The first of the four defendants to go on trial in the fatal 2015 shooting of Jon Bieker, proprietor of She’s-A-Pistol in Shawnee, learned the hard way it does not pay to cross state lines to rob a gun store.
As he discovered in court on Friday, Londro Patterson III, now 22, will spend at least 33 years in prison before he is eligible for parole. Patterson was one of four young Kansas City men who burst into the store and held pistols to the head of co-owner Becky Bieker.
As the video shows, Jon Bieker came out from the back firing, wounding three of the accused. Patterson’s defense team argued that mercy should have been shown their client given that he was still a teenager at the time and that he did not fire the fatal shot.
“He didn’t foresee that the actions of himself and 3 other teenagers would lead to unimaginable loss for everyone and their families,” said his lawyers.
The prosecutors argued in turn that Patterson was on probation at the time for the gun violation and that a week before the She’s-a-Pistol shooting he had been involved in another shooting during a robbery in Raytown. Otherwise, he was a model citizen.
The case also testified to the high cost of crime. The man who actually killed Bieker, De’Anthony Wiley, was left a paraplegic. He was one of the three men that Bieker shot. The state will be paying for his medical care for the rest of his life, even if he does beat the rap. The nervy Wiley is pleading self defense.
Defendant Hakeem Malik has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. The fourth defendant, the imaginatively named Nicquan Midgyett, now 22, is slated to go to trial in December.
