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Coeur d'Alene man sentenced 25 to life after fatal bar fight

The Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years, 4 months AGO
by The Associated Press
| March 14, 2020 12:26 PM

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) — A Coeur d'Alene man was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to fatally shooting a man during a bar fight in February 2019.

Scott M. White pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in December after shooting Michael "Topher" Clark on Feb. 24 in the parking lot of The Tipsy Pine, a bar in Hayden, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported. He was originally charged with first-degree murder.

White apologized for his “overreaction," adding that he should not have been drinking or have taken the firearm into the tavern. “I know I can never repay … all the broken hearts I have caused,” he said.

The altercation began inside the bar, where 45-year-old Clark was a regular, prosecutors said.

Witnesses, including White's girlfriend and the bartender told deputies Clark had confronted White for behaving loudly while playing songs on the jukebox.

Witnesses told police White threw the first punch and Clark responded with a slap before the bartender asked White to leave. White's girlfriend told deputies that the fighting resumed in the parking lot after Clark followed White outside.

Video surveillance showed White then shot Clark five times, striking him twice in the chest before pulling the trigger three more times, prosecutors said.

One of Clark's friends held White at gunpoint until deputies arrived. Clark was pronounced dead at a hospital.

White was described as heavily intoxicated at the time of the shooting.

“Murder is the lowest of mankind’s sin,” said Christine Hewson, Clark’s mother. “We’re all living with the rage and the sickness that murder brings … the sickness of grief … I hadn’t known it, but I know it now.”

Clark was a small-town celebrity who gained notoriety in the early 2000s for his role in the 2014 “Kid Cannabis" film. The comedy-drama was based on the true story of a group of teenagers, including Clark, who built a multi-million-dollar marijuana trafficking enterprise by smuggling pot through the woods across the U.S.-Canada border.

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