By Henry K. Lee
The San Francisco Chronicle
OAKLAND, Calif. — A convicted felon was sentenced Thursday to 56 years to life in prison for trying to murder a Berkeley police officer whose life was saved when a round pierced his badge and bullet-resistant vest.
Howard Street, 38, of Berkeley showed no reaction when Judge Joseph Hurley pronounced the sentence in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.
Officer Darren Kacalek, who was shot and wounded in the May 2005 attack, and more than a dozen other Berkeley police officers attended the hearing. “Justice was served,” Kacalek said outside court.
A jury convicted Street on Oct. 31 of attempted murder and enhancements for using a gun and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Officers thanked Deputy District Attorney Michael Nieto after Thursday’s hearing. Street’s attorney, Andrew Steckler, declined to comment. Street did not make a statement in court.
Steckler has said he believed the case was one of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
In passing sentence, the judge cited Street’s testimony that he had carried a gun with him constantly, that he sold drugs and that the defendant himself had admitted, “I am no angel.”
Hurley noted that Street had been involved in a number of previous shootouts and that “he put himself beyond the law. Those were his choices. He chose, daily, to do what he had to do regardless of the law. ... He still deserves the full impact of the law.”
The judge compared Street to the bandit Ned Pepper, played by Robert Duvall, in the movie “True Grit.” Asked if he needed a good lawyer, Pepper replied, “I need a good judge.”
Hurley said Thursday that Street “doesn’t have a good judge.”
Street testified that he didn’t know Kacalek was a police officer and that he acted in self-defense May 17, 2005, because he thought Kacalek was pulling a gun on him.
The confrontation occurred after police pulled over Street’s Ford Mustang for vehicle-code violations at Fifth and Delaware streets in West Berkeley. Street fled from the car and shot five times at Kacalek, who was in uniform, authorities said. Street was soon captured.
One of the rounds pierced Kacalek’s badge and was blocked by his bullet-resistant vest. Nieto showed jurors a picture of the officer’s badge, number 88, with a dent in it.
Street has previously been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a short-barrel shotgun, auto theft, robbery and drug sales. In November 2001, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland sentenced him to five years in prison for being a felon in possession of a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and selling ammunition.
Copyright 2008 San Francisco Chronicle