OAKLAND — An Oakland man was sentenced Thursday to four years and eight months in prison for killing his friend in a shooting that prosecutors and defense attorneys agree was accidental.
Malik Jelks, 23, pleaded no contest last October to involuntary manslaughter of 17-year-old Oakland resident Jemilen Enoch. On Thursday, Jelks was sentenced to the maximum allowable prison term of four years and eight months, which prosecutors argued for. Jelks entered his no contest plea with no agreement in place, leaving the final decision up to a judge.
Jelks was arrested last August in Enoch’s death. According to police and prosecutors, the two were in Enoch’s home last March 19, and decided to sit on a couch and take pictures with a gun next to them. Jelks would later tell police that during this, the gun somehow “goes off” and that he got scared and fled after Enoch was fatally struck by a bullet.
“(Jelks) could not explain what happened with any more detail. (Jelks) called (Enoch) his ‘brother’ and said he cries every night over Victim’s death,” Deputy District Attorney Raul Jacobson wrote in a sentencing memo.
Jacobson argued for the prison sentence, despite Jelks’ show of remorse, because Jelks only admitted responsibility after his arrest five months after the shooting, and because he admitted to fleeing for “self-preservation.” Furthermore, Jacobson was arrested in possession of “an unregistered firearm that was found loaded in an unlocked container” after the shooting.
“Enoch did not have chance to live his life. Victim was three months away from graduating high school and had aspirations to go to college,” Jacobson wrote. “His family is forced to live the rest of their lives with an incredible loss in their hearts.”
