Champaign man sentenced to 31 years in prison for road rage shooting
URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — The Champaign man who shot a U of I student in a case of road rage more than three years ago was sentenced to 31 years in prison for the crime after he pleaded guilty on Thursday.
Derrick Humphrey, 34, reached a deal with prosecutors where he pleaded guilty to charges in two separate cases against him. One case was the road rage shooting, and he pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder. In the other case, he pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon as a felon.
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Police officers found Humphrey in possession of a gun during a routine traffic stop seven months after the shooting. Ballistic testing later determined it was the weapon used in the road rage shooting.
After accepting Humphrey's guilty plea, Judge Roger Weber sentenced him to 31 years in prison for attempted murder and a concurrent seven years for unlawful weapon possession. Humphrey was given credit for two years he's already served in custody.
The sentencing came almost two years to the day after that testing gave prosecutors the evidence they needed to charge Humphrey with shooting Liam Gasser on Oct. 24, 2021. Champaign Police determined that at the intersection of Prospect Avenue and Town Center Boulevard, a car cut Gasser off and he honked his horn.
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Humphrey was inside the car that cut Gasser off, and he responded by firing a shot at the 24-year-old college student. Gasser, a club lacrosse player at U of I and an aspiring EMT, was getting supplies for his Halloween costume when his life was changed forever.
The bullet struck him just behind the left ear, ricocheted off his cervical vertebrae, and exited below his right ear. It was an injury that Gasser survived, but he was left forever paralyzed.
The shooting happened in broad daylight and at a busy intersection in Champaign's shopping district. Despite witnesses describing the car responsible for the shooting — a black Chevrolet Equinox — it was 18 months before Humphrey was finally charged.
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Before that, officers pulled over a black Equinox in May of 2022. Humphrey was driving the car and officers found a gun inside, which prosecutors said he wasn't allowed to have. Humphrey was arrested and charged with possession of a weapon by a felon, and he was later released on bond.
It wasn't until March of 2023 that testing revealed the gun found in Humphrey's car was the weapon used to hurt Gasser. When Humphrey was walking into court for his unlawful possession case, he was arrested and charged with attempted murder.
Humphrey has been in custody ever since and he will spend 29 more years in prison following his guilty plea.
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