Posted on 01/20/2008 1:25:27 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
A teenager who ran over and seriously injured a rival gang member in a parking lot on Johnson Street was sentenced to more than five years in prison Friday.
Dane County Circuit Judge Patrick Fiedler told Jeffrey Nering that while no judge relishes sending an 18-year-old off to prison, "you have earned your way there." Nering was also given a nine-month term for a previous misdemeanor count and will serve five years on extended supervision when he finishes his time behind bars.
Nering was initially charged with attempted murder for the March 30, 2007, incident in which he was driving a Jeep that exchanged bumps and sideswipes with a Ford Probe driven by Sergio Alcantra as the two cars raced up East Washington Avenue. Eventually, they turned onto Johnson Street, where Alcantra pulled his car into a parking lot and Nering followed.
When Pedro Hernandez-Cortes, 17, got out of the Ford, armed with a baseball bat and ready to fight those in the Jeep, Nering responded by running into him, knocking him down, then slamming into the Ford.
The initial charge of attempted murder was later reduced to a charge of first-degree recklessly endangering safety and Nering entered no contest pleas to that and a companion bail jumping charge.
Hernandez-Cortes and his mother both spoke at Friday's sentencing hearing about the effects of the injuries from that night. "I am no longer the same as I was before," Hernandez-Cortes said.
"I can't do what I was able to do before. I feel very sad for what they did," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "The only thing I ask for is that he pay for what he did, because I am not the same as I once was," he said as he broke into tears.
"I can't forget everything that happened," he sobbed. "I won't be able to forget." He then put his head in his arms on the witness stand and sobbed uncontrollably before being escorted back to his seat.
Hernandez-Cortes suffered numerous injuries in the incident, including crushed legs and other fractures.
"These injuries cannot be referred to without cringing," Fiedler said during the hearing.
Defense attorney Jon Helland said Fiedler should impose a lengthy period of probation with jail time as a condition and order restitution for the medical costs lost by the victim's family and the car owned by Alcantra, which was wrecked. "Make him pay the price for what he did financially," he said.
Nering apologized to the victims and said "what I did was wrong." He later characterized it as "a very severe situation that could have been avoided."
Fiedler, however, said "there is just no way anyone can justify what you did."
"You care so little about another human being that you run over him repeatedly," the judge said. As for Hernandez-Cortes, Fiedler said: "This has just got to be hell for him."
So he was out on bail for attempted murder, and he jumped bail?
His reward ... they drop the attempted murder charge?
Good, too bad he didn't kill you...!!!
Don't bring a baseball bat to a car fight.
And all he was doing was trying to show a baseball bat to the guy in the jeep? Something don't smell right here.
Sucks to be in a gang, doesn't it?
Maybe you should be thankful to be alive and try to make something of yourself besides a gang member.
It worked for Hillary.
"These injuries cannot be referred to without cringing," Fiedler said during the hearing.
Yet, he got out of his vehicle, armed with a baseball bat, with which he was most likely intimately familiar with, with every intention of crushing heads and causing fractures.
These people actually expect the rest of us to feel sorry for them?
To hell with them.
Close the damn borders, NOW!
If he had killed the gang member, instead of injuring him, he only would have had to pay a $10 fine, he could have mailed it in.
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