A man will spend 16 years behind bars for shooting an NYPD officer in 2018.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced the sentencing of 37-year-old Kelvin Stichel of Bedford-Stuyvesant, who received his punishment on Wednesday from Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Justice Claudia Daniels-DePeyster.
Stichel had pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted murder charges in January.
According to prosecutors, NYPD Detective Miguel Soto was traveling in an unmarked car with three other officers in Bedford-Stuyvesant on July 7 of 2018, when they recognized Stichel on the sidewalk as a suspect in a previous armed robbery case.
As the law enforcement agents attempted to approach Stichel near Tompkins Avenue and Fulton Street, he took off running — sending the cops chasing after him, both in the car and on foot.
When they eventually got close enough to Stichel, and ordered him to surrender, he brandished a .45-caliber handgun and opened fire on the officers.
Stichel fired six bullets in their direction, including one that hit Detective Soto in the right leg.
The officers returned fire, and hit Stichel once in his arm, before he once more attempted to flee.
Shortly afterwards, the officers apprehended at 39 Kingston St., and recovered his weapon in a trashcan.
Paramedics took Soto, who was a seven-year police veteran, and was awarded the NYPD Medal of Valor in 2016, to Kings County Hospital, where doctors successfully treated his gunshot wound, and he was released later that day.
Authorities also took Stichel to a nearby hospital, while he was in custody, for treatment of his injuries.
Nearly three years after the shooting, the defendant pled guilty to second-degree attempted murder charges. He will now spend 16 years in prison.
“The six shots this defendant fired at officers as he fled could have killed them and highlights the risks our police partners take every day on the job,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “We will never tolerate violence against law enforcement in Brooklyn, and today’s sentence holds this defendant accountable for his deplorable crime.”
