt should have gotten a life sentence.
"Eighteen years is not enough for me," she told the Observer. "He took my son's life."
Staff researcher Maria David contributed.
Editor's note: Comments for this story have been removed due to abusive posts.
