00:00Convicto de shooting a teenager in a Goddard Walmart parking lot learns his fate today.
00:04Ruben Contreras, sentenced to three and a half years in prison for aggravated battery in the May 2024 shooting.
00:10Brock Wilson was in the courtroom when the sentencing was handed down and joins us now with more on that
00:15decision.
00:15Brock?
00:15Mike, Rachel, Ruben Contreras claimed he was acting in self-defense when he shot that teenager over a year and
00:21a half ago,
00:22leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
00:25This effort, Contreras says his daughter was shot by the teen with a gel blaster.
00:30Now, he avoided an attempted murder conviction, but today he learned he will be headed to prison for his actions.
00:36In that moment, we didn't know if our son was dead or alive.
00:41So I sat there and I waited for crying frantically for six, seven hours before I actually got told that
00:49the spoiled cause of his mind, that he may never walk again.
00:53The father and stepmother of the teen boy shot by Ruben Contreras testifying at his sentencing.
00:59My son's been cut by heart surgery.
01:02He's cut from here to here because of his small intestine.
01:04He's got scars from here to here.
01:06He's got them down his back.
01:08He's got bullet holes over here.
01:11I mean, you name it, he's got it.
01:13He's deformed all over.
01:15Contreras did not testify today, so the judge taking those statements into account before handing down his sentence.
01:21Upon those findings, I sentenced the defendant to the high number term of 43 months in the custody of the
01:26Secretary of Corrections.
01:28That was the maximum sentence Contreras could have received for aggravated battery.
01:33Afterward, District Attorney Mark Bennett addressing the case.
01:36I think there's a misunderstanding about how sentences are arrived at by judges.
01:41The DA explaining how the judge arrived at his decision.
01:44Kansas has a sentencing grid, and it sets the level of crime, and so 1 through 10 are the various
01:52levels.
01:53Aggravated battery, level 4, is the highest level of aggravated battery you can have.
01:58The teen's family members did not say if they felt this was a just sentence, but the district attorney did
02:03address that during our conversation.
02:05To say satisfied, I don't think anyone is satisfied with any sentence, but they understood the law and understood the
02:11situation we're in.
02:13Now, Contreras is eligible for a 15% reduction in his sentence for good behavior.
02:18He'll also spend three years on supervised release after he's out of prison.
02:22Rachel.
02:23The genou Secretariat
02:23The end of the day
