Gang Member Gets 16 Years in Murder

To the satisfaction of tearful members of his victim’s family, teen-age gang member Shawn Christopher Boykin was sentenced Friday to the maximum 16 years to life in prison for murdering another youth at Fairfax High School.

“May God have mercy on them,” the slain youth’s grandmother, Albirtha Anderson, said of Boykin, 19, and his co-defendant, Andre West, 18. West is scheduled for sentencing March 9.

With tears brimming in her eyes, Anderson told reporters that Boykin and West had “sentenced themselves (to) live for the rest of their lives” with the knowledge that they had killed her grandson, 18-year-old Antoine (Tony) Thompson.

Thompson, not a gang member, had overcome dyslexia, a reading handicap, with the help of Fairfax High School teacher Linda Brooks and was college-bound when he was killed Sept. 12, 1986. He had stopped at Fairfax to get Brooks’ advice on courses at West Los Angeles College and was killed in a quarrel over use of a pay telephone.

“I’m more than pleased with the sentencing of this young man (Boykin),” said Anderson, who had urged Superior Court Judge David Horowitz to impose the maximum penalty. The sentence shows that “when you break the law, there’s a penalty.”

Boykin and West pleaded guilty Oct. 7, 1987, to second-degree murder.

In addition to the prison term, Horowitz ordered Boykin to pay $10,000 in restitution to the victim’s family. Until he is 25, Boykin will serve his sentence at a California Youth Authority facility. After that, he will be transferred to a state prison.

Given Tougher Sentence

Horowitz could have ordered Boykin to serve his entire sentence with the Youth Authority, a lighter punishment that could have enabled him to be freed at age 25 and to have his criminal record expunged.

But Horowitz told Boykin, “A young man, otherwise minding his own business and with a future, is dead for no reason that I can think of. . . . There is absolutely no excuse for what you did.”

According to law enforcement officials, Boykin and Thompson quarreled over use of the telephone, and the two gang members chased Thompson from the ground floor to the second floor of the school, where the quarrel continued and Boykin and Thompson began wrestling.

A gun either fell from Boykin’s pocket or was thrown to the floor, and Boykin yelled to West, “Gat him, cuz,” gang terminology for “shoot him.” West grabbed the gun and fired three shots at Boykin. One entered his back and pierced his heart.