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District resident Tyrone Curtis, 35, was sentenced by a judge on Friday to life in prison, with all but 15 years suspended after being convicted in January of the first-degree murder of 29-year-old Amontae Cunningham on a Metro Transit bus.
“The State sought a life sentence in this case and finds an executed sentence of 15 years to be stunning," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy said. "It is inconsistent with the facts of the case and the verdict returned by the jury.
"Right now, our hearts are with the victim’s family,”
Shortly before 12:30 p.m. on April 5 last year, Curtis and Cunningham got into a verbal altercation on a Metro Transit bus in Wheaton that rapidly escalated, prosecutors say.
Cunningham got off the bus in the 11300 block of Amherst Avenue, at which point Curtis followed him out with a blade in hand and stabbed him in the upper body, sending his victim to the ground.
The incident was captured by surveillance cameras on the bus.
“This was a verbal altercation between strangers that the defendant senselessly escalated," McCarthy said when Curtis was convicted. "There was zero justification for the use of a deadly weapon, and he will pay the consequences."
In addition to his prison term, Curtis was also ordered by the judge to serve five years of supervised probation upon his release.
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