By Melinda Miller
The Buffalo News
EERIE COUNTY, N.Y. — Ameer Al-Shammari’s parents and brother sat in the front row of the courtroom Friday morning and leaned in as their interpreter relayed what was happening in front of them. They listened and watched as Jean Sanchez, the boy who killed their boy, pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree.
The solemn proceedings were paced to allow interpreters for Sanchez, now 14, and Ameer’s family to follow along with the legal process. Sanchez and his family are from Puerto Rico, with Spanish as their first language. Ameer’s family came to the United States from Iraq three years ago this week.
The court proceeding was methodical and unemotional — until Erie County Court Judge Sheila A. DiTullio described how Ameer died at age 13 at the hands of the now 14-year-old who stood before them. That was when Ameer’s family broke down.
“Is it true that on or about May 2, 2014 that you intentionally caused the death of Ameer Al-Shammari by strangling him?” DiTullio asked the baby-faced teenager, his mother standing near him.
“Yes,” Sanchez replied.
Short, with a neat haircut and fresh-faced, and without the peach-fuzz mustache that had made him look older in earlier court appearances, Sanchez looked like a typical 14-year-old in his blue-checked shirt and jeans.
“Is it true that you started with his shoelace and when that shoelace snapped you removed the drawstring from his hoodie and continued to strangle him?” the judge asked.
“Yes,” Sanchez said, his voice deep and clear.
Sanchez’s mother looked down, crying quietly.
Ameer’s family wept in their seats.
The judge pronounced the teen guilty of second-degree murder and scheduled sentencing for Dec. 10. She said that Sanchez will receive the maximum allowable punishment for his age, an indeterminate sentence of nine years to life in prison. The minimum sentence would have been five years to life. If he was an adult, he could have faced 25 years to life.
Because of the plea and because a murder conviction at trial would have had the same result, the judge also agreed to dismiss three other charges against Sanchez: first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree criminal sexual act and petit larceny.
The plea brings a conclusion to one of the most shocking crimes in Buffalo in recent years.
The sadistic sexual assault and killing of Ameer in a vacant lot a few streets away from his family’s Black Rock home shook Buffalo’s immigrant community as well as the entire city in May 2014.
The family had come to Buffalo on Oct. 15, 2012 to escape death threats in Iraq. Prosecutor Thomas M. Finnerty, who handled the case for the District Attorney’s Office, said that Ameer’s uncle had worked for U.S. forces, helping to armor military vehicles. As a result, his whole family had been targeted. Ameer was never able to play outside in his native country. Coming to Buffalo was like a dream for him.
And receiving a cell phone as a gift from his parents for doing well in school was like a dream come true.
So, when Jean Sanchez stole that phone from him — a theft Sanchez later admitted — Ameer was determined to get it back.
According to prosecutors, Ameer went to Sanchez’s house to confront him, and from there the boys went to a vacant lot off Amherst Street.
Sanchez’s attorney, Paul Dell, said after court that, according to his client’s description of what happened, Sanchez had hoped to intimidate Ameer so he wouldn’t get into trouble for taking the phone.
“It turned into a fight. And, at a certain point, (Sanchez) took it a step further,” Dell said, “and ... he did what he did.”
Ameer was knocked to the ground, probably unconscious. Sanchez removed the boy’s shoelaces, tied his hands with one and started to strangle him with the other. When the lace broke, he pulled out the cord from Ameer’s sweatshirt and used that.
Sanchez had wanted to admit what he had done for some time, for the sake of his family and for Ameer’s family, Dell said. Although Sanchez has appeared stoic, almost sullen, in court, that is not how he behaves generally, Dell said.
“He’s been very emotional,” Dell said. “And he’s extremely remorseful.”
But in entering his guilty plea, Sanchez maintained his right to appeal his conviction on two grounds: that the state law allowing 13-year-olds charged with murder to be prosecuted as adults is unconstitutional, and that DiTullio erred in April when she rejected defense motions to send the case to Family Court. Had he been tried and found guilty as a juvenile, Sanchez could have been released from custody at age 21.
When she ruled that Sanchez could be tried as an adult, DiTullio said she believed the circumstances surrounding Ameer’s death met the standard expected by the law.
Assistant District Attorney Michael J. Flaherty Jr. explained those circumstance after the plea.
“Not all murders are the same,” he said. “This was not a case of a gun going off. This was asphyxiation. It takes a long time.
“We are gratified that neither family will have to go through a trial,” Flaherty added. “The testimony would have been graphic and upsetting.”
He added, “It is very rare for someone under the age of 16 to be convicted of such a serious crime.”
The crime included a degree of sexual assault, with Finnerty explaining that it appeared Sanchez may have become sexually excited during the fight. Prosecutors, however, did not indicate that sexual assault was the initial motive for the attack, and it was not addressed during the plea proceedings.
Flaherty also praised the Buffalo Police Department, particularly detectives Patricia Wrest, Sal Valvo and Michael Mordino, for their work on the case, which stretched across cultural and language boundaries and shook an entire community.
The motive seemed to center entirely around Ameer’s cell phone, a reward form his parents for doing well at Waterfront Elementary School 95.
While Ameer was working hard to succeed in his new home, Sanchez was struggling. He was a seventh-grader at Bilingual Academy 33 before his arrest. At that time, neighbors and teachers described him as quiet and not violent, but also having problems with his behavior and his studies. One teacher said he had been suspended more than once from school.
After his arrest, however, another side of Sanchez came out. In denying his attorney’s request to move the case to Family Court, DiTullio cited a report on Sanchez’s behavior while in custody at the East Ferry Youth Detention Center, where he has been held for the past year and a half.
The judge noted that Sanchez had “repeatedly engaged in acts of violence and aggression” at the detention center. He was able to remove links from a chain fence to use as a weapon and assaulted another resident while they were watching television, the reported noted. A broken toothbrush, sharpened to function like a “shank,” also was found hidden in a hole in his mattress.
Sanchez’s attorney said after court Friday that his client is doing much better now.
“His behavior has been very good for the last several months,” Dell said. “He’s been going to school.”
Sanchez’s family, devastated over what occurred, continue to be there for him, Dell said.
Some 17 months since the slaying, Ameer’s parents struggle over the loss of their son.
“Every time I see the father, he is always crying,” said Nadhum Wanas, who serves on the board of directors for the local Iraqi American Society.
“The mother is still at home. Things are bad for her. She does not do anything. She cries,” Wanas said. “In our culture, there is a tradition that the youngest son is regarded as the best.”
The guilty plea represents a step toward justice for the local Iraqi community, which Wanas estimated at between 2,000 and 2,500 members.
“The slaying will always be sad,” he said.
On Peter Street in Black Rock, where the Al Shammari family had lived at the time of the killing, residents reacted to the guilty plea with frustration and a sense of futility.
“What justice is there, the boy is dead,” Keith Merkling said. “Ameer used to play with my dog. He was a good kid. Everyone was devastated. The family moved away after he was killed.”
Ali Alabadi said that the minimum sentence of nine years is not enough.
“He needs to do life,” Alabadi said. “If the law is hard, this won’t happen again.”
A woman who lives across the street from where the Al Shammaris had lived said it was just too much for them to continue living at the home they had shared with Ameer.
“The mother was terrified,” the neighbor said, “and they just couldn’t live there anymore.”
Although Sanchez legally could be freed in nine years, when he is 23, such an early release appears unlikely. He was the same age when he committed his crime — 13 — as Eric Smith was 22 years ago when he killed 4-year-old Derrick Robie in the village of Savona in Steuben County. Smith, who chose his victim at random, smashed the child’s skull with rocks and sodomized him with a stick. He remains in prison, despite expressing remorse and exhibiting “good behavior” as an inmate. In denying Smith parole for the seventh time last year, the parole board cited the particular brutality of the crime and community opposition to his release.
Copyright 2015 The Buffalo News