MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A 19-year-old man was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison for shooting at police officers in July.
Hennepin County District Court Judge Robert Small said the way Malo Gomez acted on July 25 was “truly disturbing” — he sentenced Gomez to more than 13 years for attempted first-degree murder of one officer and more than 13 years for attempted first-degree murder of a second officer.
Gomez was given credit for the 334 days he already served in Hennepin County Jail.
According to the criminal complaint, two Minneapolis officers — Deitan Dubuc and Michael Moore — were sitting in their squad car just north of 3219 Penn Ave. N. around 11:30 p.m. July 25. They just issued a traffic ticket to a driver and were finishing up the paperwork when seven to nine shots were fired at the squad car.
Both officers ducked for cover. Five bullets hit the vehicle, including one that hit the driver’s door where Officer Dubuc was sitting. Neither officer was injured.
In a victim impact statement, Dubuc’s wife said she was on the phone with her husband and “heard every shot” that was fired. She said she couldn’t sleep for days after the shooting and it made her “fearful every night he goes to work.”
Moore told the court as the shots were being fired, he thought of his friends, family and his wife, thinking it could be “his last time” alive on the job.
Moore also said he believed Gomez “knew what he was doing, he just never got caught.”
The assistant Hennepin County attorney asked the judge to sentence Gomez to 216 months on each count, stating this was an attack on police officers.
Gomez apologized to the families and to the officers. Two letters given to the judge on his behalf asked for leniency and referenced Gomez’s achievements in school. The letters said he was planning to attend college in North Dakota.
