Boston man admits to shooting teenager at South Shore Plaza, will spend 8 years in prison
BRAINTREE — A Boston man has been sentenced to eight years in prison after he plead guilty to a 2020 holiday weekend shooting at the South Shore Plaza mall that injured a 15-year-old girl.
Jose Rodriguez, 22, admitted to charges of armed assault to murder, possession of a large capacity firearm and numerous other firearms charges in Norfolk Superior Court Monday, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said in a statement.
Norfolk Superior Court Judge Douglas H. Wilkins gave Rodriguez three years of probation after he is released from his eight years in prison, during which he must wear a GPS monitor and abide by an 8 p.m. to 5:45 a.m. curfew for the first year. For the full probation term, Rodriguez must not possess any firearms, submit to random drug testing to assure abstinence, maintain employment or enrollment in school, stay away from the South Shore Plaza and have no contact with the victim or anyone who testified before the grand jury, Morrissey said.
Assistant District Attorney Anne Yas asked the court for a seven-to 10-year prison sentence followed by three years of probation. Defense attorney Patrick Kelly argued for the statutory minimum of five years in prison.
"This was an outrageously reckless and dangerous act," Morrissey said. "This defendant punched a woman in line at a store, causing an altercation between parties. He stepped away, retrieved the loaded firearm he was carrying and fired six times in the thick of the mall."
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The shooting took place around 4:43 p.m. July 3 in the Nordstrom wing of the mall and began as an altercation between two groups, authorities said. A 15-year-old girl standing nearby was shot in the hand and chest.
"It was only a matter of luck that the innocent girl who was shot, or any number of others in the area at the time, were not killed by these actions," Morrissey said.
Rodriguez fled the mall on foot but was tracked by a police K-9 team and arrested on Granite Street a short distance from the mall. The gun was recovered in a parking garage, police said.
Officers from Braintree, State Police, surrounding communities and the MetroLEC SWAT team responded to the mall, assisting in the search for the suspect and going store-to-store to look for shoppers and employees who had sheltered-in-place following the shooting.
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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Boston man admits to shooting teenager at South Shore Plaza
