A 20-year-old defendant accepted a revised plea offer from the prosecution on Feb. 18, pleading guilty to reckless endangerment and having a handgun on his person in connection to a Federal Hill shooting incident that occurred last spring.
Isaiah Shane Eckels is now set to serve one year behind bars. The state’s full offer consisted of a five-year sentence, suspending all but one, for the charge of reckless endangerment, as well as a concurrent one-year sentence for the handgun charge. Upon completion of his sentence, Eckels will be required to complete three years of supervised probation and register as a gun offender. In exchange for his guilty plea, the state agreed to drop his remaining six charges.
Two months prior, the state had offered Eckels a longer sentence of five years without parole, followed by five years of supervised probation. Eckels rejected that request, leading the court to schedule the defendant for trial beginning March 25. The trial has since been cancelled following the introduction of the state’s revised plea and Eckels’ subsequent decision to accept it.
Charging documents state that the discharging culminated from an early morning altercation between two groups of people on the unit block of E. Cross Street. As the two parties clashed physically, one of the involved men passed Eckels a handgun. The defendant fired the weapon three times into the air, an act which counsel agreed was taken “in defense of others.” Defense attorney John Cox added that Eckels had been “actively trying to disengage the argument.”
Investigators also located a 30-year-old man in the area, suffering from a gunshot wound to his foot. While they later learned he had been involved in the altercation on Cross Street, further examination revealed he sustained the gunshot wound during a separate incident at the intersection of E. Hamburg and S. Charles Streets.
Eckels was arrested on Cherry Hill Road, approximately three weeks after the discharging. A detective had recognized him from a previous arrest.
During the plea hearing, Eckels declined his right to address the court. Several members of his family were also in attendance.
