A week after a mistrial was declared, jurors on Thursday convicted a Grand Rapids man for a street shooting last summer in which the victim was struck seven times at a violence-prone intersection on the city’s Southeast Side.
A Kent County jury found Clifton Terron Lee III guilty of assault with intent to murder and felony use of a firearm for the Aug. 6, 2015 shooting at Franklin Street and Eastern Avenue SE.
It was among several shootings that prompted an “End the Violence’’ march through the Southeast Side neighborhood a year ago.
The victim, Sammitrice U. Curry, was walking towards a BP gas station when he was shot from a range of about 15 feet, with most of the shots striking him in the legs.
Curry and his assailant were involved in a dispute a few days before the shooting, court records show. He testified that he “kept getting shot’’ after falling to the ground.
Curry didn’t identify his assailant until three weeks after the 2 a.m. shooting. “I didn’t want to tell the police; I wanted to handle it myself in my own way,’’ Curry testified at an earlier hearing.
When he was arrested on Sept. 1, Lee was out on bond for misdemeanor offenses in Grand Rapids. He has prior felony convictions, including one in Kent County for resisting and obstructing police.
Lee earlier this year rejected a plea deal from the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office that would have dropped the charge of being a habitual felony offender with a recommendation he serve a minimum term of about 11 years in prison.
A jury began hearing the case last week in front of Kent County Circuit Court Judge Dennis Leiber, but it ended in a mistrial. A second jury was seated Monday to rehear the case.
Lee, 23, faces up to life in prison when he returns for sentencing next month. He’s being held without bond at the Kent County Jail.