Relatives of slain Jamaica Plain man denounce 5-year sentence for shooter

(Globe file photo)

Cheyenne Baez, 19, was killed April 8, 2007.

By John R. Ellement, Globe staff

Over the objections of the victim's family, a Suffolk Superior Court judge today sentenced an 18-year-old Jamaica Plain man to five years in prison for using an unlicensed handgun to shoot another man in the eye, killing him.

Enrique Baez admitted to Judge Margaret Hinkle that he shot and killed 19-year-old Cheyenne Baez shortly after 5 a.m. in his Washington Street apartment on April 8, 2007. The men were not related.

Baez insisted in court that it was an accidental shooting, not a murder, and Judge Margaret M. Hinkle, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office and Baez's attorney, Shannon McAuliffe, all agreed. Baez had two handguns in his bedroom, both .357-calibers that looked similar, according to prosecutors. One was loaded; the other empty.

"It is senseless tragedy because it is the result of guns being in the hands of an irresponsible'' teenager, said Hinkle, who addressed Cheyenne Baez's family directly. "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.''

Speaking to Cheyenne's Baez's family, Enrique Baez apologized, but also insisted he was not a murderer. "I think it's crazy for some of you to believe it wasn't an accident,'' he said.

But Cheyenne Baez's family, including his mother, believe that because Cheyenne was a Latino who came from a family without political connections or a famous relative, prosecutors did not aggressively investigate the case. They said Cheyenne was no friend of the man who killed him and that they believe he deliberately chose to use the loaded gun.

Cheyenne Baez family also contended that because the killer will spend no more than five years behind bars it will send a signal to that Suffolk County is soft on gun crime.

"I don't believe in justice,'' Baez's mother, Asela Arias, said in Spanish through a relative. She has been hospitalized for treatment of depression since Cheyenne, the youngest of her five sons, was killed. "They gave him a vacation.''

Baez pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, and possession of marijuana. Hinkle sentenced him to 2 1/2 years in Suffolk County House of Correction for the killing, followed by two years for the illegal gun charge and six months for the marijuana possession.

Jake Wark, a Conley spokesman, said the investigation confirmed Enrique Baez's claim of an accidental death. He also said prosecutors and Boston police properly investigated the shooting and were not influenced by the victim's ethnicity or social status.

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