Officer Says Man Made His Life ‘A Living Hell’
MIAMI - A man convicted of trying to gun down a Homestead police officer with an assault rifle was sentenced to life in prison, plus 100 years for other crimes related to the shooting.
Former officer Edgard Rivera, blinded in one eye by the shooting, was in court Monday to watch Circuit Judge Leonard Glick sentence Salvador Mendoza, 24.
Mendoza, convicted in October, received life in prison for the attempted murder of Rivera, plus 100 extra years for battery, assault, burglary and weapons possession.
“You’ve made my life a living hell,” Rivera said. “You don’t know how much I changed. I wish you were in my shoes.”
Mendoza said nothing to Rivera or the judge. Mendoza casually stood up and stretched his handcuffed arms over his head after Glick read the sentence.
In June 2002, Rivera was pursuing a car that had run a red light when Mendoza, already on house arrest, leaned out of the vehicle and fired an assault rifle. Bullets struck Rivera in the neck and face.
Mendoza and others in the car had been planning a robbery before Rivera began following them.
The shooting ended Rivera’s 12-year police career.
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