‘Fish in a barrel’: Man with AK-47 blasted car full of women after wedding in 2016
A Raytown man who in 2016 used two guns, including an assault-style rifle, to shoot up a disabled car with four women inside was sentenced Tuesday to 26 years in prison.
The shooting killed a mother of three and severely injured the other three women who had just left a wedding.
Deandre Jackson, 27, pleaded guilty in June to 10 crimes, including second-degree murder, in the killing of 25-year-old MarYanna Pennington, who went by the nickname “Pretty.”
At Jackson’s sentencing hearing Tuesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, Pennington’s sister, Marsheanna Clark, was carried to the witness stand to make a statement.
Clark has used a wheelchair since after the shooting, which left her with a spinal injury and paralysis from the chest down.
She spoke to Jackson, who fired the shots Nov. 12, 2016.
“Her children miss her,” Clark said. “What’s worse than that?”
Pennington left behind three kids, including the child of Jackson’s twin brother, Mark Jackson, who was fatally shot in November 2013.
Clark asked Jackson: “Why didn’t you think about your niece?”
Jackson apologized for carrying out the shooting and asked for forgiveness. His defense attorney, Daniel Ross, asked the judge to sentence Jackson to no more than 16 years, saying he had accepted responsibility.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Daniel Nelson called on the judge to send a message to potential shooters that gun violence would not be tolerated in Kansas City. Prosecutors asked for Jackson to be sentenced to 28 years.
At the crime scene, detectives recovered 34 shell casings from Jackson’s guns — a .45 handgun and an AK-47 style .223 assault rifle.
Pennington, still in the dress she wore to the wedding before the shooting, was found dead with 10 gunshot wounds.
“It looked like a war scene, judge,” Nelson said.
Before imposing the sentence of 26 years, Jackson County Judge John Torrence said the women, trapped inside the broken-down car, were helpless when Jackson fired. He called the shooting cruel and senseless.
“They’re fish in a barrel,” Torrence said of the women.
The judge also said federal and Missouri laws have encouraged the possession and use of firearms.
Essentially anyone, Torrence said, can walk around with a concealed weapon. With those guns, a fight often “ends up with shell casings.”
Dozens of people packed the courtroom. About 15 stood throughout the hearing. So many people filed in from the victims’ and Jackson’s families that the doors were propped open to keep the room cool.
Some of Pettington’s loved ones said they were unhappy with the sentence and believed he should have received life. Family friend Monica Roberts, founder of Healing Pathway Victim Service Agency, said Pennington’s children “have a life sentence.”
In a city with 88 homicides so far this year, Roberts said, sentences like this don’t deter violence.
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‘Don’t shoot my sister!’
After Mark Jackson’s killing, Pennington at times brought her daughter to his family functions.
But in 2016, some of Jackson’s family members said Pennington should not be invited to his annual memorial, prosecutors said.
The day before her death, Pennington was involved in a fight with Deandre Jackson’s girlfriend. The altercation caused the girlfriend’s car, carrying her 5-year-old niece, to crash, prosecutors said. It made Jackson and his family upset with Pennington.
The next day, Pennington, Clark and two of their friends went to a family wedding at Hillcrest Country Club in south Kansas City. Pennington danced and had a good time, friends testified.
Jackson’s girlfriend and her friends repeatedly messaged Pennington, trying to get her to fight again, according to court documents filed by prosecutors. The girlfriend texted Pennington to meet her to fight at Mersington Ave and East 24th Street, prosecutors said.
After the wedding, Pennington planned to drive Clark to work at Walmart. Pennington drove by the general area where the girlfriend wanted to fight to see how many people were there, prosecutors said. Pennington’s two friends were in the back seat.
But two blocks away, Pennington’s car became disabled at East 21st Street and Cleveland Ave, near Mount Saint Mary’s Cemetery.
Now stranded, the women, who were all 25 or 26 at the time, called friends and family asking for them to quickly come get them. They crouched down to not be seen.
But Jackson, his girlfriend and others pulled up in their vehicles and surrounded Pennington’s car, blocking them in, according to prosecutors. Jackson walked up and knocked on the window, telling Pennington get out.
Clark, Pennington’s sister, eventually got out. She was holding a 9mm handgun, something she had on her daily for her own protection, she said.
“What you all on?” Clark asked, according to witnesses.
Jackson responded: “I have one of those, too.”
Then the gunfire erupted.
Jackson chased Clark around the car, prosecutors said. Pennington, still inside, shouted: “Don’t shoot my sister!”
Jackson shot Clark multiple times with a handgun, police said. There was a pause, and the women inside did not hear gunshots for up to a minute, according to prosecutors.
They thought it was over.
But then they saw Jackson, who prosecutors said had switched weapons and returned with an assault-style rifle.
Jackson “executed Pennington at point-blank range” as she tried to shield herself, prosecutors wrote in court documents. Her hands were covered in powder and burns, police said.
He then opened fire on the car, spraying bullets as he walked around the unusable vehicle, according to prosecutors. The car’s windows exploded.
The women, still sitting inside, were riddled with bullets.
When police arrived, they found three women in critical condition and Pennington dead. The car’s ignition was still on.
Crime scene technicians later determined the car was shot from multiple angles. The shell casings, prosecutors said, were scattered around the car in a 360-degree arc.
Five hours later, Jackson went online and clicked on a local television news story, prosecutors said. The headline: “One person killed in quadruple shooting.”
Each eyewitness told detectives they only saw Jackson shoot, according to court documents.
Jackson was previously convicted of drug charges and endangering the welfare of a child. He was not allowed to legally carry a gun.
In a statement on Twitter, Mayor Quinton Lucas on Monday said records in the case showed some of the city’s challenges. He wrote: “We won’t stop fighting a culture of gun violence in our city to avoid tragedies like those we have seen far too often this summer.”
On Tuesday the survivors of the shooting said they had undergone surgery and saw a counselor. They wake up with nightmares.
Myesha Miller, 27, was shot seven times and suffered disfigurement to her arm, leaving it largely unusable. One of her children thought her arm had been attacked by a dog.
Another, Chloe Donald, was shot three times and suffered back and abdominal injuries.
Asked how the shooting affected her, Donald said: “In every way.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2019 at 6:38 PM.
