A Gary man was sentenced Friday to 10 1/2 years for the April 25, 2019 shooting death of a 14-year-old boy.
Anthony Lamont Triplett Jr., 23, will serve a mix of eight years in the Indiana Department of Corrections, 1 year in Lake County Jail and 1.5 years on probation.
He was charged in the death of Arion Lilly, a young bystander who was shot in the back after leaving a barber shop, lawyers said. Triplett said he was fleeing another car shooting at him and didn’t mean to hit the boy.
“I hated you so much,” Lilly’s mother Cheryl Freeman told Triplett. The boy had just graduated from eighth-grade, she said. She knew she couldn’t live with hatred toward Triplett.
“That’s not going to bring him back,” she said. “It’s never going to be easy for me. Ever.”
Triplett pled guilty Oct. 15 to reckless homicide with a firearms enhancement and resisting law enforcement, according to court records.
After executing a search warrant, Gary officers found Triplett’s vehicle, a Walmart work vest allegedly belonging to him, four live 9mm rounds and one spent bullet casing consistent with those found in the vicinity of where Arion’s body was found, an affidavit stated.
Arion died after being struck by a stray bullet fired by one of the occupants of two vehicles involved in a chase, Gary police said. He was hit while walking about in the 1100 block of Rutledge Street. Officers found him on the ground near a vacant lot.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Veronica Gonzalez said Triplett was a “very dangerous individual” whose past charges for carrying a handgun without a license escalated into the 2019 shooting.
Police found 21 casings, she said.
Triplett thought it was the “Wild West” in Gary, Gonzalez said. She asked for a 13.5-year sentence.
His defense lawyer Darnail Lyles said the incident was the first time he was arrested for shooting a gun. Triplett was trying to defend himself “for blocks” across Gary against two other men chasing him.
The boy’s death was unfortunate and tragic, the lawyer said. It likely wouldn’t happen again, because it was unlikely someone would be chasing him again, he said.
He asked to give Triplett a chance to “get his life together”. Lyles asked to have Triplett enrolled in a treatment program, while the judge declined. According to a pre-sentence investigation report, Triplett only admitted drinking at 18 and didn’t show acute signs of addiction.
Triplett briefly apologized to Lilly’s family.
The boy’s death was “tragic” and “extremely painful” to his family, Judge Samuel Cappas said.
The events that unfolded was not “an effective way to defend yourself,” Cappas said. “It’s this kind of lifestyle and behavior that makes Gary the Wild West.”
Michelle L. Quinn contributed.
