Man gets 4 years in crash that killed brother
An 18-year-old Milwaukee man was sentenced Monday to prison for a collision with a school bus that killed his brother.
Laron Ball left the scene of that February crash because he was trying to get rid of a handgun he shouldn’t have had. Only later did he return to check on his 16-year-old brother, who had been a passenger in the car Ball was driving.
Ball pleaded guilty last week to driving after revocation, causing death, and being a felon with a gun. Prosecutors dismissed a count of homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz imposed a two-year prison term, plus two years of extended supervision for the fatal crash, but four years in prison and four years of supervision for the firearm conviction. Both sentences will run concurrent to each other.
Witnesses told police that about 4:30 p.m. Feb. 5, Ball flew past a stop sign at North 37th Street and West Sheridan Avenue, hit a school bus, spun around and hit a tree.
When police arrived, Ball was crouched next to his 16-year-old brother, who was being attended to by emergency first responders. The driver in the bus and its lone passenger were not seriously injured.
But witnesses told investigators that immediately after the crash, Ball ran from the scene and that he had recently been in an argument and had gone to get a gun. Police say that was the gun he had with him when he crashed and tried to hide it before attending to his brother.
In the snow behind a house near the crash, police found a .40-caliber handgun. Ball, adjudicated as a juvenile of a felony, is prohibited from possessing any firearm. Police said he was taking the gun to settle an argument.
Ball’s father, also Laron Ball, was shot and killed as he tried to escape from a Milwaukee courtroom in 2002 by Detective Alfonso Morales, now the chief of Milwaukee police.