Gunfire draws max sentence

Bill Gang

Wednesday, June 26, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

A Taco Bell break for a convicted felon from California wasn't a run for the border -- or anywhere else.

Instead, 25-year-old Jerrod Mack Wesley calmly sat at the drive-through window and munched his meal as a carload of hungry people behind him frantically honked for him to move on.

Finally he did, but a fire was building under his collar, matched only by the hot sauce that fired his meal from the fast-food restaurant at Flamingo Road and Decatur Boulevard.

Wesley waited and followed the carload after they picked up their order. When the vehicle reached its destination, he hopped out with a .380-caliber pistol in his hand and peppered the car with at least five rounds.

He broke out the windshield and flattened a tire but somehow none of the occupants were hit by the flying bullets.

At his sentencing Tuesday, Wesley learned that his Taco Bell treats were going to be replaced for the next few years with prison food.

District Judge Sally Loehrer sentenced Wesley to 10 years in prison and ordered the sentence to run consecutively to a sentence he will serve in California for parole violation on a drug conviction.

Wesley's attorney, Paul Wommer, argued for leniency, noting that the defendant needs anger control counseling.

"Warehousing him for 10 years won't be in anyone's interest," he said.

But Loehrer smacked him with the maximum sentence on the assault with a deadly weapon charge he pleaded guilty to in May.

She questioned why an ex-convict would risk carrying a gun if he knew he was subject to violent outbursts.

"If you can't control your anger, at least control your possessions," Loehrer said. "This wouldn't have happened if you didn't have a gun.