A man who fired a handgun into the air at an apartment complex while children were playing nearby was sentenced today to seven years in federal prison.
Sedrick Mac Johnson, Jr., age 24, from Chicago, Illinois, received the prison term after a March 22, 2021 guilty plea to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Evidence at a prior hearing showed that on May 21, 2020, a call was made to the Cedar Rapids 911 line. The caller reported shots fired at an apartment complex on North Towne Court in Cedar Rapids. Police officers arrived at the scene and spoke with multiple witnesses. One witness saw two individuals, one of whom was later identified as Johnson and the other as Kendall J. Willis, walk into an apartment after the shots were fired. The witness saw that each was holding a handgun. Officers searched the ground near where the shots were fired and found three 9mm shell casings. Willis and Johnson then left the apartment and were detained by police. During a later search of that apartment, officers found marijuana, drug packaging, and two 9mm pistols, one of which had an extended magazine. Ballistics testing determined that two of the shell casings found outside the apartment were fired by one of the pistols and that the other shell casing had been fired by the other pistol. Johnson had previously been convicted of three felony burglaries and two felony charges of trafficking in stolen weapons.
Johnson was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams. Johnson was sentenced to 84 months’ imprisonment. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. Willis also pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and previously sentenced to 70 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN). PSN is the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.
Johnson is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dan Chatham and investigated by the Cedar Rapids Safe Streets Task Force. The task force is composed of representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cedar Rapids Police Department.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file number is 20‑CR‑00058‑CJW‑MAR.
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