Teen Sentenced To 18 Years For Killing Stranger Eighteen-Year-Old Blames Drugs; Couldn’t Recall If Gun Was Loaded

Jerome Grant has a drug problem.

He was strung out on methamphetamine, hadn’t slept for eight days and was unable to remember whether the shotgun he carried was loaded on Aug. 6, 1995.

But a Spokane County Superior Court judge said none of that explains why Grant, 18, shot and killed a stranger.

The high school dropout pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Thursday.

“When you take a shotgun, Mr. Grant, with shells that go with it, you are stepping into real trouble,” Judge Thomas Merryman said.

He sentenced Grant to 18 years in prison - the maximum recommended by sentencing guidelines.

The shooting occurred when a friend asked Grant to help him collect a debt from Dennis Rose, who lived off Garland Avenue on the North Side. The friend, Dale Tomlinson, asked Grant to come with him “as enforcement” if Rose refused to pay.

When they arrived, Rose, 33, saw Grant’s gun and grabbed Tomlinson, holding a knife to his neck.

Tomlinson broke free and bumped Grant’s leg, causing the gun to go off, according to Grant.

He called the shooting an accident that never would have happened if not for his drug addiction.

Defense attorney Scott Mason asked for a 10-year sentence. Until now, Grant has only been arrested for misdemeanors, Mason argued.

While a dozen relatives spoke on the teenager’s behalf, Grant sobbed before the judge. His family described him as a scared young man who needs help finding his way.

They begged Merryman to go easy on him.

“He is so loved,” said Rick Grant, an uncle. “He wants to get help and get an education and turn his life around. He is remorseful, and redeemable.”

Merryman didn’t see it that way.

“This was no accident, folks,” he said. “If anything, this event was predictable…A man is dead because you took a gun and fired it and now it’s irreversible.”

, DataTimes