Man sentenced to 10 years in prison for involvement in 2015 fatal shootout
A man who could have faced up to life in prison for a murder charge was sentenced to 10 years in connection to a 2015 fatal shootout in Pride Park.
Napoleon Hale, 39, initially was charged with second-degree murder in the days after the December 2015 fatal shooting of Kenye Cooper Sr., 26. The murder charge was later dropped by the State Attorney’s Office and formal charges for firearms possession and attempted murder were filed instead.
Hale pleaded no contest to charges of attempted first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon last month.
On Friday, Circuit Judge Brian Iten sentenced Hale to the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. His sentence includes a minimum mandatory of three years. Hale was given credit for the time he has served since arrest in December 2015.
Hale was playing video games with another man on Dec. 16, 2015, inside a home in the 1000 block of 61st Avenue Drive East in the Pride Park neighborhood in Bradenton when Cooper and Fredrick Dinel Smith, 26, walked in. Smith confronted Hale while Cooper held the other man, a woman and child in the back of the house.
Smith demanded money from Hale, so Hale gave him $50 from his pocket. But when Smith dropped his gun, Hale seized the opportunity to push him out the front door, but a struggle ensued in the yard. When Cooper appeared in the doorway of the house and pointed his revolver at Hale, the other man picked up Smith’s gun and shot Cooper from behind.
Smith ran from the scene as Cooper got into Hale’s car parked in front of the house and sped off toward a dead end. Hale then took a rifle, went down to the dead end, found Cooper in the car and fired a single round into the car. When deputies arrived, they found Hale about a block away.
Hale later told detectives that the shot into the car had been accidental.
Jessica De Leon: 941-745-7049, @JDeLeon1012
This story was originally published July 26, 2017 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Man sentenced to 10 years in prison for involvement in 2015 fatal shootout."