Oceanside
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A 21-year-old man has been sentenced to the maximum allowable sentence for fatally shooting a 14-year-old girl last year, a crime that heightened Oceanside’s gang tensions.
Vista Superior Court Judge J. Morgan Lester on Tuesday sentenced Akeli Kelly of Oceanside to 15 years to life for the second-degree murder of Michele Tate last Oct. 1 as she and a friend, Stacey Prince, 17, were leaving an Oceanside restaurant.
Kelly was sentenced to an additional seven years for the attempted murder of Prince, who was wounded by the same rifle bullet that killed Tate, a popular student at El Camino High School.
The judge said he wanted the penalty to serve as a warning to gang members.
Tate was black and Kelly is of Samoan ancestry. Police say there were tensions between rival black and Samoan gangs in Oceanside.
The prosecutor claimed Kelly meant to shoot a gang member but accidentally hit Tate.
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