16-year-old sentenced to 15 years in prison for role in fatal drug deal gone wrong
Apr. 19—URBANA — A Champaign 16-year-old has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his involvement in a 2022 drug deal gone bad in Rantoul that left a man shot to death in front of his children.
Champaign County Judge Randy Rosenbaum handed down the sentence Wednesday to Tomari L. Johnson after he pleaded guilty to one count of armed robbery with a firearm. The sentence — the maximum Johnson faced for the Class 1 felony — was reached through a negotiated plea deal with the state, which dropped one charge of murder in the Nov. 20, 2022, fatal shooting of DeCarlo Douglas, 34.
Champaign County State's Attorney Julia Rietz said police responded to a report of a shooting around 1:40 p.m. that Sunday in the 1100 block of Falcon Drive in Rantoul. On scene, officers found Mr. Douglas, who was living in Urbana, face down in the grass with two gunshot wounds. He was later pronounced dead at the scene.
Officers located 9 mm bullet casings on the ground and two bullet holes in the driver's-side window of Mr. Douglas' nearby Jeep. Police also found casings from a .40-caliber handgun that belonged to Mr. Douglas.
Shortly after police arrived, Tomari, then 14, and his older brother, Tomir Johnson, then 16, emerged from a nearby apartment, Rietz said. Tomir had been shot twice and was taken to Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana for treatment.
A resident of the apartment told police the two boys were visiting her son for the weekend, Rietz said. Tomari Johnson told police his brother had gone outside to see if their grandmother had arrived when he heard gunshots and went outside to find his brother shot.
But police then located Mr. Douglas' two sons, ages 3 and 7, in another nearby apartment. Rietz saaid the boys had been in the backseat of the Jeep when the shooting took place, and the 7-year-old told police they were in Rantoul because someone requested some "smoke" from his father, which he described as "little green pieces."
Police later extracted data from Mr. Douglas' cellphone that showed a text conversation with Tomir Johnson where they arranged a cannabis sale outside Falcon Way apartments in Rantoul, Rietz said. A search of Tomir Johnson's phone also recovered pictures of the two teens holding guns.
Tomir Johnson was sentenced last month to 23 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to aggravated battery with a firearm, a Class X felony. During his sentencing hearing, Rietz and Chief Public Defender Elisabeth Pollock differed on how exactly the shooting went down.
Rietz argued that Tomir Johnson tried to rob Mr. Douglas but didn't anticipate the man would have a gun. She said two sets of bullet casings at the scene indicated the car was shot at from two different 9 mm handguns, and Mr. Douglas was hit in the back after he got out of the car.
Pollock argued there was no evidence the teens planned to rob Mr. Douglas and said they tried to walk away from the cannabis sale when a fight ensued. She also noted that police never recovered a 9 mm handgun tied to the incident.
