What to Know
- A 19-year-old will spend almost two decades behind bars for the 2020 shooting death of a schoolteacher who was walking his dog in Queens in broad daylight, the local district attorney's office said.
- Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Ike Ford was sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the shooting death of a schoolteacher who was walking his dog when Ford fired upon a rival gang member in July 2020 when Ford was only 17 years old.
- The teacher, George Rosa, was shot in the abdomen by a stray bullet fired by Ford.
A 19-year-old will spend almost two decades behind bars for the 2020 shooting death of a schoolteacher who was walking his dog in Queens in broad daylight, the local district attorney's office said.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Ike Ford was sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the shooting death of a schoolteacher who was walking his dog when Ford fired upon a rival gang member in July 2020 when Ford was only 17 years old.
The teacher, George Rosa, was shot in the abdomen by a stray bullet fired by Ford. Although Ford was a minor at the time he was sentenced as an adult given the severity of the crime, Katz said.
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Ford, of Long Island City, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree and was subsequently sentenced to 19 years in prison followed by five years of post-release supervision.
According to the charges, at around 11:20 a.m. on July 25, 2020, Rosa, 53, was walking his dog in his Long Island City neighborhood, along 40th Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets. It was at that time that Ford, along with another alleged gang member, fired at a rival gang member, missing his target and striking Rosa instead.
Rosa was subsequently rushed to a nearby hospital and died from the gunshot wound 31 days later.
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Ford was originally arrested in August 2020, following another shooting in which he was accused of firing a gun in Queens. No one was believed to have been injured in that incident, prosecutors said.
However, Ford was re-arrested in August 2021, along with other reputed gang members who were indicted on crimes committed in Long Island City.
“The entire city grieved the senseless death of beloved social studies teacher George Rosa, who was simply walking his dog. It’s precisely to prevent tragedies such as this that we fight so hard to get illegal guns and the criminals who use them of our streets," Katz said.
