Judge lashes out: ‘Yougotawaywithmurder’
Defendant convicted in theft, weapons charges.
A Cuyahoga CLEVELAND — CountyCommonPleas judge lashed out at a man acquitted in a 2015 drive-by killing and compared him to Stephen Paddock, the man who lastweek killed 59 people andwounded hundreds of others at a music festival in Las Vegas.
But Judge Daniel Gaul didn’t stop there.
He also called 23-yearold Demagio Callahan a “brother,” and told Callahan thathe personallywould have “busted a cap” in him.
The judgemade the statements during a sentencing hearingThursday, Oct. 5, that saw Callahan get the maximumfour years in prison on weapons and theft charges.
Gaul also ordered Callahan to pay a $10,000 fine, “because I don’t want anyone putting money on your books.”
A jury found Callahan not guilty of aggravatedmurder, multiple counts of attempted murder and felonious assault and discharging firearms charges in the July 2015 drive-by shooting at East 163rd Street and Sorrento Avenue that killed 20-yearold Maple Heights resident VeronBlackandinjuredthree others.
Gaul found Callahan guilty of possessing an AK-47 rifle despite having a criminal history and possessing the stolen car that witnesses said was used in the drive-by.
The judge said that he would have also found Callahan guilty of murder had the defense asked for a full bench trial instead of a jury trial.
Gaul’s lecture to the longtime criminal saw him raise questions aboutwhether violent video games had desensitized Callahan and created a “new class of criminal.”
“These young peoplewho have now sat behind a console for years and shot people have become so desensitized that it’snot thatmuchof a jump to do the real thing,” the judge pondered.
The angry judge raised his voice several times as he chided Callahan.
“It’s not enough to have 47 guns at the hotel. Let’s go see if they work. Let’s go shoot it out the window at 2,000 people,” Gaul said, referencing Paddock’s rampage Sunday at the close of the countrymusic festival in LasVegas. “You’re not too far fromthat. You opened up, as far as I’m concerned, froma semi-automaticweapon that may have been fully automated, on a group of people on a public street. That’s what you did as far as I’m concerned.”
Gaul insisted that violent video games will eventually get linked to violence the way smoking cigarettes was linked to cancer, and future generations will understand that one causes the other.
That is, he quipped, as long as “Little Rocket Man and our president don’t pull down the curtain on us all,” an apparent reference to heightening nuclear tensions between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Callahan, who had previous cases in Gaul’s courtroom, stood out in Gaul’s mind because “he’s got an Italian first name, and an Irish last name, and he’s a brother,” Gaul said.
Gaul then referredto a 2015 case in which Callahan was charged with attemptedmurder, felonious assault and drug charges because he shot a man while he was selling cocaine out of a car inMaple Heights. Callahan claimed the man he shot had come up to his window and tried to rob him, and Callahan pulled his own pistol and shot the man.
Callahan, whom Gaul called “Quick Draw Demagio Callahan,” pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to probation.
“If I was standing at the windowof the car with a gun in my hand, you wouldn’t have quick-drawn me,” Gaul told Callahan. “Iwould have busted a cap in you.”
Michael Dixon, who was wounded in the shooting at the heart of Callahan’s most recent case, testified that Callahan threatened to kidnap his daughter if he didn’t steal a car on his behalf. Dixon happenedtohave a spare key fob to a Dodge Charger that he recently sold. Hewent to a nearby car dealership that had a Charger with the same type of key fob, and took the car for a test drive, he said.
He kept the key fob to the dealer’s car andgave back his own spare key fob instead, then drove off in the Charger and gave it to Callahan. The car had a push-button ignition that could only be turned onwhen the fobwas in the car. Dixon wouldn’t give Callahan the fob soCallahancould not turnoffthe car.
Dixon and prosecutors said that Callahan got mad about the key fob so he drove to find Dixon. He opened fire with an assault rifle on Dixon and a few people as they stood outside an apartment. Prosecutors said that Callahan killed Black, who was an innocent bystander.
Gaul also asked during Thursday’s sentencingwhere the “liberal podcasts and media people who want to whine about mass incarceration” were during Callahan’s case, which he said is a testament to howthe criminal justice system separates “predators” like Callahan frompeople who “don’t necessarily have to go to prison.”
Callahan has six prior felony convictions, including the attemptedmurder, case. He was sentenced to probation on a 2013 weapons charge, and since violated his probation several times.
Gaul said even if the “liberal podcasts and media people” were there for his case, they would “exploit” the story and criticize him for sending aman to prison for more than four years on low-level felony offenses.
“They wouldn’t tell the whole story,” Gaul said. “The whole story is, you got away with murder. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a murderer.”