Gunman in East Side shooting gets three years in prison By Jessica La Plante News-Chronicle A 22-year-old Milwaukee man who returned a stranger's insults with gunshots during a verbal dispute at an East Side apartment was ordered to spend three years in prison Monday. Convicted of first-degree reckless endangerment in August, Nathaniel Ford appeared before a Brown County judge Monday to be sentenced for the May 20 shooting. Under the terms of a plea bargain, defense attorneys and prosecutors made a joint recommendation for three years of initial confinement followed by three years of extended supervision. The deal also required prosecutors to dismiss an armed robbery charge against Ford stemming from the victim's claims that Ford robbed him of $90 during the shooting. Although Ford denied taking the man's money when questioned by police, he confessed to shooting the stranger. Ford told Green Bay detectives he shot the man in the leg after the victim shouted racial slurs at him. According to a criminal complaint, Ford and two male relatives visited an apartment in the 2200 block of Eastman Avenue to confront another man about a drug deal. Instead, Ford got into an argument with a different man and shot the stranger in the leg, the complaint said. Although prosecutors and defenses attorneys asked for the same sentence for Ford, each gave a separate reasons for doing so. Prosecutors said they were concerned about the defendant's criminal record, which included a 1998 conviction for cocaine possession followed by a second drug conviction in 2002. Defense attorney John Williamson said his client had learned his lesson and had plenty of incentive to change. He said Ford's fiancée is expecting to give birth to the couple's third child in January. The defendant's girlfriend said Ford is eager to play the role of father and provider, but can't support his family from prison. "He now understands his mistake," she wrote in a letter to the judge. "I go to visit him (in jail) and hear the pain in his voice and see the tears he cries - I hear the 'I'm sorry for what I did.'" Brown County Circuit Court Judge J.D. McKay accepted the joint sentencing recommendation and declared the defendant eligible for the challenge incarceration program. Inmates who qualify for the program can shorten their prison stay by successfully completing a boot camp program, which allows them to be released on parole sooner.