Michael Beaver was a young man with a knack for working with his hands.

It started when he was a child, and he would use the tools his parents gave him to remove door handles and latches from all over the house. He grew into a 25-year-old who could custom-build fishing poles, tinker with radio-controlled racing cars and work on heating and air-conditioning systems, a vocation he pursued with his older brother.

The two had plans to go into business together someday.

But those plans ended abruptly in the early morning hours of June 15, 2014, when Beaver was punched a single time outside a lounge in the Gaslamp Quarter, causing him to fall and hit his head on a metal railing. He died at a hospital.


On Friday, the man who delivered the fatal punch appeared at a hearing in San Diego Superior Court. Mahad Ahmed, who was found guilty in May of second-degree murder and assault, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Beaver’s mother told the judge at the hearing that her life was irrevocably changed from the moment she learned her son had been injured. Pamela Beaver said she raced to a hospital and was told later that her youngest child did not survive.

She said she could see him lying in a room with tubes running from his body, but was prevented from kissing or holding him so as not to disturb any potential evidence. His body was considered a crime scene.

“Even my saying goodbye was taken from me,” she said.


As she and other family members spoke in the courtroom Friday, a slide show of photos flickered on a television screen, showing Beaver during happy times with his family and friends, as well as images from his funeral, attended by hundreds.

Philip Beaver, Jr., 32, said his brother Michael was the toughest kid he knew, but also the most caring. He was the kind of person who, when he worked as a bouncer in the Gaslamp, would sit with someone who appeared to be having a hard time and say, “looks like you need a friend.”

They spent a lot of time together at work. “I learned that my little brother had grown to be a good man,” Philip Beaver said.

According to the testimony, the two siblings and a friend went to the Gaslamp the night of June 14, 2014 where they drank heavily. Philip Beaver became so sick that he was throwing up, and Michael Beaver was tending to him outside a lounge.


That’s when Ahmed and his group of friends walked by, and one of them made a comment referring to the older brother’s condition.

Michael Beaver responded by saying, “You know that’s my brother.”

The exchange grew into a confrontation when a woman in Ahmed’s group slapped Beaver in his face. Surveillance video shows that another man punched Beaver before Ahmed stepped in a threw a punch when Beaver’s back was turned.

After reading a letter from the victim’s sister, Beaver’s father Philip Sr., told the judge about his children’s various accomplishments, noting that Michael was at his best when he was busy with his hands or busy helping others.


He said Michael Beaver was 5 feet, 10 inches tall and a muscular 243 pounds. He could take care of himself, no problem, the father said.

“It took a sucker punch from a punk like that to kill him,” he said, gesturing toward the defendant.

Surveillance photo of suspect Mahad Ahmed, as identified by San Diego police. / SDPD

Before ordering the prison term mandated by law, Judge Robert O’Neill recounted some of the incidents in Ahmed’s criminal history, some of it when he was a juvenile, over the defense attorney’s objections. Many of those incidents involved him getting into fights.


Ahmed had completed a prison term on a 2012 burglary conviction and was being supervised by the county Probation Department when the latest offense occurred.