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Teen sentenced in 13-year-old's murder in Camden

A teenager was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday for fatally shooting 13-year-old Nathaniel Plummer, Jr., whose death prompted outcry in Camden and a plea from the city's mayor for people to put down their weapons.

A teenager was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday for fatally shooting 13-year-old Nathaniel Plummer Jr., whose death prompted an outcry in Camden and a plea from the city's mayor for people to put down their weapons.

Casche Alford, 18,  had pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter.  Plummer was shot around 11:15 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2016, near Beacon and Line Streets, where police found him lying on the sidewalk. He was pronounced dead at Cooper University Hospital an hour later.
Prosecutors said that text messages placed Alford at the scene of the shooting and that investigators found the handgun she used.
Alford was 17 at the time but was sent to adult court for the killing and two other criminal cases. In one, she received a seven-year sentence for shooting a 19-year-old man, who survived, in October 2015. Prosecutors said she used the same weapon then — a .380 caliber Hi-Point semiautomatic handgun — that  she used to shoot Plummer.
In the other case, Alford received a seven-year sentence for her involvement in the armed robbery of a cab driver in December 2015. 
Her sentences will run concurrently, authorities said.

 Plummer was the youngest person killed in several years in the city at the time. His funeral drew more than 450 people, including Mayor Dana L. Redd, who told the crowd, "the best way we can celebrate this life that was taken too soon is to put our guns down."

    Michael Boren
    I write about social justice and explore how race, gender, sexuality, and class shape our lives in uneven ways.