A Chicago man convicted of shooting to death an 9-year-old girl and wounding her cousin sentenced Tuesday to 75 years in prison.
Steshawn Brisco gave a thumbs-up as he was being led away after being sentenced by Cook County Circuit Judge Stanley Sacks. The judge said that with the lengthy sentence, the 20-year-old Brisco will never again walk Chicago's streets.
"I’ll be back," Brisco muttered after Sacks sentenced him.
Tanaja Stokes and 7-year-old Ariana Jones were jumping rope on Aug. 10, 2010 when Brisco and co-defendant Marcus Cocroft rode up on their bicycles and began shooting at a group of teens.
Although Brisco and Cocroft didn’t intend to harm the girls as they fired bullets from their bikes, they later bragged about their actions as if they’d "won an Academy Award" and brushed off concerns that they may have hurt children, Sacks said.
"I don’t care. We let the whole 40-clip go," Brisco allegedly said, according to court testimony last fall.
"They didn’t care who got hit," Sacks said Tuesday, lambasting the gunmen for possessing a "callous indifference to human life."
Stokes died in the shooting. Jones suffered a fractured skull and had bullet fragments in her head, her mother said.
Sachs noted Brisco and Cocroft boosted about the shooting, pointing out witnesses testified the pair showed no concern about the girls.
Cocroft was sentenced in November to 55 years in prison.
