{"id":496129,"date":"2026-10-14T19:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/496129\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T19:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:42:13","slug":"man-laughs-after-being-sentenced-to-32-years-in-prison-for-deadly-shooting-outside-bakersfield-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/496129\/","title":{"rendered":"Man laughs after being sentenced to 32 years in prison for deadly shooting outside Bakersfield hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) &#8212; A gang member who pleaded no contest to fatally shooting a man outside a Bakersfield hotel six years ago laughed loudly, enraging the victim&#8217;s family, after he was sentenced Wednesday to 32 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">David Bobo Thomas pleaded no contest last month to voluntary manslaughter. A murder charge was dismissed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Statements prepared by two aunts of shooting victim Tazmein Leoshus English were read at sentencing. One said the family is still grieving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Although life continues, we will never be the same,&#8221; one statement read.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Thomas, 42, smiled and shook his head after the statements were read. He then cackled loudly following his sentencing and as he was escorted from the courtroom, prompting an outburst from a member of English&#8217;s family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Thomas was arrested a week after English was found shot on the afternoon of Sept. 23, 2020, at the Residence Hotel Courtyard, north of East Truxtun Avenue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">English, 21, was pronounced dead at Kern Medical.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Prosecutors have said Thomas is a convicted felon and member of the Westside Crips who carried out the shooting to benefit the gang.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) &#8212; A gang member who pleaded no contest to fatally shooting a man outside a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-496129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}