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Gang Member Gets Life For Killing Manatee County Boy

News Channel 8 photo by JIM FAHQUHAR

Manatee County SWAT team officers stand guard outside the sentencing Friday in Port Manatee.

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By FRANK GLUCK

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: September 13, 2008

  Orlando Valenzuela

Teenage gang member Orlando Valenzuela will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the shooting death of 9-year-old Stacy Williams III, who was hit by a stray bullet during a May 2007 gunbattle.

Judge Debra Johnes Riva handed down the maximum possible sentence Friday despite the pleas for leniency by Valenzuela's family.

She was also not swayed by the fact that Valenzuela was 15 years old when the shooting took place.
Valenzuela, who was shackled and wore blue jail-issued clothing, showed little emotion after the verdict was handed down.

He apologized shortly before sentencing. "I wish I had the power to get your son back," he told Stacy's family. "We're all going through some pain right now. I'm really sorry."

Riva rejected a Department of Correction recommendation that Valenzuela receive a 25-year sentence because of his age. Riva said Valenzuela's membership in a gang and his criminal history of "escalating violence" prompted her to give him a long term.

Valenzuela, 16, is a "lieutenant" in the SUR 13 street gang with a history of firearms possession and criminal battery, sheriff's detectives testified.

Valenzuela was convicted in mid-July of second-degree murder in the killing of Stacy Williams III.
The death triggered widespread community outrage and the formation of neighborhood groups aimed at fighting gang activity and cleaning up the central Manatee neighborhood where the shooting took place.

After sentencing, Stacy's family was quickly escorted out of the courtroom by more than a half-dozen heavily armed Manatee deputies.

Stacy's father, Stacy Williams Jr., said only, "I'm happy," as he left. Others with the Williams family repeated over and over, "Life for a life."

Because of security concerns, the sentencing was held in a small courtroom at the Manatee County jail, and family members were not allowed to linger.

Valenzuela's family left the sentencing hearing in tears. They refused to comment. Before sentencing, Valenzuela's mother, Blanco Betancourt, called her son's situation "unfair."

"Those who want my son to get life, I hope they have a conscience, or some day they'll be sorry," she told the court through an interpreter.

One woman leaving the courtroom with the Valenzuela family swung her arm at a newspaper photographer and shouted obscenities as she left.

Authorities say the shooting followed a dispute over a teenage girl earlier that day.

The disagreement had devolved into a street brawl that drew a crowd.

At some point, Valenzuela, who was in a vehicle with two others called to assist one side of the dispute, opened fire on the crowd, investigators said.

Stacy was riding by the fight scene on his bike when he stopped briefly to watch.

He began to flee once the shooting started, witnesses said, but was struck in the back of his neck by a bullet as he started to leave. He was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

At trial, Valenzuela's defense team argued that other people had shot during the fight, but others who were there testified that Valenzuela was the only shooter.

Because the shooting was gang-related, security was a high priority for Friday's sentencing.

Riva asked that it be held at the Manatee County jail, located at Port Manatee. There, nearly 30 deputies were stationed in and out of the courtroom.

Family members were placed in separate rooms and were escorted out of the jail complex separately.
Valenzuela's trial in downtown Bradenton was also marked by a strong police presence, including a SWAT vehicle that shuttled him to and from trial.

Two police snipers were positioned on nearby buildings to protect people involved in the trial.

Early on during his trial, three teenagers were arrested after authorities said they tried to intimidate prosecution witnesses in the hall outside the courtroom.

Despite all the high drama and talk of gangs, defense attorney Franklin Roberts tried to argue that Valenzuela is essentially just a child with very poor judgment. Despite the tragedy of the shooting, Roberts said, a child should not receive a life sentence.

"There aren't many things I can think of that would be worse than losing a child," Roberts told Riva, adding: "Let's not pretend a 15-year-old is a man. He is not a man."

Neither was Stacy, the family told Riva.

"I don't feel sorry for him," said Barbara Siler Battie, Stacy's grandmother. "Because his parents can still see him."

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