RAPID CITY - The Rapid City man
shot by a police officer in December after firing shots in the
officer's direction was sentenced Thursday to spend the next six
years in the South Dakota State Penitentiary.
Michael Croyle, 26, pleaded guilty
in April to one count of aggravated assault against a law
enforcement officer for shooting toward Rapid City Police Officer
Spencer O'Bryan as O'Bryan chased him on Fairlane Drive in Rapid
City.
Seventh Circuit Judge Merton B.
Tice sentenced Croyle to 15 years in prison with nine years
suspended.
The South Dakota Attorney
General's office investigated the shooting and ruled that O'Bryan
was justified in shooting Croyle.
Croyle spend several days in Rapid
City Regional Hospital recovering from the gunshot wound and has
been in custody at Pennington County Jail since.
He will now be transported to the
South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, where he will serve
his sentence.
The charge carried a maximum
sentence of 25 years in prison.
O'Bryan testified at the
sentencing that he believed Croyle had made a lifetime of criminal
decisions that led up to the shooting.
"It wasn't just myself that was
victimized," O'Bryan said. "It was my family."
Croyle cried as he turned to face
O'Bryan in the courtroom and apologized.
"I'm sorry for making you have to
do what you did," Croyle said to O'Bryan. "I understand why you did
it."
Lara Roetzel, deputy state's
attorney for Pennington County, asked Tice to sentence Croyle to
the maximum amount of prison time.
Croyle's attorney, Pennington
County public defender Paula Camp asked Tice to sentence her client
to at least a partially suspended sentence.
O'Bryan also testified that he did
not believe the gun Croyle fired was pointed directly at him.
"You'd be looking at 25 years if
I'd have had any reason to believe you were shooting at the cop,"
Tice said.
Contact Katie Brown at 394-8318 or
katie.brown@rapidcityjournal.com
