The wheels of justice are finally creaking forward in a heart-wrenching case out of San Antonio, where a man accused in the fatal drive-by shooting of a 4-year-old boy is spurning a plea deal and instead gambling with his fate before a jury. Quentin Phillips, entwined in the 2017 tragedy that ripped away the innocent De’Earlvion Whitley during a late-night video game session with his brother, outright rejected a 40-year plea bargain on Friday, as KSAT reported. The refusal sets the stage for a trial starting December 5, with the specter of a life sentence looming should the jury find Phillips guilty of murder.
Terrell Chase and John Chatmon, Phillips's alleged accomplices, standing both charged with being accessories to the murder and possession of a firearm by a felon, have been swept up in the tide of local, state, and federal authorities' crackdown on the gang violence blamed for tearing De’Earlvion from his family. It took concerted law enforcement efforts stretching to three years for the indictments to mature, even though gunmen allegedly fired a barrage of 65 shots into the family's East Side abode, hitting De’Earlvion's mother as well, who survived the onslaught, as the San Antonio Express-News revealed.
The community and a city were left in shock, mourning "Little Earl," as the young boy was fondly known, remembered for his vivacious spirit and love for dance and flag football. A Bexar County grand jury has indicted Phillips, alongside Terrell Chase and co-defendant Todd Hill, tainted by their extensive criminal backgrounds, for the irrevocable loss of a child's future. Warrants are still pending for two more men involved in the deadly conduct that snuffed out a life prematurely.
"This little boy was inside his home, a place where he should have been safe, especially from violent crime like this," Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales lamented, in what has become a poignant emblem of the case's emotional weight. Meanwhile, Police Chief William McManus, underscoring the collaborative effort it took to advance matters to this point, decried the "tragedy that outraged our community."
