2 get life for deadly shooting at San Francisco memorial

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two San Francisco gang members who opened fire during a funeral reception for a pimp, killing one person and wounding four innocent bystanders, were sentenced Wednesday to life in federal prison, prosecutors said.

Robert Manning, 31, and Jamare Coats, 29, were sentenced for a March 23, 2019 shooting that took place in front of the Fillmore Heritage Center and not far from a police station.

The men, who belonged to a local street gang, got into a shootout on a crowded sidewalk during which at least 24 shots were fired, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.

Prosecutors said the battle began with a confrontation between several gang members and associates attending a reception at the center for Ron Newt, who had died that month at 69. Newt was a well-known and flamboyant San Francisco pimp in the 1970s and 1980s.

The victim, 25-year-old Mister Dee Carnell Simmons III, “acted disrespectfully towards them, branding a firearm and threatening” them, the U.S. attorney’s statement said.

Manning, Coats and others left the building and went to their parked cars where Manning and Coats armed themselves and got into the shootout with Simmons, who died of his wounds, authorities said.

Four other people were wounded in the crossfire, including a bystander who was was shot in the back and paralyzed from the waist down as he tried to escape the shooting, prosecutors said.

Manning and Coats were convicted in August of murder in aid of racketeering and of being felons in possession of firearms.