A New Jersey court has sentenced a gangbanger to life imprisonment for killing a Nigerian man who was urinating in his street.
The NJ blood member, Christopher Poole, 26, according to NJ.com report murdered the Nigerian photographer Rasheed “O.J.” Olabode, 27, after catching him relieving himself behind a car in Newark in April 2018.
Surveillance video showed Olabode praying to be spared — but Poole “executed” him anyway, prosecutors said.
“The only mistake that appears the victim made was going to relieve himself in front of the wrong person,” prosecutor Jason Goldberg told Superior Court of Essex County, NJ.com said.
“And that simple, simple act — something that every single person does, every single day — was enough in the eyes of Mr. Poole to execute a man, shoot him in the heart as he prayed and tried talking his way out of it.”
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Poole — who has a tattoo on his throat of a hand giving the middle finger — has a lengthy rap sheet starting from when he was just 15, the site says.
Superior Court Judge Ronald Wigler noted his “utter lack of remorse” for the execution in front of two of the victim’s friends.
“This was certainly one of the most — if not the most — senseless murder cases that I have presided over and been involved with,” said Wigler, who has served as a Superior Court judge for a decade, NJ.com said.
Poole was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, the site said. He was also given 10 years for one weapons offense that will run concurrently.
He must serve at least 63 years before he is eligible for parole under the state’s No Early Release Act, according to the report.
One of Poole’s two sisters according to NJ.com report, cried and fled the courtroom when he was sentenced.
“I know his heart. I know that this isn’t the person that he wanted to become,” she told NJ.com.
Olabode was originally from Nigeria. His family could not afford to make it to New Jersey for the sentencing, the court heard.
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