DA blasts sentence for interstate sniper

Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2000 | 10:01 a.m.

Gammick said district judge Steven Kosach's minimum 20-year sentence for Christopher Merritt of North Mankato, Minn., was "way too light."

Comparing his crime to that of "bombers and arsonists," Gammick said the sentence should have ensured Merritt would die in prison or be an old man before becoming eligible for parole.

"This was an individual who very purposely and intentionally went out and set up on the freeway and was sniping cars in order to run them off the road so he could rob people or their bodies, whichever was applicable," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Kosach was on the bench Wednesday and not able to immediately return a phone call, his secretary said.

Kosach sentenced Merritt to a range of 20 to 55 years. He won't be eligble for parole until serving the minimum. Prosecutors sought a minimum 102-year sentence.

One person was hit in the chest and hospitalized but no one was killed in the Jan. 4, 1999 rampage. Six vehicles were hit by gunfire that shut down the interstate west of here for four hours.

In a letter to the judge, Merritt said he experienced a "sort of panic" only days before the attack but still has no explanation for it.

He originally told police he shot at the cars with the idea of making them crash so he could rob the motorists.

But he then told reporters that the rampage was intended to be the start of a cross-country killing spree partly to mock violence in the media.

"The media interviews (were) mostly for my amusement, I did not seriously think they would take, run with, or believe a story as such," Merritt wrote Kosach. "I was badly mistaken!"