Two young men convicted in the murder of Patterson High honor student Christopher Clarke were sent away to prison Thursday — but Clarke’s family wasn’t in court to see them hauled away.
“They are too devastated to come,” Assistant State’s Attorney Richard Gibson said of Clarke’s family.
“It’s too hard for them to deal with. They can’t bring themselves to see the people involved. … They lost their son. They loved him.”
In Baltimore Circuit Court on Thursday, Jerome Whitaker, 24, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder; and Brandon Green, 23, was sentenced to five years for accessory after the fact to murder.
Judge John Themelis ordered the first five years of Whitaker’s sentence to be served without the possibility of parole, because he also was convicted of using a handgun in the commission of a crime.
Clarke was 18 on March 13, 2007, when he was struck by a stray bullet during a gun battle in Northeast Baltimore’s Belair-Edison neighborhood.
A senior who was a lacrosse player at Patterson, Clarke had hoped to join the police department after graduating.
“He was a good kid,” Gibson said. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The day Clarke was killed, gunfire erupted in the 3100 block of Cliftmont Avenue – and the teen was caught in the crossfire, prosecutors said.
Whitaker appeared from an alley and fired a handgun at Antonio Santifer, 20, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of his residence, according to prosecutors.
Santifer returned fire and Clarke, an innocent bystander, was struck. Santifer also was shot, prosecutors said.
Police recovered DNA evidence at the scene that was linked to Whitaker and Green.
Clarke, who was shot in the torso, died later that day at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Santifer pleaded guilty this past week to possessing a firearm and was sentenced to three years in prison.
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