Before she sent a Lincoln man to prison for his role in a 2021 shooting outside of a house party that killed a 31-year-old, Judge Susan Strong scolded the defendant for his recklessness that June morning.Â
Daqwan Hickey did not fire the round that struck Deontae Abron near 61st and Adams streets at about 4 a.m. June 12, 2021.
It was his brother, 27-year-old Shantrell Hickey, who fired the bullet that would lead to Abron's death two days later at an Omaha hospital.
But both men fired into a crowd of people along Adams Street that morning, Strong said at Daqwan Hickey's sentencing Thursday afternoon.Â
"It is only by chance that it was one of your brother's bullets that fatally wounded Mr. Abron and not yours," Strong said, before describing the 25-year-old's actions that morning as "about the most dangerous thing you could do."
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The judge's scolding came less than two months after Daqwan Hickey pleaded no contest to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and attempted terroristic threats for his role in the shooting. He also pleaded no contest to possession of a firearm for an unrelated incident in March 2021.
In court records, police described a large fight outside the party that preceded the shooting and two men firing shots, one into the air and the other, Shantrell Hickey, leveling the gun in the direction where Abron was standing with a group.
Daqwan Hickey was on parole at the time and was returned to the Nebraska State Penitentiary upon his arrest in July 2021. He is serving a 5- to-14-year sentence for attempted first-degree assault and third-degree assault for a shooting in Lincoln in 2017.
At his sentencing hearing Thursday, his attorney, Nancy Peterson, asked Strong to give her client credit for the 564 days he's spent in the State Penitentiary toward his sentence in the shooting.Â
In brief remarks to the court, Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Matt Mellor pointed to the Daqwan Hickey's "significant history" with gun violence and asked Strong to impose the longest prison sentence possible.Â
The judge sided firmly with the prosecutor, rejecting Peterson's request and telling Hickey he "should serve a similar sentence to that imposed on" his brother, who Strong sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison last month after he pleaded no contest to manslaughter.
But the nature of Daqwan Hickey's plea agreement made a similar sentence impossible, so Strong sentenced him to the maximum four years on each weapons charge and the maximum two years for attempted terroristic threats.Â
He will be eligible for parole after five years.