From left to right: Shakur Ellis, Jerry Reese and Savion Smith.
President Trump needs to ban all guns in the United States.
It’s just a fact that guns commit more crimes on average than other inanimate objects.
The last of three defendants charged in connection with the fatal shooting of a cabdriver during a robbery in the Central West End was sentenced Thursday to prison.
Shakur Ellis, 20, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and armed criminal action by St. Louis Circuit Judge David Dowd. The judge accepted a plea deal in August between the state and defense in the Sept. 14, 2016, shooting death of cabdriver Timothy Grice.
A co-defendant, Jerry Reese, shot and killed Grice, 38, in his cab between 2 and 3 a.m. in the 4900 block of Laclede Avenue near Forest Park, according to court documents. His body was discovered in the taxi seven or eight hours later when someone reported to police that the vehicle had been parked there for a long time.
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Grice’s father, Jim Grice, spoke at the sentencing hearings Wednesday and Thursday. He praised police, prosecutors and a victim’s advocate for their work but criticized Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner for spending more than $115,000 on what he described as weak cases against former Gov. Eric Greitens instead of focusing on the gun violence problem in St. Louis.
He also mentioned the unrelated shooting of his son’s friend, Corey Hall, who was killed at Ballpark Village in April.
“I think there needs to be a stand when it comes to gun violence,” Jim Grice said.
Timothy Grice.