A 24-year old man from Chicago by the name Micheail Ward has been handed an 84-year sentence by Judge Nicholas Ford of Cook County in Chicago. His crime was the fatal shooting of Hidaya Pendleton, a honors student that was 15-years old at the time of the crime. The student was killed just a week after she performed at Barack Obama’s second inauguration as a band majorette.
The fatal incident occurred when Ward and his co-defendant, Kenneth Williams accosted Pendleton and her friends at a park thinking they were members of a rival gang. The two young men have been linked with a Chicago-based gang recognized for being violent.
The sentence was imposed by the judge for the murder of Pendleton as well as aggravated battery of two others who were badly injured after the incident. Ward denied being the one who shot the gun and insisted that the mystery would have been unraveled if only the prosecutors had viewed the case more critically. His present statements are contradictory to what he confessed to when he was first questioned by the police.
The attorneys representing Ward believe his initial confession was under duress and manipulation. The presiding judge, however, criticized Ward for not showing any form of empathy or remorse. The victim’s mother, Cleopatra Crowley believes the judge should hand down the maximum sentence for the crime to Ward as he had also sentenced her daughter to death and the rest of the family to suffering her loss.
Pendleton’s shooting became a symbol of violence in the State of Chicago, sparking countless controversies on gun control. Pendleton was part of President Obama’s State of the Union speech in 2013 and his wife attended the victim’s funeral.
