A teen convicted in May of second-degree murder for the 2007 fatal shooting of another teen in San Francisco’s Metreon complex was sentenced today to 49 years to life in prison, prosecutors said.
Christopher Canon was 15 when he shot 18-year-old Michael Price Jr., of Oakland, at the Metreon at Fourth and Mission streets on Nov. 11, 2007. He was arrested nearby after the shooting and was charged as an adult.
Canon, who is now 19, was upset that Price wasn’t moving quickly enough down an escalator outside a video arcade at the complex, prosecutors said.
Canon’s attorney, David Simerly, had argued Price was the attacker and that Canon shot him in self-defense.
A mistrial was declared in the case last November when a San Francisco Superior Court jury deadlocked on whether Canon should be convicted of first- or second-degree murder.
Prosecutors retried the case with a new jury, which declined to convict Canon of first-degree murder, but found him guilty on May 31 of second-degree murder with an enhancement for the use of a firearm.
Following the verdict, Simerly criticized the stiff sentencing guidelines Canon was facing in the case.
“It’s nauseating that we have a country that subjects a 15-year-old to that,” he said. “They do not perceive situations the way adults do.”
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
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