A judge Tuesday sent a Lincoln teenager to prison for driving the alleged shooter away from a killing in the College View neighborhood last March then lying about it.
Americle Fuqua, 18, stood up first and apologized to the community and the family of Edgar Union Jr., the man who died at the scene March 26.
What happened was wrong, she said, but it wasn't her intention to drive them to a homicide that day.
"I truly didn't know that was going to go down," Fuqua said.
She also disputed she was part of a gang or that what happened was gang-related. But Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret didn't buy it.
"The court believes you are a gang member or at least were at the time," Maret said.
The judge said Fuqua told police a number of times that she and others present that day were involved in gangs.
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On March 26, just before 2 p.m., Lincoln police got a call about two large groups having an altercation and got there to find Union dead of a single gunshot.
At the plea hearing, Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Dan Packard alleged that Natavian Morton, a longtime friend of Fuqua's, had pointed a gun in the direction of a house and fired once, hitting and killing Union, 22, then getting away in a car driven by Fuqua.
Morton is charged with second-degree murder.
On Tuesday, Packard said maybe Fuqua didn't know someone in the car was bringing a gun to the fight, but, "It's what she did afterward that makes it a crime."
Defense attorney Eddy Rodell said Fuqua didn't know anyone in her car had shot the gun until after she was driving away. Unfortunately, he said, she is pretty easily influenced and just did what she was told to do.
Rodell argued for probation, saying her big mistake was not coming clean from the get-go. But, he said, Fuqua, a 17-year-old high school senior when this happened, has worked to get credits toward graduation since then and had been working two jobs before the shooting.
Maret said it was clear to her Fuqua had the aptitude to succeed and knew how to put on a "good face for the people who need to believe that you're a good person and going to succeed."
"But on the other hand, you have one foot in this world and in this culture of gang activity and violence," the judge said.
Maret said even after being confronted by police with the truth, Fuqua lied about what happened, allowing the shooter to escape all the way to Mississippi.
Three people in the courtroom stormed out, clearly upset, as Maret made clear she was sending the 18-year-old to prison. Other supporters who stayed quietly wiped away tears.
While Fuqua only had a truancy case before this, the judge said anything less than incarceration would promote disrespect for the law, and she gave Fuqua two years, the most she could, on the charge, plus a year of post-release supervision.
With credit for the time she's served already, Fuqua will have to serve about six months more behind bars.
Fuqua stood as deputies handcuffed her to take her out of the courtroom, and told around 20 supporters, still in the courtroom, that she was going to be OK and that she loved them.