Man gets life for shooting death on court
Army veteran Benson was killed at Wahl Park
As her son’s convicted killer sat feet away, Samia Johnson said she was speechless.
It didn’t last for long.
“I’d kill to go see my son locked up right now,” Samia Johnson said in court. “I have to go look at a gravestone in the ground.”
She spoke of her son, 23-year-old Joseph Benson, an Army veteran who planned to attend Marquette University in the time soon after he was gunned down. She described him as “brilliant” and “bright,” with aspirations to become a lawyer, judge or alderman. He worked with kids at a group home in Walker’s Point. He started a dance group to keep local kids out of trouble.
Benson’s life was taken on Aug. 15, 2017, on a Wahl Park basketball court. Shot in the leg and back, Benson died quickly at the scene. He pleaded for his life before being shot, according to witnesses. A jury convicted Fondren, now 32, of first-degree intentional homicide and possession of a firearm as a felon.
In court Thursday afternoon, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Wall sentenced Fondren to life in prison for the homicide conviction, allowing the opportunity for extended supervision after 30 years. Wall gave a five-year prison sentence, along with five years extended supervision, for the gun conviction. The latter sentence is concurrent to the first sentence, meaning it doesn’t add to Fondren’s overall prison time.
“This is not the worst of the worst,” Wall said, referring to the fact that the homicide was not planned well in advance.
Fondren’s attorney, Alejandro Lockwood, said the homicide happened in a matter of minutes.
“The bottom line is that there’s absolutely no evidence that this was something that was premeditated,” Lockwood said.
Benson’s family members asked Wall for the maximum sentence. Fondren faced life in prison for the homicide, as well as up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000 for the gun charge.
When the sentence was handed down, family members appeared upset.
“He’s going to get out and kill somebody else,” Samia Johnson said as she exited the courtroom.
The shooting followed an apparent boxing match caught on cellphone camera between Benson and Fondren. Fondren became angry after he got knocked down multiple times and couldn’t land a punch, a witness told police. He then retrieved his .380 pistol, which he had given to a bystander, and killed Benson.
Assistant District Attorney Karl Hayes described the homicide as full of “viciousness” and “brutality.” He recommended a life sentence without eligibility for release for the homicide conviction and the maximum sentence for the gun charge.
Hayes said the killing was “clearly motivated by the defendant’s sense of humiliation and rage about how the fight had gone.”
Hayes stressed the danger of Fondren’s decision to shoot in a crowded public park during daytime. He said it was a sunny summer day with kids playing nearby until Fondren “comes in and converts that to a murder scene.”
“It was the effect of a crime of terror,” Hayes said. “To perpetrate a murder by gun in the middle of a crowded public park in broad daylight ... really makes it a very, very serious situation that can’t be dealt with seriously enough.”
Wall underscored the danger created when people bring loaded guns to public places. He described it as “foolishness.”
Fondren decided not to speak at Thursday’s hearing. At the previous hearing on July 1, he claimed he didn’t kill Benson and wanted to appeal his case.
“He’s shown absolutely no remorse here,” Wall said in court Thursday. “To burst out and say he didn’t shoot Mr. Benson is preposterous under the facts.”
The jurors took about an hour and a half to deliberate before deciding on a verdict.
“It was a fairy strong case,” Hayes said.
Lockwood referenced Fondren’s traumatic upbringing, which consisted of poverty and neglect. Fondren’s parents and grandmother were unable to take care of him, Lockwood said.
“We have a young boy of 12 years old whose parents weren’t able to buy him a pair of jeans,” Lockwood said.