Bucks man sentenced to decades in prison for gang-fueled shooting that killed the wrong person
Kelvontae Perry demonstrated a troubling lack of remorse for his role in Shaquille Love's death, according to Bucks County Court Judge Wallace Bateman.
Shaquille Love had plans for his future, his family said Wednesday. He told them often about his desire to work hard, join the military, and start a family of his own.
Love didn’t live to see those plans through. All that’s left now, his mother said, are the memories of that ambition, frozen in time, like the relics left in his untouched bedroom.
“Every time he left the house, I would say ‘I love you. Be careful,’” Shauna Love wrote in a statement read by Bucks County prosecutors in court Wednesday. “And when I said it that [last] time, I had no idea, no clue, that I would never be able to see him or touch him until the day we laid him to rest.”
Love, 21, was killed on Christmas Eve 2020, a bystander in an intergenerational gang conflict that prosecutors say roiled Bristol Township.
Kelvontae Perry, one of the men involved in the plot to kill Love, was sentenced Wednesday to 21 ½ to 44 years in state prison by Bucks County Court Judge Wallace Bateman, who chastised him for what he described as a troubling lack of remorse for his actions.
Perry, 30, was convicted of third-degree murder, conspiracy, and gun crimes in December, after a two-day bench trial before Bateman.
During the trial, prosecutors conceded that Perry did not fire the shot that killed Love. But they said he played a vital role in the murder, driving the vehicle the gunman rode in, using the car to “stalk” Love’s vehicle as he drove Andrew Bryant, his childhood friend and the intended target, through Bristol Township.
Bryant was targeted, prosecutors said, in a feud between members of two rival sections of Bristol Township: Bloomsdale and Winder Village.
» READ MORE: From 2019: "Bucks jury finds two men guilty in chaotic prom-night killings"
Bryant had shared a video on social media of him desecrating a memorial to Winder Village residents killed in a 2018 shooting, and Perry and his accomplice, who lived in Bloomsdale, were seeking revenge.
On the night of the murder, Perry parked his car next to Love’s car and “lined up” the shot that killed him, Deputy District Attorney Kristen McElroy said Wednesday.
“If not for that, Shaquille Love would still be here,” she said. “Shaquille was a good man, and Kelvontae Perry took something from his family that he can never give back.”
Love was shot once in the head as he sat behind the wheel of his Chrysler 200 on Edgely Road, according to the grand jury presentment in the case against Perry. After Perry’s Lexus had tailed Love’s car for several minutes, Love pulled over to allow the car to pass.
As the Lexus slowly rolled by, a gunman in the passenger seat fired once, the presentment said, striking Love, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Perry’s attorney, Keith Williams, said the gunman was Quashaad James, and James, he said, is the one responsible for Love’s death.
Perry didn’t tell police James was the shooter, Williams said, because James, 29, pressured Perry to lie, asking him to implicate Perry’s younger brother instead. Perry refused to snitch on James because James had threatened his family, Williams said.
“He’s being punished for a shooting that someone else committed,” Williams said. “If he gave up the shooter, he would’ve lost his family, his brother, and that’s a tough decision to make.”
James has not been charged with Love’s murder, but he does face a perjury charge for lying to the grand jury investigating the case.
He is in state prison, serving a 20 to 40 year sentence for attempted murder and aggravated assault for shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend in Philadelphia just 10 days before Love was killed.
Perry, in a statement read to Love’s family, apologized for the shooting, saying it never should have happened. He blamed his longtime drug abuse for getting him wrapped up in the “street life.”
“I made a mistake, but I know I can be a better man for my family and my community,” Perry said.
McElroy, the prosecutor, questioned Perry’s remorse, saying he has treated Love’s death with a “cavalier” attitude.
She said Perry had bragged about “shooting an opp” on social media after Love’s murder, and gleefully FaceTimed his relatives, encouraging them to lie if questioned by investigators.
Love’s father, Sean, told prosecutors he had moved his family from Philadelphia decades ago, hoping to give his children a better, safer life in the suburbs. The senselessness of his son’s death shook him to his core, he said.
“I will never get to tell my son how much I love him again,” he said Wednesday. “I can only whisper it into the wind in hopes of it reaching him up there in God’s house.”