Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Cop shooter gets 46-year sentence

Christopher Wheeler had a gun and a stolen truck one January night in Boulder City.

The combination left a Boulder City police officer with a shattered arm and hand from the two .44-magnum bullets fired at him. It also earned Wheeler a 46-year prison sentence Monday.

The Arizona teenager cried like a baby, although it did no good, at his sentencing for the crime spree that resulted in a permanent disability for officer Jerry Stone.

The sentence for Wheeler, 18, will require him to serve as many years in prison as he has been alive before even being eligible for parole.

But his problems aren't over. Assistant District Attorney Charles Thompson said that Arizona authorities also want a piece of the teenager for crimes he is alleged to have committed there.

One of those crimes involves a truck he stole in Arizona and used on Jan. 4 to ram a police car driven by Stone, 36, in an aborted getaway attempt. The vehicles' bumpers became locked, police said, and Wheeler came out of the truck shooting.

Stone's arm was still in a cast Monday when he told District Judge Jack Lehman that Wheeler "had no respect for human life -- especially mine."

Backed up by half a dozen uniformed officers from Boulder City, Stone noted that Wheeler was supposed to be under house arrest in Arizona but escaped to Nevada to become "a danger, a menace, a great threat to society."

Wheeler sobbed uncontrollably as he apologized to the officer and claimed, "I never intended to do anything."

He said he never realized he needed counseling and blamed his problems on "hanging around with the wrong crowd in high school."

His lawyer, Tempe, Ariz., attorney Charles Franklin, said that psychological tests showed Wheeler has the maturity level of a 14- to 15-year-old.

Franklin noted that Wheeler had been apprehended for several juvenile crimes but had not been given any meaningful counseling or treatment.

"His screams for attention have never been addressed," Franklin said in asking Lehman to "be as lenient as you possibly can."

But the judge said he was "concerned with the cold-blooded aspects" of Wheeler's crimes.

"It's a bloody miracle that Stone is alive," Lehman said. "This was a near catastrophe."

He then gave the teenager the maximum sentence of 18 years and four months to 46 years in prison on the charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Lehman also ordered him to pay $20,111 in restitution.

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