Updated: Tuesday, 03 Aug 2010, 6:26 PM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 03 Aug 2010, 11:50 AM EDT
By Ken Kolker
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Deputies wrestled a man to the floor and handcuffed him in the courtroom as two families faced off during the sentencing of a 13-year-old boy for murder.
The outburst began as the mother of Keishawn Mann told the judge her son may have had a reason to kill her live-in boyfriend, Jermelle Stokes. Her son now says the victim was abusing him.
"Obviously, after it all comes out, he was treated in ways that I had no clue of, so we can't say that, oh, he was never mistreated," Lakeisha Mann told the judge.
A relative of the victim screamed an obscenity across the courtroom at the mother, leading to a yelling match between the families on opposite sides of the courtroom.
"She's lying, she's lying, we know she's lying," the victim's aunt, Annette Moore, told her husband as she tried to calm him.
Deputies wrestled with Keishawn Mann's uncle, Chris Mann, on Keishawn's side of the courtroom, taking him to the ground and cuffing him before leading him away.
They also led Keishawn Mann out of the courtroom until peace was restored about five minutes later.
Keishawn, the youngest child convicted of murder in Kent County, shot and killed Stokes in the family's home in Kentwood on Jan. 25. He has told a therapist he did so because Stokes was abusing him and his mother, though prosecutors and police say they have found no proof of that.
Mann spoke briefly before he was sentenced.
"I'm really sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen," he said quietly. "I just apologize."
Judge Daniel Zemaitis ordered he be held in a juvenile program -- the Muskegon River Youth Home -- until he's 21 years old.
If he behaves, Keishawn Mann could be released on his birthday, Dec. 6, 2017. But, the judge warned, he could send him to prison for up to life if he gets into trouble.
Stokes was sitting at a counter in the dining area of their home, working on a laptop, when Keishawn came up from behind and fired a single shot.
Keishawn called 911, telling dispatchers Stokes was dead and that he believed an intruder had broken into the house and killed him.
Mann told a therapist that Stokes -- a father of four children ages 4 to 13 -- abused his mother and struck him and his three brothers with a paint stick, according to court records. He also told the therapist that Stokes choked him once.
"That was his only way out," his great-grandmother, Lillie Rolle, told 24 Hour News 8. "He didn't know no other way out. He was a young 13-year-old kid, just turned 13. He didn't know what else to do."
However, prosecutors and police have said they found no evidence of abuse.
"If there was any abuse, didn't nobody know it -- and that kind of secret do not stay in the closet like that," said the victim's uncle, Jose Moore.
It was Moore who reacted angrily to the abuse claims in the courtroom today, leading to the scuffle.
"I couldn't help myself," he said. "I couldn't take it no more. I am hurting bad enough as it is and then not to express yourself when you're hearing things that are not correct."
And, it was Chris Mann, on the other side of the courtroom, who was wrestled to the floor. Deputies released him without charges.
"I wasn't trying to show a scene or, you know, disrespect the court or anything, but I'm going through a lot, too, and I was being there for my sister and my nephew, so that's why I reacted the way I did," he told 24 Hour News 8.
Keishawn pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder. A plea deal called for him to remain under the custody of juvenile court -- in an institution for delinquent youth -- until his 21st birthday. At that point, the judge could either sentence him as an adult for second-degree murder, or release him.
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