‘Forced to carry the scars’: Mother of boy killed by stray bullet speaks at shooter’s sentencing

Honor Tate still has the bullet fragments in his leg.

The boy still wakes in the middle of the night, his mother said, haunted by the terror of his older brother, SirAmani Clark, bleeding out in front of him.

Honor was 6 and his brother 9 when Eliazar Quintero fired a rifle from a neighboring apartment and a stray bullet ripped through the wall into their living room while the brothers watched cartoons that evening.

“No child should ever have to carry those visuals,” their mother, Justine Tate, told a judge at Quintero’s sentencing hearing on Tuesday. “No 6-year-old boy should ever have to see that. My baby had to watch this happen.”

Quintero pleaded guilty in June to three felony counts, including involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment.

On Tuesday, District Judge Jacqueline Bluth ordered a six- to 15-year sentence for Quintero, 43, in connection with the March 7, 2023 shooting.

SirArmani died that night, and his mother too wakes up in the middle of the night with body tremors.

“I relive this night over and over,” she said from a witness stand in the courtroom, glancing at Quintero before placing her face in her hands. “I carry a grief so heavy that there are days I feel like I cannot breathe. I am here today to speak for my son, who no longer can and my surviving child, who is forced to carry the scars.”

Honor, now the same age as SirAmani when he died, sat in the court gallery, teary-eyed and clutching a tissue. His mother said that SirAmani, her oldest child, was a protector for his younger siblings and dreamed of becoming a football star someday.

She told the judge that after her son died she became homeless and then had regular panic attacks after moving into a new home.

He was “fast, focused, and fearless,” she said.

‘Nine felonies, drugs and guns’

Authorities have said that Quintero fled the scene after the shooting, taking multiple weapons with him. He had previous arrests for possessing a firearm as a prohibited person, and weeks before the shooting, he was found with over 500 fentanyl pills.

Quintero, who wore handcuffs and blue jeans, is already serving time at Southern Desert Correctional Center for convictions in those cases, according to online records.

The defendant’s lawyer, Mike Feliciano, said that Quintero has an extensive criminal history, but the shooting was his first violent crime.

“He wanted to take responsibility for this, understanding that he’s going to do a lengthy time in prison for it,” Feliciano said, instead asking for a three to ten-year sentence that would run at the same time as the one he was already serving.

Asked if he wanted to make a statement, Quintero apologized for the shooting. He said it was an accident that “should not have happened.” As he spoke, one of Tate’s relatives stormed out of the courtroom and screamed in the hallway.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Bluth praised Honor Tate for his bravery in being there on Tuesday.

“Your name is very fitting because I know that you will honor your brother,” Bluth said.

She also addressed Quintero as she handed down the maximum possible sentence.

“I cannot understand how this just continued to happen over and over again, with nine felonies and drugs and guns,” Bluth said. “These decisions had tragic consequences. I don’t understand how the previous times you got caught weren’t enough.”

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.