A man charged with shooting a San Diego police officer in the arm during a foot pursuit in City Heights was convicted Thursday of attempted murder and other charges.<\/p>\n
J.C. Blake Sartor, 32, was found guilty by a San Diego Superior Court jury of all eight counts he faced, including assault with a semi-automatic firearm in connection with the June 8, 2023, shooting of Officer James Romero.<\/p>\n
Jurors deliberated for just over a day before also finding Sartor guilty of charges related to firing another gunshot at an apartment, driving two stolen vehicles, possessing methamphetamine and possessing a firearm while being a convicted felon.<\/p>\n
A sentencing date was not set following Thursday afternoon\u2019s verdict, as jurors will be called back on Friday for another phase of the trial dealing with \u201caggravating factors\u201d such as prior convictions or using a weapon during the crime, which could lead to a substantially increased sentence.<\/p>\n
After jurors left the courthouse, defense attorney Loyst Fletcher told reporters, \u201cObviously, it wasn\u2019t the result we were looking for,\u201d and reiterated his theory at trial that the evidence didn\u2019t prove his client was the shooter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were several pieces of evidence that we believe did not complete the puzzle to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Obviously, the jury felt otherwise, and we accept the result,\u201d Fletcher said.<\/p>\n
Deputy District Attorney Clay Biddle said after the verdict, \u201cOur peace officers have a difficult and dangerous job, and the verdict in this case reflects appreciation for that given the evidence. When a police officer is assaulted in any way in this county \u2014 especially in the most egregious way, being shot at and nearly killed \u2014 they will be dealt with accordingly under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Romero was pursuing a stolen pickup truck, then was shot after Sartor abandoned the vehicle, took off running down a narrow alley, then turned and fired upon the officer. The officer was hit by one bullet in his arm, while a second shot struck an apartment building. Romero did not have his firearm drawn when he was shot, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
During the trial, Romero identified Sartor as the man who shot him. He also testified about the impact of the injuries he sustained, including lingering pain and nightmares that persisted for months.<\/p>\n
Sartor was arrested six days later and was found with a bag containing an unserialized \u201cghost gun\u201d that both the prosecution and defense agreed in closing arguments was the weapon used to shoot Romero.<\/p>\n
But Fletcher said the gun was not tested for the presence of Sartor\u2019s DNA or fingerprints.<\/p>\n
The defense attorney also said Romero\u2019s body-worn camera footage did not capture the gunman, nor did other cameras in the neighborhood where the shooting occurred. The clothing description of the suspect that Romero provided his fellow officers didn\u2019t match a description provided by a witness who spotted the shooter open fire, then run into an idling car that sped him away from the shooting scene, according to Fletcher.<\/p>\n
Biddle said that the totality of the evidence was \u201coverwhelming and abundant\u201d in pointing to Sartor as the shooter, including his fingerprints and DNA inside the stolen truck, cellphone location data placing him in the area of the shooting and incriminating statements he made to an informant in county jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man charged with shooting a San Diego police officer in the arm during a foot pursuit in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":55267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,34657,356,5295,1370,728,50,3549,3550,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-55266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-city-heights","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-san-diego","18":"tag-san-diego-county","19":"tag-sandiego","20":"tag-top-stories-sdut","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114831368070889694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}