Roanoke 20-year-old sentenced for shooting over marijuana

Shaquai J. Cary was indicted in January 2024 on three felony charges related to the gunfire incident that injured one man: aggravated malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and robbery using a firearm.

In accordance with a plea agreement Friday, the aggravated malicious wounding charge was amended to malicious wounding, to which Cary pleaded guilty. His other two charges, plus a failure to appear charge he collected last summer, were dropped.

On the wounding charge, Cary was sentenced to 15 years of incarceration, suspended after he serves four years. He’ll get credit for the time he has served awaiting court proceedings, and he’s been ordered into the Indian Creek Correctional Center‘s Youthful Offender program.

Once he successfully completes that program and is released, Cary will be placed on supervised probation for another two years, followed by five years of good behavior. He’ll have to pay his court costs within one year of his release and have no contact with the shooting victim, Rolando Landeros.

City Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Jason Morgan said that the prosecution was agreeable to a sentence within state guidelines due to Cary’s age and his lack of a criminal history.

Just after midnight on Oct. 12, 2023, Morgan said police were summoned to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where a man with a gunshot wound had arrived in a personal vehicle. Other officers were also dispatched to the 600 block of 9th Street Southeast for shooting reports.

Police determined that the man at the hospital had been shot at the 9th Street location. Landeros and his girlfriend told investigators that they had been out with Cary the previous day. At one point, Cary and Landeros got into an argument over an amount of marijuana that was in the vehicle with them. Cary produced a firearm and shot Landeros.

Morgan said that when police located Cary later that night, he admitted that he had shot Landeros. The prosecutor said that he believes “society will benefit” from Cary’s successful completion of the Youthful Offender Program.

Cary’s attorney, Roanoke-area lawyer Patrick Kenney, said his client “has a lot of promise,” and that the presence of Cary’s friends and family in court Friday “speaks well of the support network” he has. Kenney said he’s confident Cary will come home from the Youthful Offender Program “a better person than before.”

Judge Leisa Ciaffone agreed with Morgan’s and Kenney’s statements.

“I know you’re thrilled to get this opportunity,” she told Cary, “and I wish you all the best of luck.”