DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A teenager who admitted he killed an innocent bystander during a gas station shootout will serve about 15 years in prison. The family of the man the teen killed doesn’t think it’s enough.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes has been following the deadly shooting since it happened last year.
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“I apologize, I took the plea because I feel like there’s enough evidence to prove me guilty, so I apologize,” the teen Gary Adams said.
“He did not address the court. He mumbled,” the victim’s aunt Janelle King said.
“I didn’t think it was an apology. I thought it was a slap in the face to tell you the truth because I didn’t accept it,” the victim’s mother Denine Fernandes said.
It’s been about a year and a half since this teen Gary Adams made a horrible decision that was caught on camera.
The video shows the then 14-year-old trying to rob someone and then taking his gun.
It started a shootout at a gas station on Covington Highway in DeKalb County and a stray bullet killed the driver, John Battle, who had nothing to do with it.
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Thursday’s plea hearing for Adams is the first time the Battle’s family faced his killer in person.
“Just being in a room with him... is just, makes it so real,” the victim’s sister, Kamylla Yancey said.
“You could feel the sadness. It was heavy. It just was painful. It brought everything back,” King explained.
The victim’s mother cried through his impact statement, hoping it would make the judge give Adams more prison time. The judge didn’t.
She gave Adams 20 years with 15 to serve and the charge went from murder to voluntary manslaughter.
The judge gave Adam’s mother a chance to speak but she declined, as she cried and held her head down.
“It’s sad. I can see why the son is like that. The parents are just as bad as the son. He didn’t have an apology. They didn’t have an apology.
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If there was no plea and this went to a jury trial, Adams could have faced life plus 65 years.
Now, he’ll serve up to 15 years and it’s possible that he could serve most of that time in the juvenile detention center, not the adult prison.
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