The 23-year-old Sacramento man convicted of opening fire on a Greyhound bus in Oroville two years ago — killing a woman and wounding four others, including an 11-year-old and a pregnant woman — was charged by a Union general sentenced to life in prison. Judge from California.
The sentence was handed down Friday by Butte Superior Court Judge Corie J. Caraway after a jury in late April convicted Asaahdi Elijah Coleman of killing 43-year-old Karen Dalton as the Los Angeles-bound bus was stopped at a gas station in Oroville on the night of February 2, 2022.
Dalton, a Seattle resident, was traveling with her 14-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter, who shot Coleman twice, including once in the face.
Dalton’s family told The Sacramento Bee days after the killing that Dalton suffered multiple injuries during the shooting while trying to protect her children. She and her two children boarded a Greyhound bus in Spokane, Washington, and were on their way to visit Dalton’s eldest son in New Mexico before continuing their journey to Alabama. Her family was moving there and they decided it would be cheaper to travel by bus.
Three other people suffered gunshot wounds in the bizarre attack that called into question the mental competency of the then 21-year-old, who had previously served time in Sacramento’s juvenile court.
He was also found guilty of four attempted murders – for shooting Dalton’s daughter, as well as a 25-year-old pregnant woman, a 32-year-old man and a 38-year-old man – and a slew of murders. of enhancements for the alleged use of a firearm in the commission of the attack.
Coleman was from Sacramento, although public records of his time in the city were scarce. He also lived what law enforcement officials described as a “transient lifestyle” in California.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at the time that the victims on the bus described Coleman as erratic and “paranoid” from the moment he boarded the bus in Redding. At one point he showed passengers a 9mm pistol he was carrying in a small bag.
Authorities say Coleman, who had been sitting in the back of the bus, jumped forward and pulled out a 9mm handgun, waved it at the passengers and started an argument with a person he believed was an undercover police officer. Honea said in the hours after the attack that a “significant confrontation” escalated from there and that Coleman fired “somewhere north of ten shots.”
After opening fire in the van parked at an AM-PM convenience store, Coleman fled. Officers, police and other law enforcement officers took him into custody at a nearby Walmart, where authorities said he fought with a man and took off his clothes.
In a statement, the Butte County District Attorney’s Office said Dalton’s daughter addressed the court via video conference during the sentencing phase and told the judge she still has recurring nightmares about Coleman’s attack.
Another victim, Rose Whitley, now 27, had her statement read by a victim’s attorney. Prosecutors said she talked about “her constant pain from shrapnel lodged in her tailbone from the shooting” and how her child was born prematurely.
Bobby Farber, now 34, “spoke from his wheelchair in the courtroom,” the prosecutor’s office said. “He noted that he was now permanently paralyzed as a result of the shooting and was in constant pain.”
Chief Deputy District Attorney Mark Murphy drew a direct line between Farber’s “bravery” and Coleman’s “cowardice,” noting a prosecutor’s finding that Coleman suffered from “antisocial personality disorder” and other behavior that was “deeply defective and dangerous.” Murphy said the strongest sentence was being urged “to protect the public.”
At the end of the penalty phase, Caraway sentenced Coleman to a minimum of 74 years and 8 months to life, “noting his prior crimes involving violence and weapons both as a juvenile and as an adult in the Bay Area and Sacramento,” according to the Public Ministry. said.
However, prosecutors said Coleman could be eligible for parole as early as 2049, when he would be 48, because of California’s Youthful Offender Parole law.
Coleman remained in custody at the Butte County Jail pending his commitment to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The Bee’s Rosalio Ahumada contributed to this story.
