Staff photo / Ed Runyan Shamara Green tells Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum how bad she feels about shooting a 13-year-old girl to death in May on the South Side. At left is her attorney, Mark Lavelle. Krichbaum on Wednesday sentenced Green to seven to nine years in prison on involuntary manslaughter with a gun specification.

YOUNGSTOWN — Jasmine Levy, mother of 13-year-old London Jones, who died after being hit by a stray bullet a little after midnight May 19 on the South Side, said Shamara Green, 30, who killed London, had been her friend for more than 10 years.

Green was sentenced to seven to nine years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty earlier to involuntary manslaughter and a gun specification in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Levy told The Vindicator the house on Carroll Avenue on the South Side where London died is London’s grandfather’s house, “so everybody is used to that being like a family house.” An assistant prosecutor said the best way to describe the reason the people were there was for a “small gathering.”

Police said alcohol containers were found near the shooting scene.

Levy said London was killed after a dispute involving Green and someone else, but Levy thought the argument was over at the time the shot hit London.

“I think Shamar didn’t know my kids were coming out to get in the car,” Levy said. “I went and got my kids. I thought the fight was over. Shamar was supposed to take us home. My kids was getting in the car. They weren’t just ‘outside,'” Levy said.

“I broke the fight up and said ‘It’s over, Y’all. We don’t need to do this. We are all supposed to be family.’ I was thinking it was over. Shamar was getting in the car. I was going to get my kids, so we could all get in the car and leave,” Levy said.

“London was opening Shamar’s back door when she got shot. She was like going in, opening the door,” Levy said.

Levy said Green has been in some fights, but she had never known Green to fire a gun before, “so I just wish she would not have thought about firing a gun that night.”

When asked if Green was being attacked by someone, Levy said, “I don’t know what made her want to pull out a gun just on this fight.” She added later, “it shouldn’t have happened. I feel like she wasn’t thinking and wasn’t in her right state of mind. Alcohol took part. I don’t know how to feel because Shamar, we have been drinking for a long time. This was not her first drink.”

Levy said she thinks she may be able to forgive Green some day.

“I do want to get at peace with her, get at peace with the situation,” Levy said.

She said she realizes her family and Shamar both “took a loss.” The difference is Green “gets to come home. Mine don’t. I won’t get to see mine no more.”

During the hearing, Levy said her daughter’s death “left us empty,” and her family’s hearts “are filled with loneliness, disbelief and anger. To know my baby was to love her. Her smile would brighten up a room.”

London was a sixth-grade student at E.J. Blott School in Liberty, according to her obituary.

Green apologized during the hearing, becoming emotional, and saying she felt like London was “one of my own kids. I hurt so much.” She said she sees Levy’s children “every day” and picks them up from school “as if they were my own.”

At the end of Green’s remarks, she turned toward Levy and her family and said crying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Y’all.”

Mike Rich, assistant county prosecutor, said the case involved Green “aimlessly shooting that night for what reason I don’t know, to settle a beef, I guess, with some individual and in turn struck and killed” London.

In response to a question from the judge, Rich said it is his understanding that Green did not fire the gun in response to anyone else firing at her.

In sentencing Green, Krichbaum said Green needs to “understand the consequences of your actions.” He said a person can say he didn’t mean to hurt someone, but when a person shoots a gun and someone is injured, “you can’t call that an accident. It’s an intentional act because you know what a gun is capable of doing.”

The judge said from reading the presentence investigation of Green’s criminal history and background, he agrees with Green’s attorney, Mark Lavelle, when Lavelle said Green is not an “evil person, but you have to be punished for the consequences of your conduct.”

Police said they found eight spent bullet shell casings on the street. The girl was found outside of the rear passenger door of a Jeep Laredo parked at the curb.

Green also shot a man in the foot during the incident, police said. She was indicted on a charge of felonious assault for that shooting, but that was among the charges that were dismissed in exchange for Green’s guilty plea last month.

London’s family was in agreement with the plea agreement, according to court documents. Prosecutors have agreed not to oppose judicial release for Green “at the appropriate time.”

Judicial release is an early release from prison approved by the sentencing judge.

erunyan@vindy.com