SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Caleb Sharpe, who fatally shot a classmate and wounded three others five years ago at a Washington state high school, apologized to his victims before being sentenced. on Friday to 40 years in prison.
Sharpe, who was 15 at the time of the 2017 shootings, pleaded guilty earlier this year in Spokane County Superior Court. Sharpe, 20, showed no emotion when Superior Court Judge Michael Price handed down a longer sentence than prosecutors had requested.
He will get credit for the nearly five years he has already been in custody, the judge said.
After closing statements from lawyers for both sides, Sharpe made his first public comments since his arrest five years ago.
“I feel sorry for this whole community,” Sharpe said Friday. “I feel sorry for the people who can’t sleep at night.”
Sharpe also apologized directly to his three injured victims and to Ami Strahan, the mother of 15-year-old Sam Strahan, who was killed in the attack.
“Most of all, I feel sorry for Ami and Emily for taking Sam away from them,” Sharpe said.
“Evil has no place in my heart,” Sharpe said. “I can never do enough penance to give back what I have taken. I pray for forgiveness.”
On Thursday, Ami Strahan and the three injured girls gave statements, all saying they wanted Sharpe to serve the maximum prison term, which was 45 years.
Sharpe brought multiple weapons to the school on the morning of September 13, 2017, and opened fire in a hallway, hitting four students before they confronted him and turned him over to a custodian.
After years of court delays, Sharpe pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder in January.
On Thursday, victims Emma Nees and Gracie Jensen described what happened the day Sharpe shot them in the second-floor hallway of their school.
“As I lay there, I saw you walk beside me. Closing alarm blaring, dressed all in black with the most expressionless face I have ever seen,” Jensen told Sharpe. “Shooting my classmates as they run for their lives in the classrooms. I yelled. There was nothing more he could do.
“I started running and I was so scared because I felt like I was running in slow motion,” Emma Nees said in her testimony. “My mission was to get to the nearest classroom as quickly as possible. As I ran, I began to think there was no way out of this.”
Ami Strahan said she was at work when friends came up to her desk and told her to get off the phone. They said there was a shooting at Freeman High.
When she got to school, she noticed that she was being taken to a different area than other parents: she was being taken to the bailiff.
When she told Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich who she was, he simply shook his head.
“I screamed twice, loud,” Strahan said. “And I fell”.
“You took my son in the worst possible way and you have no regrets,” Strahan told Sharpe. “You ruined my life.”
He called Sharpe a “sick, wicked coward”.
Brooke Foley, Sharpe’s public defender, earlier asked the judge for a 20-year sentence, due to Sharpe’s age and immaturity at the time of the shooting.
Deputy District Attorney Sharon Hedlund agreed that Sharpe’s sentence should be below the standard range, but urged Price to hand down a 35-year sentence.
On the day of the shooting, Sharpe loaded a duffel bag containing an AR-15 rifle and handgun, along with numerous boxes of .223 ammunition, onto his school bus.
At the school, Sharpe headed straight for a second-floor hallway, where he dropped the duffel bag and pulled out the assault rifle. He started to load the gun, which jammed.
As Sharpe struggled to load the gun, Strahan approached him.
“I always knew you were going to shoot up the school,” Strahan told Sharpe, according to court documents. “You know that’s going to get you in trouble.”
Sharpe then drew the pistol from under his coat and fired a single shot, hitting Strahan in the stomach. Strahan collapsed forward, at which point Sharpe shot him again, this time in the face.
Sharpe continued to walk down the corridor and shot and wounded the three girls.
After firing into the crowd, Sharpe dropped the gun. At this point he was confronted by janitor Joe Bowen. Sharpe raised his hands above his head in surrender as Bowen approached.
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