Teen gets 26-52 years in slaying of 14-year-old bicyclist

Charles "Chuckie" Meyers cried and cried yesterday during his sentencing hearing.

The 19-year-old South Philly kid, who fatally shot a 14-year-old bicyclist last year after the boy wouldn't get out of the way of Meyers' car fast enough, dropped his head on the defense table and wept when he heard the victim's mother talk about him.

"Sometimes, I just want to hear or feel like the defendant feels sorry for what he did," Tykeem's mother, Shauta McDuffie, 32, said before a packed Common Pleas courtroom yesterday.

Moments later, Meyers sounded sincere when he told the court: "I really am sorry. I may not have said the word, but I really am. . . . I understand what happened. . . . I wish I could trade places with him [Tykeem], I really do."

Judge Shelley Robins New imposed the maximum allowable sentence on Meyers for the charges of which he was convicted: 26 to 52 years in state prison.

Standing, Meyers dropped his head to his gray sweatshirt.

After a three-day trial and five hours of deliberations, a jury on Aug. 1 convicted Meyers of third-degree murder, of carrying a firearm without a license and of possession of an instrument of crime.

It acquitted him of first-degree murder, which requires a premeditated, specific intent to kill, and which would have carried a sentence of life in prison.

McDuffie, who was one of about 20 of Tykeem's family members in court yesterday, tearfully told the judge: "I don't understand third-degree. I really don't understand it. It makes me angry. I don't understand how someone could take someone's life and still have theirs."

She said she still believes that if the race of the defendant and that of the victim were reversed, that a jury would have convicted the killer of first-degree murder.

Tykeem was black; Meyers is white.

Assistant District Attorney Gonen Haklay has previously said that he didn't think race had anything to do with the verdicts.

The judge yesterday also made a similar comment when she said that while some people may consider this case in terms of a "racial divide," that's the "easy path" to take. She said she accepted the jury's verdict that Meyers "did not intend to kill" Tykeem.

Meyers' mother, Coleen Kelly, testified yesterday, looking at Tykeem's family and speaking in a nervous voice. "I'm deeply sorry for what happened, " she said. "Two good boys - it shouldn't have happened."

It was about 4 p.m. on a sunny Saturday, July 14, 2007, when Tykeem and about six other kids lazily rode bikes in the middle of Federal Street, between 9th and 10th, in South Philly, when Meyers pulled up behind them in a Mazda 626.

Meyers, then 18, honked twice, and soon all the boys except Tykeem moved out of the way. Then, Meyers and Tykeem got into a curse-laced argument.

Tykeem eventually did move his bike to an open parking space on the passenger side of the car. But instead of just driving ahead, Meyers pulled out a miniature .22-caliber five-shot revolver, inched his car up so his passenger window was next to Tykeem and fired, piercing the boy's heart.

Meyers claimed at trial that Tykeem had put his hand under his shirt as if he had a gun, but witnesses at the scene, including Meyers' two passengers, said they did not see Tykeem make any threatening moves.

Haklay, who asked for the maximum sentence, told the court yesterday that Meyers "killed an unarmed little boy because that little boy annoyed him, because he took 20 seconds out of his life."

Meyers' attorney, Daniel Conner, asked the judge for a sentence of 15 to 30 years, and said the killing "was an impulsive act done by this young man."

As Meyers left the courtroom, his brown hair unkempt and his eyes red, he turned back toward the victim's family and told them, "I'm sorry."

Afterward, outside the Criminal Justice Center, McDuffie said she wasn't sure if she could accept his apology.

"I don't know," she said. "I've been wanting to hear it, but it really don't even matter right now. . . . It don't even feel like he's sorry."

Meyers' family didn't comment afterward. His uncle spit at a Channel 6 ABC cameraman, but missed. The cameraman was later overheard saying: "They came out spitting-mad." *