PORT ORCHARD — Shawn Michael Dean Hamlin, 39, was sentenced to 16 years behind bars Aug. 10 by Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Sally Olsen for shooting and killing his friend, David Ray Garcia, in April.

The circumstances of the killing contrast with claims by Hamlin’s friends and family that he was a good, generous man who somehow accidentally shot his friend during an argument between the two at Garcia’s house in South Kitsap.

Hamlin, of Port Orchard, earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree burglary for shooting Garcia in the head and killing him. The defendant said he and Garcia had been drinking whiskey when they began arguing, then fighting, outside the house. Hamlin later told detectives that as he hit his friend with a revolver, the gun accidentally fired.

While Hamlin apologized for killing Garcia in what he termed as an “accident,” the victim’s family members decried the fact that he had used a concealed weapon irresponsibly and irrationally.

On the murder charge, Hamlin was sentenced by Olsen to 194 months in prison. He will serve 34 months concurrently for the first-degree burglary charge.