2 sentenced, 1 dead after a shootout that happened outside a Lakewood barbershop
A shootout outside a Lakewood barbershop in 2017 that left one man dead resulted in two others being sentenced to prison time.
Jesse Hinton, 43, and his cousin, Charles McKee, ambushed another man outside the shop.
Hinton was killed when that man, Cavell Reed, returned fire in self-defense.
Reed got 5 years, 7 months in prison Friday from Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff.
The 33-year-old had previously pleaded guilty to unlawful gun possession. Prior felonies made it illegal for him to have the gun that day.
“I regret that he was the target of a homicide attempt,” the judge said as he handed down the sentence. “That’s awful.”
McKee, 47, got 20 years in prison last year for his role in the shootout.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stanley Rumbaugh sentenced McKee after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, attempted first-degree assault, drive-by shooting and unlawful gun possession.
Court records say the ambush was in retaliation for a time that Hinton was shot in the back in 2015. That case was investigated by police, but court records say that Hinton was not cooperative, and no charges were filed.
Hinton and McKee waited in a van outside the barbershop May 2, 2017 near Steilacoom Boulevard Southwest and South Tacoma Way, and they started shooting at Reed when they saw him walking to his car.
McKee’s sentencing memorandum says that he pleaded guilty to “helping his cousin shoot at someone who had shot him 18 months prior.” The memo says that McKee fired one bullet and that Hinton and Reed emptied their guns.
McKee “has, in many ways, tried to do the right thing for 20 years,” the memo reads. “For 30 seconds he strayed.”
