Man Gets 100 Years For Lending His Niece The Gun She Used To Kill 14-Year-Old Endia Martin

By Mae Rice in News on Mar 22, 2016 7:35PM

Daniel Flora, 27, was sentenced to 100 years in prison for his involvement in the fatal shooting of 14-year-old Endia Martin. (Chicago Police Department)

A man was sentenced to 100 years in prison for giving his then-14-year-old niece a gun while she was embroiled in a romantic rivalry that had escalated into threats of violence. His niece ultimately used the gun to fatally shoot her romantic rival’s friend, 14-year-old Endia Martin, in Back of the Yards in April 2014.

Donnell Flora, 27, is wheelchair-bound after a 2010 shooting paralyzed him from the waist down, the Sun-Times reports—but he nevertheless facilitated Martin’s shooting. He lent his niece a .38 revolver while she was feuding with Lanekia Reynolds, 16, over a boy.

Martin was with Reynolds at the time of the shooting, and both fled Flora’s niece’s gunfire and tried to take cover in Reynolds’ home. As they fled, a bullet grazed Reynolds was on the arm, and Martin was killed.

Endia's older sister, Mykia, 17, spoke at the hearing. "My life has been changed," she said, according to the Tribune. I keep seeing my baby sister in a puddle of blood. ... I would give anything to redo that day and have my sister back."

"It was never supposed to go the way it went," the Tribune reports Flora said at the hearing.

Onlookers cheered when Flora’s century-long sentence was announced.

“There are no excuses or rationalization for giving a child a gun to take to a ridiculous fight about a boy,” Judge Thaddeus Wilson told Flora from the bench. “Children in this city are dying by the hundreds because adults fail to and/or refuse to be adults.”

The judge also declaimed against the "social media foolishness" that led to the shooting, according to the Tribune.

Flora’s lawyer, Joel Brodsky, argued fruitlessly that Flora lent his niece the gun only as protection, and instructed her to give it to her cousin, according to the Sun-Times. He also argued that while Flora had been "incredibly stupid," he hadn't committed a crime, the Tribune reported.

Flora’s niece, now 16, will face trial in April in juvenile court for murder and attempted murder.