GREELEY, Colo. – A Weld County man was sentenced to 208 years in prison Wednesday for shooting at deputies and injuring one of them in 2018.
Ismeldo Junior Arredondo, who was sentenced to spend his life in the Colorado Department of Corrections, was convicted in October of 11 different charges, including one count of first-degree murder of a police officer after deliberation as well as five counts of attempted first-degree murder with extreme indifference, four counts of first-degree assault on a police officer, and one count of felony menacing.
Arredondo reportedly fired at several deputies in August 2018 following a report of a threat to property with a baseball bat just outside Greeley city limits.
While deputies were en route, Arredondo allegedly armed himself with a 12 gauge pump shotgun, forcing his family to flee the home, according to a summary of the case.
As deputies worked to get his wife out of the area, Arredondo opened fired twice before he was wounded by a return shot, a news release from the Nineteenth Judicial District Attorney’s Office reads.
The deputy who was shot underwent emergency surgery and survived, but prosecutors said Arredondo barely missed four other deputies and his wife.
“This has not only had an impact on law enforcement in our community, but this has even affected law enforcement throughout the country,” Judge Thomas Quammen said during Wednesday’s hearing. “This is one of the most serious, violent crimes against law enforcement in Weld County that I can recall. If it wasn’t for the extraordinary medical care for the deputy who got shot, this would have been a first-degree murder case.”