Man receives probation for shooting role

Todd Johnson was sentenced to probation in District Court on Tuesday for his role in the gunbattle that led to the death of a 13-year-old girl.

On Nov. 20, 2003, Tanisha Turner was walking home in the 1900 block of Hassell Avenue, near Martin Luther King and Lake Mead boulevards, as a botched drug deal erupted into gunfire. Turner was struck in the head by a stray bullet from a gun that police think Robert Hayes fired.

Johnson, his co-defendant, received probation Tuesday in District Judge James Bixler's courtroom after pleading guilty to attempted murder and accessory to murder after the fact.

He previously had faced a murder charge, but in 2004, he offered to testify against Hayes.

Hayes pleaded guilty in April to voluntary manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced in May to nine to 25 years in prison.