A 24-year-old Gainesville man was sentenced last week to 30 years in prison for the 2022 fatal shooting of a man outside a convenience store on East University Avenue.
Zamonte Demetri Hartsfield pleaded no contest on Oct. 7 as part of a plea deal with prosecutors to charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Hartsfield must serve a minimum of 25 years behind bars followed by nine years of probation. He was given credit for 916 days time served.
According to the original release from the Gainesville Police Department, officers arrived at the Wawa, located at 1007 E. University Ave., just east of the Duckpond neighborhood, on April 5, 2022, at approximately 9 p.m. and found the victim, later identified as Wallace Lee Jr., on the ground with an apparent gunshot wound.
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As detectives were interviewing people at the gas station, Hartsfield arrived about an hour later at the emergency room at UF Health Shands Hospital with a gunshot wound, and personnel at the hospital notified GPD.
Hartsfield was interviewed by police and released, but was brought back in the following day for questioning.
“We brought him back in today and quickly realized, ‘OK this is an individual that was not only involved in the incident last night but in fact pulled the trigger that killed our victim,'” GPD reported, noting that Hartsfield confessed to the shooting.
According to the police report, Hartsfield fired a handgun multiple times into a vehicle, striking Lee, who was in the passenger seat, “three times and killing him.” The driver of the vehicle “had to duck to avoid being shot in the head.”
According to the report, the driver of the vehicle was meeting Lee because Lee “owed him money and was buying cannabis from him.” Hartsfield initially held a gun to the driver’s head, who ducked and attempted to hide. Hartsfield reportedly kept firing into the car. Someone in the vehicle returned fire from the vehicle, hitting Hartsfield “twice in the buttocks.” Hartsfield told police it was “a drug deal gone wrong.”
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville man, 24, sentenced to 30 years for shooting outside Wawa
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