COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Juan Vazquez, the man who shot and killed two teenagers after a fight over an iPod, was sentenced to 56 years in prison Thursday.

Vazquez was found guilty in January of two counts of second degree murder for the 2009 shootings. Vazquez shot 18-year-old Uriel Rascon and 17-year-old Luis Burciaga after a fight broke out over a stolen iPod.

Vazquez and the victims were members of rival gangs, and an initial fight between friends or associates of the victims led to the shooting a day later in Eastridge Park in the Cimarron Hills area.

Family members from both victims' families, as well as Vazquez's family, spoke at the sentencing.

Vazquez asked Rascon's and Burciaga's families for forgiveness, but for some it's still too soon.

"I think it's too early to accept, or what we think about that," the brother of one of the victims said. "I mean it's only been two years, so I think it's gonna take awhile to accept an apology."

Vazquez's brother defended him, saying Rascon and Burciaga had a part in the tragedy.

"They had to be there," Chris Vazquez said. "They volunteered to come and my brother came there too."

Chris Vazquez said the two victims started the fight that led to their death.

"They were just saying that they were gonna shoot us and everything, so they started it and it just ended up going really bad," he said.

Vazquez's mother tried to hold back tears as she talked about Vazquez's troubled past and said her son suffered from a lot of emotional problems.

"He wasn't okay when all this happened," she said. "There was a lot of domestic violence in my house, and he witnessed it all."

Family members of the two victims told the court Rascon and Burciaga had bright futures.

Rascon's girlfriend was three months pregnant at the time of his death.

"It's gonna be hard to move on," said the brother. "He was my only brother, he was a baby from the family, so it's gonna be hard to move on but we will."

Their families said they were hoping for the maximum sentence of 64 years, but they still feel like justice was served.

"I feel like it was, not the way we wanted, but it was," the brother said.

The jury also found Vazquez guilty of two counts of crimes of violence. He will serve 10 years of parole after his sentence is up.