At sentencing for double killer, families say last-minute plea deal added to pain

As Calon Hatchett was sentenced to a 47-year prison term for a violent rampage that left two dead and two others permanently scarred, nearly everyone in the courtroom agreed that justice remained elusive.

Hatchett, 21, left a wake of destruction in Minneapolis after murdering Ali Reed and Tonia Powell and trying to kill two others in the span of a month last year. Their loved ones say their pain was compounded by an indifferent justice system that facilitated a plea deal rushed together at the last minute.

Judge Paul Scoggin listened to victims and the families of Reed, 26, and Powell, 30, tell him how the murders had ripped their lives apart, left them incapable of smiling, of leaving the house, of finding joy with their surviving children. They told him how Hatchett had shown no remorse, smirking in court with a tattoo of the word “Reaper” across his neck. They told Scoggin he should reject the plea deal being offered by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.

Hatchett entered into an Aug. 7 plea agreement to two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder just as his criminal trial was set to get underway with jury selection.

Before Scoggin sentenced Hatchett, he told the victims in the gallery that lawyers on both sides are employed to assess risk, and to make decisions based on that, rather than the “moral culpability of the defendant and the devastation of the loss.”

“Is that the way that a court system ought to work?” Scoggin asked. “I don’t know.”

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Jake Fischmann said at the start of the hearing that, “I don’t want anyone in the courtroom to think that the state or law enforcement in this case does not understand that there’s no time that’s going to be enough for Mr. Hatchett.”

Ali Reed’s father, Abdulla Reed, spoke first. Ali had been shot at random while walking with his girlfriend after a date in south Minneapolis. Hatchett then fired at Reed’s girlfriend as she fled.

“Ali was my first born,” Abdulla said. “When your first child is born there is a feeling of great joy. ... You picture the careers they may choose, the children they may have, you imagine even one day being called grandpa. The one thing you don’t plan for is your child being randomly murdered in the street.”

He said he believed Hatchett was the definition of a serial killer.

Powell’s mother, Joi Young, said she found herself wide awake the night that her daughter was killed. “It was 3:13 in the morning, I’ll never forget it,” she said. “I wake up in the morning to have my soul taken out of my body. That was my baby. I carried her.”

She addressed Hatchett, “I’m supposed to say something politically correct like how I can forgive you. I hate you. I hate you.”

“Tonia was the sunlight of me and my son’s life,” Lacy said. “An amazing soul ... always looking out for other people, she shared that heart of gold with the wrong people at times.”

Lacy said she has regular nightmares of the crime, and scars and pain in her back from where Hatchett’s bullet exited her body. She is trying to be strong for her children. Her little boy loved Powell, too, and had his own little nickname for her. “Everyday I hear my son ask, ‘Where is YaYa?’” Lacy said. Then she told Scoggin that Hatchett “has no remorse for what he has done or the people he has killed.”

Amber Webber fought her emotions to tell Scoggin about the life she had built with Reed, her son. “I had him when I was 15,” she said. “We grew up together.”

She described how Reed loved his little sisters, who were just 5 and 7 when he was killed. “It breaks my heart to see them struggle with the pain they are too young to comprehend.” She talked about how he loved his dogs and going fishing. She spoke of his “big, perfect smile, the twinkle in his eye” and of the future he was deprived. He wanted to own a landscaping business, get married, have kids.

“We beg you at least to increase the number of months in this sentence,” she asked Scoggin.

He told Hatchett he could have the final word at sentencing. Hatchett leaned forward, and said “I apologize to everybody that I have hurt by doing these crimes.”

Scoggin then sentenced Hatchett to a little over 47 years for the two killings and two attempted murders. Minnesota sentencing guidelines mean, with good behavior, he will be released in 31 years.

“That will conclude this hearing,” Scoggin said.

Curses rained down on Hatchett. Accusations were tossed at the county prosecutors. A sheriff reminded everyone in the gallery they could still go to jail as people stormed out of the courtroom.

All the while, Webber sat in her chair, her hands around the back of her neck.