By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com
A Galt street gang member who accidentally shot and killed one of his friends last year was sentenced today to four years in state prison for involuntary manslaughter.
Hector Quintero, 19, pleaded no contest March 5 to the shotgun killing of his friend, Gerardo Briseno, 19.
Quintero's probation report, filed today in Sacramento Superior Court, showed that Briseno bought the shotgun just three days before his Sept. 10 death in a friend's residence on Alice Rae Circle.
Briseno and Quintero were joking around with the shotgun, cocking it and pretending to shoot each other, when Quintero -- thinking the weapon was unloaded -- pulled the trigger and blew a hole through the right side of Briseno's nose, the report said.
"It was an accident," Quintero told another friend right after the shooting, the probation report shows. "I just shot the fool."
The probation report identified Quintero, a Galt resident, as an admitted Sureno street gang member since 2006. The report said he had been on probation for possession of a deadly weapon and graffiti vandalism. It said he violated of his probation with street gang activity, possession of vandalism tools, smoking marijuana, failure to participate in drug and alcohol counseling, being intoxicated in a public place, fighting, curfew violations and associating with street gang members.
Quintero had been placed in the Sacramento County Boys Ranch in 2009, the report states.
The victim's mother was "not satisfied" with the terms of Quintero's plea deal, the probation report shows, stating that Briseno's mother "will never forgive the defendant for leaving her son on the floor dying and not calling for help."
Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.
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