Among the round-up of local news in today's NY Daily News is a small story entitled "HS football star's killer gets 25 yrs." A popular Bronx high school football star was killed in 2005 at sixteen, the killer received a rather long sentence of twenty-five years for manslaughter and another ten for a weapons charge. Curious about the story, only the name of the killer was supplied without more back story, I checked online. A 2005 article suggests the killing received some extended attention at the time:
They remembered Fernando Corea Jr. yesterday in the working-class neighborhood in the Bronx where he had often lived amid danger and had dared to be different. He loved school and dreamed of a pro football career, they said, and stood up to the resentful thugs who lured him into fights. ...
On Saturday, 12 hours after the shooting, the police charged a youth they identified as Quindel Francis, 16, of Dewey Avenue in Throgs Neck, with the shooting. They said it was the apparent result of a longstanding feud between the two youths, dating to 2003 when they were classmates at Intermediate School 192. No gun was found, but investigators said Quindel made statements implicating himself.
Various articles filled in some more details. For instance:
Mr. Francis has spent the past five years in jail, and he has become something of a regular at Criminal Court in the Bronx. He has already sat through two mistrials and is now in the latter stages of his third trial on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the killing of his classmate, Fernando Corea Jr., a high school football star, on Feb. 11, 2005.
A hung jury and the passage of time clouding memories and so forth suggests an explanation both for the crime and punishment -- manslaughter is easier to prove, but the heinous nature of the crime explains the long sentence for what murder might not provide in other circumstances. It is to be recalled, the cruelty of the crime notwithstanding, that a sixteen year old is being given thirty-five years for basically one criminal act.* This after five years in prison while being legally innocent. And, even now, at the sentencing the two families blame each other. Such absurdity:
It’s your fault!” Mr. Francis’s mother and other supporters shouted at Mr. Corea as she left the courtroom moments later. “It’s because of you!”
The angry scene capped an emotional afternoon in the Bronx courthouse that left the mothers of Mr. Francis and Mr. Corea weeping on opposite sides of the gallery. Each had family member comforting her, but the sobs threatened to drown out the judge’s words.
As is teenagers walking around with guns a few miles from where I'm typing this, the next victim (maybe not one praised by a coach of the Jets before being killed) waiting in the wings.
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* The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding now if life without parole is unconstitutional for minors, but thirty-five years for manslaughter and a weapons charge (if arising from an incident following past harassment of the victim) is pretty up there as well for crimes performed at sixteen.