Street Gang Life

A Knox County judge Thursday ensured the death behind bars of a man who killed an innocent bystander in what a prosecutor described as a “wild, wild west” shoot-out in a populated area of East Knoxville. Richard Cleophus Smith, 21, was already facing a life sentence — 51 years of which are mandatory — for the July 2009 shooting death of innocent bystander Ronald Gilmore, 29. On Thursday, Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz stacked another 26 years onto that life sentence for Smith’s lesser convictions in trying to kill his intended target, a rival gang member. “Mr. Smith was engaged in a gang war, if you want to call it that,” Leibowitz said. “There were many victims out there that day. Nobody had any regard for anyone who could have been victimized by this.”

Assistant District Attorney General Kevin Allen said Gilmore was walking to a store on McConnell Avenue when he was struck by bullets Smith was firing from two assault-style weapons during a gunbattle in the Walter P. Taylor Homes housing project with Desmond Cowan. “You’ve got somebody who just doesn’t care, who treated Walter P. Taylor as the wild, wild west,” Allen said of Smith. Defense attorney Wesley Stone argued that while Gilmore was an innocent bystander, Cowan was not. Stone urged Leibowitz not to add any time to Smith’s life sentence in Gilmore’s death for the attempted murder of Cowan. Smith was fired upon first and he fired back,” Stone said. Smith denied trying to kill Cowan and pointed to the firepower Smith was packing as proof. “You saw them guns, your honor,” Smith said. “If I had intended to kill someone, they would be dead.”