A Brooklyn man shot his close friend to death — because the victim let the killer’s girlfriend’s Shih Tzu run away and then dismissed the raging thug’s concern about the missing pooch by saying, “It’s just a damn dog.”
Rashawn Blakes, 33, was sentenced to 22 years behind bars Monday for gunning down John Gilliam, 23, in January 2011, after Ya Ya ran off into the snow, never to be found.
Blakes had the nerve to call Gilliam “a great friend of mine” before he was sentenced.
“You didn’t have to kill him! I would have paid for the dog,” Gilliam’s aunt, Ebony MacCloud, said in an emotional presentencing statement in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Blakes and Gilliam were relaxing inside an apartment on Tompkins Avenue when Gilliam took the female dog with him as he went to talk to a girlfriend outside.
Surveillance footage shown at trial shows the frisky canine running down the snowy path while Gilliam, who also went by the nickname “Hood,” walked calmly behind the quickly escaping pup.
“A little later on, I get a call from Hood stating he lost my dog . . . I started asking him, ‘How did you lose my girl’s dog?’ and he became angry with me, saying, ‘Why are you disrespecting me in front of my girl like this, it’s just a damn dog,’ ” Blakes told cops.
“I then closed my eyes and began pulling the trigger of the gun till it was empty,” Blakes said, according to court papers.
“He fell to the ground, but was still holding on to my leg, so I hit him in the head twice with the gun so he would let go,” Blakes continued.
A jury convicted Blakes of manslaughter last month, but acquitted him of a murder charge that could have put him behind bars for life.
At Monday’s sentencing, prosecutors and the judge spoke about Blakes’ absurd motive.
“This was a very senseless act over something very silly — over something very silly in retrospect,” said Judge Danny Chun.
Prosecutor Phyllis Chu, asking that Chun hit Blakes with the maximum sentence of 25 years, said, “This killing occurred over the loss of a dog.”
Victoria Gilliam, another aunt of the victim, said outside court, “When I heard he was killed over the dog, it made me angry.
“The dog is alive, it just got away. He didn’t kill your dog or sell it gone, so why would you take such aggressive action?”