Noah Smith is dead. Killed at 16 on a Bunnell street in January 2022. He was gunned down by a bullet never intended for him, fired by his close friend, the result of a two-days-old feud between five young men, four of whom who escalated moronic taunting on social media into the brainless, braggart vigilantism of a shootout on a busy street–“a stupid, senseless act,” as Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols described it today.
The four were arrested, though not before one of them killed another 16 year old months later, Keymarion Hall.
Stephen Monroe, now 26, is serving life in prison.
Devandre Williams, 21, implicated in both murders, is serving 55 years.
Terrell Sampson, 21, is serving 12 years.
The question today was what kind of sentence Nichols would pronounce against Tyrese Patterson, 23.
It was Patterson, who once called Noah his best friend, who emptied a clip in that shootout and whose bullet pierced Noah’s flank and his aorta, causing him to bleed to death. Patterson had pleaded to a range of 25 to 50 years, leaving it to Nichols to decide where to fall. His plea was to second degree murder, diminishing the original first-degree charge.
Nichols, almost despairing of the task, this afternoon sentenced him to 30 years.
The sentence closed one of the grimmest chapters in Bunnell’s and Flagler County’s recent history of violence fused to nothing more than posturing and theatrics pegged to fears of looking “like an oddball,” as Patterson himself said today. His attorney, Tim Pribisco, had asked him why he’d done that video with Monroe on Instagram Live, repeatedly taunting Sampson’s brother “Ed Boy” as a coward and brandishing a gun to the camera the afternoon before the shooting.
It was about “being young and don’t know better, trying to look cool in front of friends,” Patterson said. “Trying to look good in front of everybody. Trying not to be an oddball.”
Trying not to be an oddball caused him hours later to cruise Bunnell with Monroe and Williams, escalating the provocation against Ed “Boy” Sampson, though it was Ed Boy’s brother, Terrell Sampson, they ran into, and Terrell who decided to shoot first. Moments later, the four young men were scurrying as Noah bled to death on the pavement.
Then the lies and attempts to cover it up followed as the detectives of the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office pursued a momentous investigation that netted the four arrests and convictions, with Assistant State Attorney Mark Johnson prosecuting the cases, along with Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis. Monroe alone took a chance with a trial, despite Nichols imploring him to think hard about taking a plea. Monroe alone lost before a jury, as anyone following the case would have predicted he would, as the judge implied he would, so Monroe alone is spending the rest of his life in prison.
But the judge today, punctuating the end of the cases, described them all as lives lost, and many more lives lost beyond those men, and of course Noah.
“What’s so frustrating about this case is that so many young men–I’ve got young men killing young men,” the judge said. “Noah is gone. Stephen Monroe is spending the rest of his life in prison. Devandre Williams is spending 55 years in prison. Terrell Sampson is spending more than a decade in prison. All of this destruction, all of these young men’s lives.”
She quoted the words of a senior judge and friend: “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.”
“When I look at all of these young men who were hanging out together, fighting each other, threatening each other, selling drugs, that’s what comes to mind. No good comes from hanging out with people who would pull you down,” the judge said. “There’s just a ripple effect. The parents of all these young men, the children of these young men, because some of them have young children, aunties, cousins. It affects so many people. This one stupid, senseless act has brought down so many people.”
Pribisco, in a cogent plea for Patterson, argued a two-pronged defense: that evidence never presented against his client meant that the state had left numerous holes in its claims against him, that Patterson had cooperated all along, that he’d never intended to go to Bunnell to “chase” after mayhem, and that Sampson, who opened fire–as opposed to Patterson, who he said fired in self-defense–is serving only 12 years.
But Sampson’s bullet did not kill Noah, the judge said. Patterson’s did.
Pribisco’s second prong relied on Patterson himself showing remorse, regret, contrition–those defendants’ displays that, by the time they are delivered to the court, usually with written statements, inevitably seem as contrived as they are late, in this case a life too late.
Nevertheless Patterson’s words did not sound insincere, and seemed to echo what the judge had said earlier, when she was edging Pribisco away from re-arguing the case and toward showing Patterson’s human side: “I don’t see any of the young men involved in this as evil,” she said. “I truly do not. I see a lot of incredible bad judgment. The little bit I know about Mr. Patterson, I don’t think he intended the result of what happened.”
Patterson first answered his attorney’s questions (Johnson did not ask him any), and after the attorneys made their arguments, he read a statement.
“First and foremost, I would like to offer my deepest apologies to Noah’s family. There’s not a moment that passes I don’t regret what happened,” he said. Members of his family were in the gallery. So were members of Noah’s. “If I could go back in time to right my wrongs I wouldn’t hesitate. I hope that the family could forgive me for getting caught in the unfortunate event that led me to losing a close friend. I understand that the family can’t forgive me, because I haven’t forgave myself. The tragedy of losing a young one to gun violence is a feeling I know too well. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
By then Johnson had argued against Pribisco’s claim that Patterson had been truthful or that he’d acted in self-defense, recalling the evidence that showed that the trip in the car could have driven away after Sampson shot at them–and did, only to circle the block and return to open fire instead of calling the police. That was when Patterson emptied his gun clip, and when Noah got shot.
The 30-year sentence includes a minimum mandatory 25-year term, which means that Patterson will have to serve those 25 years day for day, without the possibility of gain time for good behavior. Gain times will apply to the five remaining years, which he can reduce to four years and three months. He was also sentenced to 15 years for a charge of weapon possession by a felon, though those years will be served concurrently to the 30.
He does have 1,051 days’ credit for time already served since his incarceration at the Flagler County jail since May 13, 2022. That will reduce his first 25 years by almost three years. In effect, if he manages to get all gain time he’s entitled to, he will serve 26 years and five months before his release on the eve of his 50th birthday.
