A parking dispute on a Detroit street has ended with a federal prison term that will stretch well into the next decade. A 38-year-old Detroit man, Cartez Howard, was sentenced this week to more than 16 years behind bars after opening fire with an AR-style rifle during a confrontation over a parking spot, then unleashing roughly 30 rounds on a residential block, according to court records.
A jury convicted Howard in December 2025 on two counts of possession of firearms by a felon. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Laurie J. Michelson handed down a 200-month sentence, a punishment prosecutors say reflects both Howard's record and the chaos he brought to a neighborhood.
Conviction and sentence
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, Howard was found guilty in December 2025 of two counts of being a felon in possession of firearms. Yesterday, United States District Judge Laurie J. Michelson sentenced him to 200 months in federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas McIntyre and Nhan Ho, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives led the investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Scene and charges
Court records describe a September 2025 argument outside a business that started as a dispute over a parking spot and then spiraled. Howard pulled out an AR-style rifle, fired a shot at the victim's feet, and tried to grab the victim's glasses before driving away, as reported by FOX 2 Detroit.
The victim followed in order to report him, and prosecutors say Howard then drove into a nearby residential neighborhood and fired approximately 30 shots. Eleven days later, Howard allegedly returned to a gas station in the same car. When police later found the vehicle with the rifle in the backseat, he abandoned the car, according to FOX 2 Detroit.
Evidence at home
After Howard's arrest, agents searched his apartment and discovered a second firearm hidden under a baby blanket in the bedroom he shared with his infant child and the child's mother, prosecutors said in the U.S. Attorney's press release.
"This man is the kind of hell-raiser that can make a neighborhood unlivable," U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon said in the statement, adding that the sentence was meant to respond to the threat posed by violent felons who arm themselves.
Why the sentence matters
Howard was on federal supervised release when the September shooting occurred, which meant any new firearm offense would land in federal court, FOX 2 Detroit noted.
Prosecutors said the 200-month term, roughly 16 years and 8 months, reflects Howard's criminal history and the risk of someone firing dozens of rounds into a populated area.
