Milwaukee teenager sentenced for shooting death of best friend
Marreon Jones said Martez Fitts, fatally gunned down in the street last year, was “like a brother I lost. We were close. We were glued.”
Jones’ comments to a judge Friday weren’t part of a victim impact statement. Jones, 19, was about to be sentenced for killing Fitts, 22.
“I loved Martez, I still do,” Jones said.
But witnesses to the Sept. 17, 2017, incident had told police that it was Fitts who uttered, “I love you,” after being felled by a first shot, and Jones who replied, “I don’t love you,” as he stood over the victim and fired two or three more times.
Before the fatal encounter, Jones’ attorney Frederick Klimetz said, Fitts had gone to the house of Jones’ aunt looking for him, and said, “If I find him, I’m going to kill him.”
Jones was walking with two others in the 8800 block of North 95th Street when a Monte Carlo stopped in the street, Fitts exited and took a rifle from the trunk.
“He was scared, terrified and he overreacts,” Klimetz said of his client, who told Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner that Jones was afraid Fitts was going to kill him when he fired first.
Assistant District Attorney Paul Tiffin recommended a sentence of 20 to 25 years in prison, Klimetz about half that long, noting Jones has no other adult criminal record. He also said Jones is acutely aware of the pain he brought to both families, as his own brother was fatally shot years earlier.
Wagner imposed a prison sentence of 27 years, followed by 10 more on extended supervision.