Milwaukee man who shot Tosa cop gets 54 years in prison
Along with the pain, surgeries, colostomy bag and missed social events that followed his shooting by a robbery suspect last summer, Wauwatosa police officer Jeff Griffin had to deal with a never-ending river of emotions.
"Humility, confusion, fear, hatred" and more tortured Griffin, who had his chief, Barry Weber, read his victim impact statement Friday at the sentencing for Griffin's assailant, Najee Harmon.
Harmon, 21, was sentenced to 54 years in prison, followed by 35 on supervised release, for shooting Griffin, firing at two other officers and for an armed robbery he committed three days earlier.
About two dozen Wauwatosa officers filled the gallery and jury box of Circuit Judge Stephanie Rothstein's small courtroom.
Griffin's wife, Sherrie, told Rothstein that she never let fear for her husband's safety overwhelm her during his long career.
"But every law enforcement spouse still fears that phone call or knock on the door," she said, before describing her ride to the hospital, worry about telling the couple's children and the mental suffering her husband endured after surgeons saved his life.
Paula Roberson, Griffin's partner, said she recalls every second of the June 19 incident "like it happened this morning."
Roberson, a 19-year veteran, said all those years of training didn't ready her for hearing Griffin yell "I'm shot" and the grief that followed.
"I still struggle to find my new normal," she said. "I am not at peace. I am angry."
She said she misses Griffin, who has not yet returned to work, but may later this year, according to Weber.
Harmon opened fire on three police officers in the parking lot of an apartment complex near N. 60th St. and W. Good Hope Road in Milwaukee on June 19. The officers were investigating an earlier burglary in Wauwatosa.
One of five shots struck Griffin, who suffered serious internal injuries.
Two-day manhunt
Harmon escaped, leading to a two-day manhunt that ended when he was found hiding in the basement of a house in the 2500 block of N. 21st St. and arrested without incident.
The woman in whose house Harmon was found hiding was later charged with harboring or aiding a felon. Stephanie Kane, 55, pleaded no contest to the felony in November and was sentenced to the 90 days she had already served in jail since her arrest.
Three days before the shooting, Harmon had robbed a 64-year-old woman at gunpoint as she sat in the passenger seat of a car waiting for her brother.
A jury convicted Harmon and an accomplice of that offense in October.
Last month, during jury selection for a trial on the shootings, Harmon pleaded guilty to reduced charges — two counts of recklessly endangering safety and one count each of first-degree reckless injury and possession of a firearm as a felon.
Harmon was originally charged with three counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and one count each of first-degree reckless injury and possession of a firearm as a felon.
Rothstein noted that Harmon had earlier felony convictions for "unprovoked, predatory, opportunistic" violence. He also had prior chances to straighten out on probation, and specifically, had absconded from supervision at a halfway home more than a year before the shooting, after his probation on a burglary was revoked.
She sentenced him to 15 years on the robbery, 20 for shooting Griffin, seven years each for counts of shooting at two other officers and five for having a gun as a felon. All the terms will run consecutive to each other and to the sentence he's now serving, which runs until June.
"I'm really, I'm sorry," Harmon said at the hearing, after his attorney had suggested a total prison term of 16 years. "I should be home taking care of my kids." He has three.
"All I can do is become a better man."
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