Man sentenced for 2018 shooting
Published 10:15 pm Monday, March 9, 2020
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A Chesapeake man was sentenced Monday to three years to serve for a shooting that happened in front of an East Washington Street barber shop on a Thursday morning in August 2018.
Michael Jermell Hatton, 46, was sentenced in Suffolk Circuit Court on charges of aggravated malicious wounding, shooting in a public place with injury and reckless handling of a firearm with serious injury. He also has 27 years of a suspended sentence hanging over his head.
Other charges, including attempted murder, were not prosecuted.
“This crime has been an extremely traumatic and life-altering ordeal for the victim and his family, and he’s ready to get this horrific experience behind him so he can move on with his life,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Susan Walton said Monday. “In addition, the victim intends to use this experience to mentor young people in his community.”
The victim was Tony Jonathan Lundy, age 47 at the time. He was hospitalized for about a week and suffered from injuries including a pierced bladder and collapsed lung.
Following the shooting, a witness told a TV news station that the fight started over whether actress Halle Berry should play the late singer Aretha Franklin, who had died just hours before the shooting, in a movie. The story caused news of the shooting to go viral, but Lundy said later it wasn’t true. He told reporters after a court hearing in 2019 that Franklin’s death had been discussed in the barber shop the morning of the shooting, but it wasn’t what led to the shooting.
At that hearing, Lundy testified that Hatton shot him in the back, stomach and leg. An arrest warrant for Hatton filed after the shooting says that a verbal altercation turned physical in the barbershop, but Lundy left. The warrant states Hatton “got up, pulled out a gun and followed Mr. Lundy out the door.”
Lundy testified the first shot hit him in his back, and after that he was on the ground while Hatton continued to shoot.
Following his release from prison, Hatton will be on supervised probation for seven years. He was also sentenced to pay more than $65,000 in restitution.