Seattle Stray-Bullet Killer on 23-Year Sentence: "That's #$!%'d Up"

Seattle stray-bullet killer on 23-year sentence: 'That's #$!%'d up'
Man who accidentally killed father in front his children, parents sentenced
By Levi Pulkinnen
Friday, October 11, 2013, updated 4:19 p.m.
SEATTLEPI.COM

When the time finally came to sentence Justin Ferrari’s killer, the judge had heard enough.

Probably too much, as it turned out, for Andrew Patterson.

King County Superior Court Judge Michael Hayden listened as Patterson said he was afraid when he opened fire on a man who’d taunted him and killed Ferrari, a stranger just driving past on a Central District street when the stray bullet caught him.

Hayden was told by Ferrari’s mother how images of the senseless, random killing still come to her 17 months after her 42-year-old son was shot in the face in front of her, his father and his two young children.

And the judge learned Patterson, now 21, had been ordered to give up his gun just nine days before he killed.

With all that in mind – and other young men described by police as members [sic] Patterson’s gang looking on from the gallery – King County Superior Court Judge Michael Hayden sentenced Patterson to 23 years in prison, a term four years longer than that requested by prosecutors and the maximum available under state law.

“It’s time we quit tolerating guns in the hands of gang members, particularly in the CD,” said Hayden, referring to the Seattle’s neighborhood where the May 24, 2012 shooting occurred. “The neighborhood deserves better.”

Patterson, who’d asked the court for a lenient 13-year prison term and claimed to be a changed man, was not pleased with the judge’s decision.

“I’ll get out when I’m 41,” the Auburn-raised young man said as he was being hauled out of the Seattle courtroom in chains. “That’s (expletive) up, huh?”

Hayden said he was unaware until Friday’s hearing that Patterson was ordered to stay away from guns just before he killed Ferrari. At the time, Patterson was accused of assaulting the mother of his young daughter; details surrounding the incident came to light largely because Patterson asked Hayden to set aside state sentencing law and impose a 13-year prison term.

Opening fire the day Ferrari was killed, Patterson missed his target – a man who’d disrespected his fledgling street gang – but hit Ferrari, 42, as the father of two drove past. Arrested months after the shooting, Patterson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July.

Adhering to a plea agreement, prosecutors requested a 19-year prison sentence, the term in the middle of the sentencing range set by state law. Hayden took the unusual step of imposing a sentence beyond the one requested by prosecutors.

A “Gangsta Disciples” gang tattoo on his forearm and a second tattoo on his neck, Patterson stood by as defense attorney Aimee Sutton and Senior Deputy Prosecutor O’Toole offered starkly different motivations for the shooting.

A father himself, Patterson started shooting after a mentally unstable man disrespected him and other members of a minor street gang set. The intended target told detectives he berated Patterson after the younger man tried to bum a cigarette from him; he was running away when Patterson opened fire.

While Sutton claimed her client was scared of the other man, O’Toole and, later, Seattle Detective Russ Weklych contended Patterson simply felt his gang had been disrespected. Hayden ultimately sided with the detective and the prosecutor, saying that Patterson opened fire for an “inexplicable, ridiculous reason.”

“He was acting, as a lot of gang members do, out of hutzpah,” Hayden said. “Mr. Ferrari was caught in the crossfire.”

Ferrari was driving with his family near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and East Cherry Street when Patterson started shooting. Ferrari, a senior software development engineer at real estate website Zillow.com, was killed as his children, then 5 and 7, looked on from the back of the family’s Volkswagen van.

Arriving two minutes after the shooting, the first officer on the scene found Ferrari fatally wounded in the van and his distraught mother in the street. His children were still strapped into their child seats; their dying father was still behind the wheel; Patterson was long gone.

Speaking through tears, Geni Ferrari described for Patterson what he’d taken from her family when he killed her son. She and Ferrari’s father miss the cards and calls, miss the funny, kind man who could be both laid back and engaged.

Instead, she’s left with the shame of fleeing the car for help, leaving her grandchildren strapped into the van that held their dead father. She’s been given the certainty that her grandchildren will never really know their father.

Her son loved life, she said, and would have passed that love on to the children he left behind.

“Every day we miss our son,” she said, speaking to Patterson.

“You will have the opportunity to live a life much longer than Justin’s,” she continued. “If you leave prison a changed man, the world will be a better place. That’s our family’s wish for you. And I hope it is your wish for yourself.”

Seattle detectives ultimately identified Patterson as the shooter after reviewing surveillance video from a bus as well as data from a stolen ORCA transit pass. Witnesses to the shooting then confirmed the shooter was the man pictured in the bus surveillance video, and a gang unit detective found a booking photo of Patterson.

Gang detectives reported that members of a minor street gang called "31 RACKS" – an acronym, RACKS stands for “Running After Cash Killin’ Suckaz,” while 31 apparently stands for 31st Avenue South – had recently taken to hanging out at the corner. Gang detectives previously arrested several purported members of the gang for weapons violations.

Nine days before the shooting, Patterson had been ordered to stay away from firearms and charged with a domestic violence offense against the mother of his daughter. His anger evident, Hayden faulted Patterson for ignoring the court order that he stay away from weapons. Hayden said he doubted Patterson ever stopped carrying a pistol.

“You used that gun to protect the name of your gang,” Hayden told Patterson. “An innocent man died because of that.”

A high school dropout born in Auburn, Patterson was bouncing between his girlfriend’s home and his parents' home when the shooting occurred. Speaking at Friday’s hearing, Patterson apologized for his actions while continuing to claim he wasn’t trying to shoot anyone.

“I never meant to kill anyone,” Patterson said Friday. “I’m sorry to everybody I hurt.”

Addressing the court, Sutton argued her client should receive a reduced sentence due to his his age and because he has changed his ways since his arrest.

“Mr. Patterson was reckless,” the Seattle defense attorney said. “He made a bad decision. But it was in essence an accident.”

Sutton also made much of a meeting between her client and Ferrari’s widow, which occurred at the bereaved woman’s request.

Patterson said he cried for days after the meeting; acknowledging that the meeting likely did have an impact on Patterson, O’Toole noted that whatever remorse he felt didn’t prompt him to explain what he did with the pistol he used to kill Ferrari.

O’Toole argued Patterson was being “repackaged” for the court. The defense presented a young man [sic] was remorseful, where the police described him as rash and still committed to protecting his gang.

Hayden agreed with prosecutors, and on the larger issue found that he is bound to focus on the facts of the crime, not the defendant, when delivering a sentence.

“Our court has uniformly said that you must look at the crime itself,” Hayden said from the bench. “I’m not free to freelance.”

O’Toole noted Patterson concocted a false alibi, lied to police and attempted to have others tamper with witnesses. Patterson has also refused to say what became of the pistol used to kill Ferrari.

Addressing the court as his partner in the investigation Detective Al Cruise looked on, Weklych recounted the lies told by Patterson following his arrest. Each fell apart because of other evidence, the detective said, forcing Patterson to admit he was the gunman.

“This man gunned down an innocent man in front of his parents and children for reasons he is still not forthcoming about,” Weklych said during Friday’s hearing.

In Patterson’s eyes, the detective continued, Ferrari was “a worthless person, and simply a byproduct of Mr. Patterson’s lifestyle.”

Sentenced to 23 years in prison, Patterson will likely not be eligible for release until after his 40th birthday. He remains jailed pending his transfer to the Department of Corrections.

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Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.