A federal judge in Chicago sentenced a gang member to more than 16 years in prison for shooting an ATF agent in the head last year.
A jury convicted Ernesto Godinez, 29, in June for the high-profile May 2018 shooting of ATF agent Kevin Crump. The shooting happened early in the morning, when only a few people could be seen wandering the area in the Back of the Yards where it happened.
Federal agents had been trying to replace a tracking device on a car in the 4400 block of South Hermitage. They could be seen on surveillance video, and so could Godinez, who was spotted scurrying into a nearby gangway.
Moments later, five gunshots erupted from the mouth of that gangway in two seconds, prosecutors said. And then, Godinez could be seen darting away. Meanwhile one of the bullets had torn through Crump’s neck, near the edge of the left side of his jaw, and exited directly between his eyes.
On Wednesday, Crump described to the judge the moments after he was shot and was being taken to the hospital.
“I felt blood pouring from my face and somehow making its way to the back of my mouth, obstructing my breathing,” Crump said.
The agent expected to pass out and possibly not wake up, he said.
Federal prosecutors called the attack on Crump “brazen, callous, and cowardly.” They also said Crump suffered permanent damage to his vision. They said he “no longer has tear ducts in [his] left eye, has nerve damage to the left side of his face, … [and] has no vision in the upper left quadrant of his left eye.”
“It truly is a miracle that agent Crump didn’t die that morning,” federal prosecutor Kavitha Babu told the judge.
Babu said the other agents had to “pick agent Crump up by his limbs” and “had to perform first aid on Agent Crump . . . not knowing if he was going to live.”
She also noted Crump had been an agent for only four months when he was shot and had just come to Chicago. “Four months into the job, he was shot through the neck, with a bullet exiting through his eyes.”
Babu argued a lengthy sentence is also needed to protect the Back of the Yards neighborhood and deter others.
“It cannot be that you shoot a federal agent in the head and you still get out of prison young enough to go right back to being a shooter,” she said. Godinez is 29.
Godinez’s defense attorney, Gal Pissetzky, argued that Godinez should not be punished more because he shot a federal agent. In fact, prosecutors say he thought he was shooting at rival gang members.
Pissetzky tried to counter the deterrence argument, saying a harsh sentence for Godinez would only anger young people in the neighborhood, that’s “because they would believe, possibly, that an injustice was done by sentencing somebody for such a long period of time when they have police officers in the neighborhood harassing them.”
Though prosecutors said at trial no one else could have pulled the trigger, defense attorneys argued more than one person appeared on the surveillance video, including a person in a white shirt. Godinez had been wearing black.
Prosecutors said Godinez, a member of the Latin Saints, had been patrolling the area early May 4, 2018, when the ATF set out to replace the tracking device on a vehicle. An advance team had already driven through the area to scout for danger, records show. It had given an all-clear.
That’s when a second team arrived, and a group of agents in street clothes stepped out of a car to replace the tracking device. Nothing identified the agents as law enforcement. Godinez thought they were rival gang members, prosecutors alleged.
Shortly after the 3:18 a.m. shooting, prosecutors say Godinez hopped into a car with his girlfriend, Victoria Jean-Baptiste. He allegedly told her, “I feel good . . . f--- that flake.”
“Flake” is slang for a rival gang member.
When Baptiste took the stand during Godinez’s trial, she said Godinez told her, “I feel good.” Then he said, “f---.” Then, she said, he added “something about flakes.” Prosecutors would accuse her of trying to walk back testimony she had earlier given to a grand jury, having realized how crucial it was to his prosecution.
