Teen to serve time in shooting

The way Calvin Earl Maupin tells the story, the car drove by him three times before he saw a passenger point a gun at him.

Maupin fired at the car with his .45-caliber handgun, which he had gone inside to get after the car’s second pass July 19, 2008, near the corner of Ninth and Page streets, a city prosecutor said in court. The car returned gunfire. By the end of the incident, a man inside the car had been shot in the chest.

Before he received a three-year active prison sentence Thursday in Charlottesville Circuit Court, Maupin acknowledged he shouldn’t have gotten involved.

“My mother didn’t raise me like this,” he said.

Maupin, 19, previously pleaded guilty to malicious wounding as part of a plea agreement. Circuit Judge Edward L. Hogshire sentenced him Friday to 15 years in prison, suspending all but three years. He also will have two years of supervised probation, 20 years of good behavior and $3,464.70 in restitution for car damage.

Joe Platania, assistant commonwealth’s attorney, said in court that there’s a local belief about turning away from violence.

“The perception is that backing down is not respected,” he said in court. “ … but they go to prison and they are forgotten. There are other ways to gain respect amongst your peers.”

Maupin said he now understands that mentality was “stupid and childish.” His mother testified that her son has matured since the nonfatal shooting.

Defense attorney William Tanner said in court his client didn’t seek bond.

“Mr. Maupin said to me, ‘I need to sit in here and figure out what to do for myself,’” he said in court.

One of the men in the car, Robert Burrell, received 18 months in jail when he was sentenced in August. Burrell, 23, told authorities that he and his friends were going to Bailey Road from the Fashion Square mall by way of a “shortcut” through Page Street.

Burrell told authorities he drove through the area once, but Platania said in court that Maupin’s account aligns with what witnesses told police they saw that day. Although authorities haven’t been able to prove it, Platania has said in court that Burrell and his friends may have been in the area seeking retaliation for the shooting death of 19-year-old Joshua Magruder that happened earlier that day.

The three men convicted in connection with the earlier incident lived or spent time on Page Street.