Milwaukee road rage shooting; Demetreon Caston-Townsend sentenced
MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee County judge sentenced Demetreon Caston-Townsend on Tuesday, April 16 to 19 years in prison plus an additional ten years of extended supervision in connection with the shooting death of Ronald Butler in July 2022. Butler was a Milwaukee father killed in the road rage shooting while he drove with four of his kids near 91st and Mill.
Ronald Butler, Demetreon Caston-Townsend
Caston-Townsend pleaded guilty in January to a charge of second-degree reckless homicide in the case. A second charge of first-degree recklessly endangering safety was dismissed and read into the court record for the purposes of sentencing.
Case details
The shooting of Butler happened on July 19, 2022, around 5:30 p.m.
According to prosecutors, Caston-Townsend was driving a Chevy Equinox that ran a red light and nearly struck the van Butler was driving with four of his children as passengers.
Before the shooting, a criminal complaint says the Equinox and a Toyota Corolla were seen in video at a nearby gas station, and the people in those two vehicles were seen interacting with each other. Both vehicles left the gas station and headed in the direction of where the homicide happened.
Butler's son told investigators they were on their way to a birthday party that evening when Caston-Townsend nearly hit their van. He said his dad yelled at Caston-Townsend to "stop speeding because there are kids in the car." He said he heard a "pew" and then saw his dad slumped over at the wheel. He then jumped out of the van to try to get help, the complaint says. Butler had been shot in the face.
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A neighbor heard the gunshot and ran to try to help Butler and the children in the van. This neighbor saw a Toyota sedan stop near the scene. The complaint says the neighbor saw someone get out of the vehicle and pick something up off the road before the car pulled away.
The driver of that Toyota Corolla was interviewed by police, and prosecutors say he indicated he was following behind Caston-Townsend's Equinox when Caston-Townsend ran the red light and almost hit Butler's van. He said after the van crashed, he slowed down to see what happened, and one of his passengers lost their hat, so he stopped to pick it up off the road. He said he then called Caston-Townsend, who told him to meet him at 42nd and Silver Spring.
There, the complaint says Caston-Townsend was "panicking," and "other guys were telling him to "relax and get rid of any evidence." Prosecutors say he threw a spent casing down a sewer. That casing was recovered by police from the sewer in July 2022.
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Another person who was in the Corolla said after the near-crash, when Butler started yelling at Caston-Townsend, he "raised his gun and bust one time and must have hit him in the head." He said after the shooting, Caston-Townsend got rid of the casing (in the sewer) and burned his clothes.