SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A woman who pulled a gun and tried to shoot a stylist in his North Park shop after getting a haircut she apparently didn't like was sentenced Monday to nine years in state prison.
Adrian Blanche Swain, 30, pleaded guilty in October to assault with a semiautomatic firearm and faced a maximum of 13 years behind bars.
Defense attorney Lindsey McGregor sought a three-year sentence, telling Judge Michael Groch that Swain had a horrible upbringing, suffers from a mental illness -- schizophrenia -- and was delusional the day of the attack at the barber shop.
McGregor said Swain was a drug-addicted baby, was neglected by her parents and started running away from relatives' homes at age 5.
The day of the assault at the barber shop, Swain felt "scared" about messages she thought were being put on her head, McGregor said.
But Deputy District Attorney Makenzie Harvey said Swain acted very deliberately last Feb. 10, after she got a haircut she didn't like. About a half-hour later, Swain returned to the 619 Barbershop with a loaded firearm concealed in her purse, the prosecutor said.
About a month before the assault, Swain shot up her cousin's abandoned car in Texas, using the same gun, Harvey told the judge.
Swain's stylist that day, Lennin Luna, said the defendant came into the shop and asked for a "low cut," and said she was satisfied with the finished product.
When she came back, the defendant said "Look what you did to me," then pointed the weapon at him, but it didn't fire, Luna told the judge.
Luna said Swain pulled the trigger two more times, but the weapon didn't fire either time, and she tried to leave the barber shop.
Luna said he and a co-worker tackled Swain and got the gun away from her, and she begged them to shoot her.
The co-worker responded that he was not going to shoot her, but that he was going to pray for her, Luna told the judge.