Wichita man sentenced in 2024 Goddard Walmart shooting that left teen paralyzed
A Wichita man has been sentenced to about three and a half years in prison after shooting a teenager outside the Goddard Walmart in 2024, leaving him paralyzed.
A Sedgwick County judge sentenced 49-year-old Ruben Contreras to 43 months in prison after he was found guilty of aggravated battery in a week-long trial in November. The Wichita man was acquitted by a jury of one count of attempted first-degree murder.
The incident happened in May 2024 after Contreras’ 16-year-old daughter called him in distress. While shopping for graduation party supplies with her boyfriend, his daughter said, three teenage boys drove by the couple and shot them with gel blasters as part of a Goddard High tradition called “senior assassins.”
Contreras drove to the Walmart parking lot and confronted 18-year-old Anakin Zehring as the teen backed out of a parking space. Contreras pulled out a handgun and fired into the back of the driver’s seat.
“Zehring said his ears started ringing and realized he had been shot,” a probable cause affidavit read. “Zehring says he turned to the west and realized he couldn’t feel his legs.”
Zehring was hit in the lower back. The bullet damaged the teen’s small intestine and spinal cord, and he lost control of the vehicle, colliding with a light pole and storage container. The teen was hospitalized and has since undergone at least four surgeries.
“Whatever happened, whatever controversy … regardless of any situation, my son didn’t deserve what happened to him,” Jeremy Zehring, the father of Anakin Zehring, said in a previous interview with the Eagle. “This will change his life forever. And it’s going to change my life forever and my family’s.”
Contreras had said he didn’t know the gel blaster was a toy gun and that he was protecting his daughter, court records say.
Judge Seth Rundle gave Contreras the maximum sentence — 43 months — in the Kansas Department of Corrections. He will also serve 36 months of post-release supervision and be required to register as a violent offender for 15 years.
