A Lucas County Common Pleas judge adhered Wednesday to the 20-year prison term prosecutors had negotiated with a man who shot a couple outside a West Toledo nightclub last year, although the mother of a victim who died asked for more.
“It is my prayer that the defendant be given no mercy, the same measure he gave my son,” Ernestine Jones, the mother of Levell Saunders, told the court regarding the sentencing of Alton Reid, Jr., 31.
“No amount of time will bring my son back, but it does help me begin the healing process,” she said after requesting a maximum term.
Before imposing the negotiated sentence of 20 to 25 years encompassing three charges from the case, Judge Linda Jennings called Reid “a danger to this community,” noting that it was his second shooting case to come before her in as many years.
Reid was out on bond for the earlier shooting, in which a woman was wounded, when he shot a couple who were inside a car outside the club in the 3800 block of Upton Avenue, near Barrows Street, on April 16, 2023. Mr. Saunders, 34, was killed, while Taneta Waterford, 32, was wounded.