Menchville shooter gets 7 years on gun charges
Judge far exceeds guidelines after ’21 slaying at basketball game
NEWPORT NEWS — The man who shot and killed a 17-year-old student outside a Newport News high school two years ago was sentenced this week to seven years behind bars on three related gun charges.
Newport News Circuit Court Judge Bryant L. Sugg vastly exceeded state sentencing guidelines.
At a January trial, Damari Antonio Batten was acquitted of manslaughter in the 2021 slaying of Justice Michael Dunham in the Menchville High School parking lot. Jurors took less than an hour to side with Batten’s attorney, who contended his client acted in self-defense.
Though Batten, now 20, was acquitted in the killing, he still faced repercussions for having — and shooting — a gun on school grounds, and for carrying a gun with a high-capacity magazine.
On Tuesday, Sugg sentenced Batten to the maximum of 16 years, but suspended nine.
The slaying took place as fans cleared out of a packed basketball game between Menchville and Woodside High School on Dec. 14, 2021. Batten, then a student at Warwick High School, testified that he “thought it was going to be a fun night” when he went to the game.
Text messages introduced at trial show that Dunham — a standout football player at Woodside — and several other students were mad at Batten about an Instagram post they interpreted as mocking their gang. Other text messages indicated Dunham and his friends were watching Batten in the crowd during the game.
Batten said he left the game early — even though it was tied with about two minutes left — to avoid issues with the other group. He walked to his friend’s parked car, where he had a handgun on the floorboard.
As Batten waited outside the car, one of the students approached. Batten said he got into the passenger side and tried to close the door, but the other student held it open, punched him in the face and tried to grab his gun.
Batten said he picked up the weapon, with the barrel pointed to the driver’s side.
Just then, he said, a student in a ski mask — Dunham — opened the driver’s side door. Batten said Dunham leaned into the car and tried to grab at the gun, too. Batten said he closed his eyes and fired to get the other teens away. Dunham was struck once in the chest.
At two trials in the case, Batten and his lawyers asserted he acted in self-defense.
At the first trial, in early 2023, couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on a second-degree murder charge, resulting in a mistrial on that count. But they convicted him on the three gun counts, with those convictions still standing.
That includes two felonies — possessing a gun on school grounds and shooting it on school grounds — that carry up to 15 years combined. He also faced a misdemeanor count — punishable by up to 12 months — for carrying a loaded firearm with a high capacity magazine. (That’s under a special Virginia law that outlaws loaded high capacity firearms in certain jurisdictions, to include Newport News).
Newport News prosecutors Jennifer Titter and Mary Button asked Sugg for five to seven years. They cited the aggravating factor of Batten bringing a gun onto school property that was filled with people.
Batten’s attorney, Mario Lorello, asked for between one day and six months, which he said was equivalent to the state guideline range.
“Of course we were disappointed,” Lorello said, noting Batten’s acquittal in the larger case. “We realize that there were aggravating circumstances in this case, but he had served at that point four times the recommended sentence of the high end of his range.”
In other words, Batten’s two years in custody already is more than quadruple the high end of the guidelines.
“We are never happy when we have a death in one of our cases,” Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Jennifer Titter said in an emailed statement Thursday. “We would have much rather that none of this would have happened.”