A Chicago man found guilty of involuntary manslaughter last month in the 2002 shooting of a girl in the lobby of a Chicago Housing Authority building was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.
Demetrius Williams, 32, will get credit for good time and the nearly 2 years he has spent in Cook County Jail. He could be released as early as 2007.
Rita Haskins, 10, was killed by a bullet at the Harold Ickes Homes in May that year as she held a 22-month-old toddler.
A jury in January rejected a first-degree murder charge, apparently accepting Williams’ defense that he fired a handgun into the ceiling to scatter a crowd and that the bullet ricocheted, hitting Rita.
Rita’s mother, Catriece Haskins, told Circuit Judge Dennis Dernbach that her other three daughters were scarred by the loss of their sister.
“It makes me sad to have to explain to them that Rita will never be coming back home to play with them,” she said. “I will never see her 8th-grade or high school graduation. I often think about how she would look for her prom.”
Williams apologized before he was sentenced, saying he did not mean to kill Rita.
Haskins said the apology would not completely heal her.
“I can forgive, but I cannot forget,” she said. “Not right now.”
