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This time, 27 years in prison for a plea of guilty to manslaughter for a man who has seen little else in his adult life but jail cells and convictions for drugs and violence.
Keith Keener committed a crime of shooting into a crowd of people outside a Chester nightclub. It is a miracle that others were not killed as Keener grabbed a gun he had hidden and just started shooting into a wall of people.
“By taking a gun to the club and hiding the gun, that tells me this was premeditated, and you planned to use that gun,” Goldsmith told Keener.
Goldsmith then paused and gave the reason for carrying a gun to a nightclub: “To shoot somebody.”
Keener, 24, a felon since 18 who was kicked out of school at 15, shot Antonio “Jack” Price, 24, twice outside the Studio 72 nightclub.
“In the course of an hour in Chester County, it doesn’t get any worse than this,” prosecutor Doug Barfield said in court Monday about that awful night and early morning on Sept. 20, 2010.
The melee started, Barfield said, with arguments between two groups of purportedly tough young guys inside the Studio 72 nightclub after a motorcycle and car show. They had allegedly sneaked guns into the nightclub using ladies who weren’t searched as thoroughly.
Real tough guys – asking girls to carry iron for them.
People began arguing and fighting inside. Many, including Keener, were tossed out, and three people were shot. The mayhem then moved outside, where Keener grabbed the gun he brought to a place where people dance and laugh and fired into a crowd.
Minutes later, another man was killed by bullets outside the hospital emergency room where the victims of the first shooting had been taken.
The victim’s sister, Danielle Jackson, was just as plain-spoken as the prosecutor, saying: “As a citizen of this county, I don’t feel safe... For someone to pick up a gun and kill somebody, then for someone to go to the hospital and kill, murder, it is unheard of.”
It is heard of in Chester, though.
Keener faced a murder charge, but accepted a plea deal down to manslaughter. Murder carries 30 years to life. Manslaughter carries up to 30 years.
Even Keener’s lawyer, 6th Circuit Chief Public Defender Mike Lifsey, said in court that “multiple guns” in the hands of so many in Chester is a societal crisis.
Family claimed Keener – out at 2 a.m. with a gun after past convictions for drugs and mayhem – was in the wrong place at the wrong time and fell in with the wrong crowd.
Barfield, the prosecutor, was having none of that.
“Keener is the wrong crowd,” said Barfield told the judge.
Chester County Sheriff Richard Smith argued that Keener should get the full 30 years, saying that “10 or 15 people” could have been shot by Keener in that parking lot on the J.A. Cochran Bypass.
The gunfire happened next to a 24-hour grocery store and as many as 150 people were nearby after spilling out of the nightclub where off-duty sheriff’s deputies were working because of regular trouble.
The club was later evicted – but after the blood from gunshots ran inside and outside the front door. The violence from that night is “all related,” Smith said in court.
“The citizens of Chester County shouldn’t have to worry about Keener out in the street, shooting somebody in a parking lot,” Smith said.
CHESTER — The judge sat there
on the bench and admitted plainly, “I have no answer” to the guns and
violence he sees each day – and the seemingly endless line of young men
who appear in his courtroom after using guns and violence.
Circuit Court Judge Brooks Goldsmith did have one answer that matters most, though, for gun-toting cowards – prison.This time, 27 years in prison for a plea of guilty to manslaughter for a man who has seen little else in his adult life but jail cells and convictions for drugs and violence.
Keith Keener committed a crime of shooting into a crowd of people outside a Chester nightclub. It is a miracle that others were not killed as Keener grabbed a gun he had hidden and just started shooting into a wall of people.
“By taking a gun to the club and hiding the gun, that tells me this was premeditated, and you planned to use that gun,” Goldsmith told Keener.
Goldsmith then paused and gave the reason for carrying a gun to a nightclub: “To shoot somebody.”
Keener, 24, a felon since 18 who was kicked out of school at 15, shot Antonio “Jack” Price, 24, twice outside the Studio 72 nightclub.
“In the course of an hour in Chester County, it doesn’t get any worse than this,” prosecutor Doug Barfield said in court Monday about that awful night and early morning on Sept. 20, 2010.
The melee started, Barfield said, with arguments between two groups of purportedly tough young guys inside the Studio 72 nightclub after a motorcycle and car show. They had allegedly sneaked guns into the nightclub using ladies who weren’t searched as thoroughly.
Real tough guys – asking girls to carry iron for them.
People began arguing and fighting inside. Many, including Keener, were tossed out, and three people were shot. The mayhem then moved outside, where Keener grabbed the gun he brought to a place where people dance and laugh and fired into a crowd.
Minutes later, another man was killed by bullets outside the hospital emergency room where the victims of the first shooting had been taken.
The victim’s sister, Danielle Jackson, was just as plain-spoken as the prosecutor, saying: “As a citizen of this county, I don’t feel safe... For someone to pick up a gun and kill somebody, then for someone to go to the hospital and kill, murder, it is unheard of.”
It is heard of in Chester, though.
Keener faced a murder charge, but accepted a plea deal down to manslaughter. Murder carries 30 years to life. Manslaughter carries up to 30 years.
Even Keener’s lawyer, 6th Circuit Chief Public Defender Mike Lifsey, said in court that “multiple guns” in the hands of so many in Chester is a societal crisis.
Family claimed Keener – out at 2 a.m. with a gun after past convictions for drugs and mayhem – was in the wrong place at the wrong time and fell in with the wrong crowd.
Barfield, the prosecutor, was having none of that.
“Keener is the wrong crowd,” said Barfield told the judge.
Chester County Sheriff Richard Smith argued that Keener should get the full 30 years, saying that “10 or 15 people” could have been shot by Keener in that parking lot on the J.A. Cochran Bypass.
The gunfire happened next to a 24-hour grocery store and as many as 150 people were nearby after spilling out of the nightclub where off-duty sheriff’s deputies were working because of regular trouble.
The club was later evicted – but after the blood from gunshots ran inside and outside the front door. The violence from that night is “all related,” Smith said in court.
“The citizens of Chester County shouldn’t have to worry about Keener out in the street, shooting somebody in a parking lot,” Smith said.
