‘Senseless’: A Lodi family’s response to 3 sentenced in man’s deadly beating outside bar
By Lee Anne Denyer
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SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, California (KCRA) — Three men recently pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter following the 2022 beating death of a Lodi man outside a San Joaquin County bar, KCRA 3 News learned.
According to a spokesperson for San Joaquin Superior Court, they entered pleas on Oct. 12. A spokesperson for the San Joaquin District Attorney’s Office confirmed Aaron Davis, Jason Blasingame and Lloyd Strack received six years each for felony manslaughter.
Steven Buchan, 45, was identified as the man killed. All family members of his who spoke with KCRA 3 wished to remain unnamed.
“He was discarded initially and this sentencing really feels like that just occurred again,” a family member said.
In response to the sentencing, loved ones of Buchan are asking questions about how the investigation was conducted and if six years is an appropriate sentence for the three men given the violent nature of the crime.
“It’s just senseless,” the family member said. “How do you go to an establishment and end up dead just being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
Family also mentioned to KCRA 3 that Buchan did not regularly attend that bar.
Last November, the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office put out a plea for help in locating Blasingame. Officials said in the early hours of May 1, 2022, Buchan was severely beaten and “left to die” outside a bar in Clements, a rural town in the county about 12 miles east of Lodi.
In a November 2022 news release, the sheriff’s office said Davis and Strack were in custody but that Blasingame remained at large. The release also said that Blasingame and Strack were both members of the Stockton chapter of the Hells Angels.
In response to the sentencing, a family member of the man beaten questioned if justice was served.
Members of Buchan’s family said they planned to meet with the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office next week in their search for more information and explanation into the sentences.
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