AURORA, Colo. -- The teenager who shot an off-duty Jefferson County sheriff's deputy, who returned fire with a "one in a billion" shot," has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Jahlil Meshesha was sentenced for shooting Deputy Jose Marquez in the shoulder and abdomen during an attempted robbery Jan. 26, according to The Aurora Sentinel.
When Marquez returned fire, his bullet went straight down the barrel of the teen's gun, a shot investigators called "one in a billion."
Meshesha pleaded guilty in September to one count of attempted second-degree murder and was charged as an adult.
The investigation report said Marquez was in the parking lot of his girlfriend's condo in Aurora when two people armed with handguns and wearing masks attacked him.
Marquez said when the men approached him and he saw at least one was wearing a mask, he knew something "bad" was about to happen and told investigation he thought, "Oh s----, we're getting into a shootout."
He told investigators he thought he was going to die.
The suspects opened fire hitting Marquez in the abdomen and once in the shoulder. The shots fractured ribs and damaged his intestines, colon and liver, officials said.
Marquez told investigators, even after he was shot, he said to himself, "I'm not dying today. Not today. Any other day, maybe. It's not my time yet."
Marquez managed to return fire hitting Meshesha in the leg. It was Meshesha's gun that Marquez managed to fire into.
"[The deputy] immediately started screaming, 'I'm an officer! I'm off duty, someone please help,'" resident Kenneth Mitchell told Denver7 back in January. "By the third shot, he had that out and you could hear as he was screaming more and more that he was in pain."
After that, Marquez lost consciousness.
A second suspect fled and still has not been arrested or identified, officials said.
Prosecutors investigating the shooting ruled Marquez acted in self-defense and will not be charged.
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