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A Port Arthur man that shot two men, killing one and paralyzing another reportedly did so because “those guys disrespected me.”

On Tuesday Deon Patrick Williams, 45, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the 2021 killing of Derrick Pitre, 56. He also received a 20-year sentence in the aggravated assault of the second victim.

The sentencing was part of a plea agreement with Jefferson County District attorney’s Office. The 252nd District Judge Raquel West handed down the sentence.

On Aug. 16, 2021, Williams approached the two victims in the parking lot of a convenience store in the 600 block of Gulfway Drive and asked for a cigarette.

When the two declined his request, Williams produced a handgun that was outfitted with a device commonly referred to as a “Glock-Switch” and shot the murder victim seven times and the aggravated assault victim once as he ran away, according to information from the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office.

Pitre died at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont on Aug. 25, 2021.

Williams fled the scene and when Port Arthur police arrested him the next day he told officers “those guys disrespected me.”

A Glock-Switch is a device used to convert a standard, legal handgun into a fully automatic machine gun.

“The Defendant’s actions in this case were a display of monumental senselessness, a man lost his life over something as trivial as a cigarette,” stated Assistant District Attorney, Tommy Coleman. Williams faced up to 99 years confinement in Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on the murder and up to 20 years on the aggravated assault. The sentences will run concurrently (at the same time) and Williams will be eligible for parole when his time served equals one-half of his sentence.