A man who fatally killed another man in front of the central library of San Diego was sentenced on Friday to 21 years in state prison.
Kenneth Chaney, 23, pleaded guilty to charges of voluntary homicide and assault with a semi-automatic firearm for May 23, 2023, the death of Trey Walker, 20, who was shot in the neck in the courtyard outside the library.
Prosecutors allege that the deadly shooting at noon was born from a dispute on a stolen backpack.
During a preliminary hearing held last year, which concluded by Chaney to respond to murder and tried accusations of murder, the man whose backpack was stolen said that his bag had been torn off as he commanded food in a Taco store with two houses in the library.
The owner of the backpack, who identified himself as Walker’s friend, said that he had continued after the man he thought was the thief, finally turning him outside a parking lot.
Surveillance images played in court showed a man wearing a pink ski mask – who, the prosecutors, alleys that it is Chaney – who takes a gun and the tips towards the owner of the backpack. The two men spoke for a few moments, and it was revealed that the shooter’s partner had taken the bag, said the owner of the backpack.
They then agreed to go to the library to see if the alleged backpack thief was there and recover the bag, he said.
During their stay at the library, they met a group of people including Walker, Walker’s girlfriend and a few other men. Some people in the group asked if the man wearing the ski mask took the backpack, according to the testimony.
The owner of the backpack said that Walker approached the man in the ski mask, who had a few steps away, released a pistol and opened fire.
After shooting on Walker, the shooter then opened fire on the other in the group, hitting one of the men.
A camera positioned outside the neighboring icon building captured images of the shooter who was heading west in rue K. The shooter is seen removed his ski mask and throw it on the ground.
A mobile phone also abandoned his pocket as he flees the scene. San Diego’s police detective Conner Brown said that after searches the phone, the investigators discovered that it belonged to Chaney. Brown testified that Chaney had also been captured on other cameras in the city center by removing and rejecting the clothes he wore at the time of the shooting.
Chaney was arrested two days after the City Heights shooting, according to San Diego police.
Walker left many family members, including a little girl who was 10 months old when she died.
During the condemnation hearing of Chaney, Walker’s mother Shelly Jamison said that her son was “compassionate and sweet” and “the father of a beautiful little girl whom he will have never seen growing”.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
