By Jeremy Burnham
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Wash.
WALLA WALLA, Wash. — Brandon O’Neel will spend the next two decades behind bars.
More than three years after shooting a Washington State Patrol trooper in the hand and face, O’Neel, 40, was sentenced Thursday, Oct. 30, to 25¾ years in prison for his guilty pleas to the charges of attempted first-degree murder and attempting to elude police.
It was the maximum sentence that Walla Walla County Superior Court Judge Brandon L. Johnson was allowed to impose.
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O’Neel, 40, shot Atkinson on Sept. 22, 2022, after O’Neel was evicted from his Walla Walla apartment earlier that day.
After he was shot, Atkinson drove himself to Providence St. Mary Medical Center and was able to walk into the emergency room. He has since returned to duty with WSP.
Washington State Patrol Trooper Dean Atkinson Jr. sits between his father Dean Atkinson Sr., and wife Meagan Atkinson as Judge Brandon L. Johnson reads the sentence for Brandon O’Neel in Walla Walla County Superior Court.
In addition to his family, Atkinson was joined in court by a strong showing of law enforcement officers from surrounding agencies, as well as many supporters from the public.
O’Neel, as he did in most hearings, sat mostly silent — only answering direct questions from the judge — and let his head hang during the hearing. He showed emotion only as his mother spoke. He chose not to speak.
Atkinson talked about the day he was shot and said he thought his life was going to end.
“As I drove myself to the hospital, I started to realize the severity of the situation,” he said. “I found myself noticing the blood all over my uniform. I started fearing I would not survive. I remember asking hospital staff, ‘Please don’t let me die.’”
Atkinson said he has suffered from nightmares since the shooting and talked about how it hurt his family as well.
Atkinson’s father and wife both spoke, asking Johnson to issue the maximum sentence.
“You sit there with your head down,” Atkinson’s wife, Meagan Atkinson said, addressing O’Neel. “No emotions, no remorse.”
Elsie Kennedy, O’Neel’s mother, said her son is mentally ill. She apologized to the Atkinson family and said that she was very grateful that he recovered and said she has prayed that he is both physically and emotionally recovered.
O’Neel’s sentence was the high end of the standard range. In Washington, judges must sentence convicts on a standard range based on the charges and the criminal history of the defendant.
For O’Neel’s charges, the standard range, including a mandatory five-year enhancer for using a firearm, was 20½ to 25¾ years. Johnson was not allowed to go above or below that range.
O’Neel’s attorney, Julie Ann Carlson Straube, asked Johnson to land on the short end of the range, arguing some documented mental health issues — which, at one point delayed the case by a year — should be considered.
However, in sentencing O’Neel, Johnson said that he believed O’Neel knew what he was doing. He said O’Neel had left a note in his apartment saying that a bomb was present.
Johnson said O’Neel was correct; there was a bomb in the community, and O’Neel himself was that bomb.
In exchange for O’Neel’s guilty plea, his other charges of first-degree assault with a deadly weapon, threatening to bomb with intent to alarm, and harassment with threats to kill were dismissed at the hearing.
O’Neel received credit of 1,134 days, just over three years, for time served.
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