By Mensah M. Dean
The Philadelphia Daily News
LAWRENCE PEEL, Pa. — A North Philadelphia drug dealer with 17 arrests on his rap sheet, yesterday was handed the longest sentence of his life for shooting a city police officer and shooting at a second officer during a wild bar melee in June 2009.
“This crime reflects a callousness and disregard for the rule of law,” Common Pleas Judge Glenn Bronson said before announcing that Peel, 31, would spend 35 1/2 to 71 years in state prison.
Assistant District Attorney Mark Levenberg — who asked for a sentence of 50 to 100 years — said that Peel “is the most dangerous type of criminal” due to his attack on law enforcement officers.
“I would suggest, your honor, as he stands here at 31 years of age, he will never be a productive citizen. He will never be a law-abiding citizen.”
In March, Peel, of Bouvier Street near Berks, pleaded guilty to shooting Officer Ashley Hoggard in the left shoulder and shooting at his partner on June 14, 2009. Hoggard was a three-year member of the force.
Peel was sentenced on two counts of assault on a law-enforcement officer, two counts of aggravated assault and multiple firearm offenses.
The officers came under fire while responding to a shooting outside the now-closed Franchise Sports Bar, at Broad and Somerset streets.
Peel — who was not the gunman in the initial shooting — broke his girlfriend’s nose with a punch and pointed a gun at her prior to the officers’ arrival, Levenberg told Bronson.
Once he saw the officers, the prosecutor said, Peel began shooting with the intent of getting away. He was arrested two days later.
“Mr. Peel has cost a lot of inconvenience to me and my family,” Hoggard said, during a victim- impact statement. “I still have the bullet in me.”
“I have no ill will toward Mr. Peel, I just want justice to be served,” added Hoggard, who missed 27 months of work, endured three surgeries and still goes to therapy three days a week.
In asking for a sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison, defense attorney Qawi Abdul-Rahman told the judge that Peel would have a strong support system of family members to whom he would return upon his release.
Nearly a dozen of Peel’s relatives showed up in court to support him, including his parents and a grandmother.
Before being sentenced, Peel apologized to Hoggard and the officer’s family. Then, the defendant looked at his own relatives.
“I want to apologize to my family because, whatever time you give me, they gonna do it with me, like my lawyer said. So, I will have to make the best of it.”
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