Relatives of victim decry jail sentence
Judge backs view death was accident
Relatives of a slain Jamaica Plain man angrily denounced a judge yesterday for giving the shooter a five-year jail sentence and chided prosecutors and police for treating his death as an accident, not murder.
Cheyenne Baez was 19 years old on April 8, 2007, when he was shot once in the eye from a .357 caliber revolver in a Washington Street apartment in Jamaica Plain.
As he pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of involuntary manslaughter, the acquaintance, Enrique Baez, admitted to Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margaret Hinkle that he had shot Cheyenne. Baez also pleaded guilty to illegal possession of two handguns with defaced serial numbers and possession of marijuana.
"I feel as though this case slipped through the cracks," Cheyenne Baez's mother, Asela Arias, said in a victim impact statement submitted to Hinkle. "It's as if a dog has died instead of a human being."
Speaking in Spanish translated by a relative outside the courtroom, Arias said that investigators have told her that Enrique Baez knew one gun was loaded and one was empty.
She said Enrique Baez deliberately chose the loaded gun.
But taking the stand before he was sentenced by Hinkle, Enrique Baez apologized, insisting that the fatal shooting was a mistake. The two men shared the same last name, but were not related.
"It's ridiculous to believe it wasn't an accident," he said. "Do you think that this is easy, to wake up in the morning and see his face every day and knowing what you did? It isn't, not at all."
He added: "Believe what you want. . . . I am the one who is dying inside."
Enrique Baez's view of the shooting as an accident was endorsed by the judge, Suffolk Assistant District Attorney John E. Powers III, and Baez's lawyer, Shannon McAuliffe.
According to Powers, both Baezes had been at a party in Roslindale earlier that day and had returned early in the morning to Enrique Baez's apartment. Two other teenagers were there, he said.
The two Baezes were arguing about 5:30 a.m. when Enrique Baez pulled out one of two revolvers he had, pointed it at the victim, and pulled the trigger.
Enrique Baez had no prior criminal record until charged with shooting his friend, officials said.
The investigation was thorough, according to Powers and Conley's office. "The inescapable conclusion is that this wasn't an innocent accident, but it wasn't a murder with malice," Powers said.
Hinkle sentenced Enrique Baez to 2 1/2 years in the Suffolk County House of Correction for the killing, followed by two years for the illegal gun charge and six months for the marijuana possession.
She said from the bench that it was her intention that Enrique Baez spend five years behind bars and that she based her sentence on the fact that Enrique Baez was 17 when the shooting took place and had no prior criminal record.
"It is a senseless tragedy, because it is the result of guns being in the hands of an irresponsible 17-year-old," said Hinkle, who addressed herself directly to Cheyenne Baez's family. "It is a senseless killing, but it is an unintentional killing. There is nothing in any of the evidence that I have seen that suggests anything to the contrary."
Outside the courtroom, the victim's mother said she believes that because her son was a Latino and not the son of a soldier, a doctor, or a politician that law enforcement did not pursue the case aggressively.
"I don't believe in justice," she said. "They gave him a vacation."
Arias, who had tears in her eyes, has been hospitalized for depression since the youngest of her five sons was killed.
Elaine Driscoll, Boston police spokeswoman, called Cheyenne Baez's death a "tragedy" that was fully investigated by detectives. 