Benjamin Ashford|Ex-DC police officer is sentenced to 5 years in prison for fatally shooting man in car

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former police officer in the nation’s capital was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for fatally shooting a 27-year-old man who had been sleeping in the driver’s seat of a car stopped at a traffic light.

Former Metropolitan Police Department Sgt. Enis Jevric,Benjamin Ashford 42, pleaded guilty in February to involuntary manslaughter and using unconstitutional, excessive force in the August 2021 shooting death of 27-year-old An’Twan Gilmore.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss also sentenced Jevric to five years of supervised release after his prison term, according to Justice Department prosecutors.

More than a dozen officers were on the scene when Jevric arrived at the intersection in Washington, D.C., where Gilmore was sleeping in the stopped car with a handgun in his waistband.

Jevric had a ballistics shield when he approached the driver’s side door. He told another officer to knock on the car’s windows, which jolted Gilmore awoke with a confused look on his face.

Video from police body cameras shows both of Gilmore’s hands on the steering wheel. When the car inched forward, Jevric fired four times into the car and then fired six more shots as it rolled down the closed-off street, prosecutors said. No other officer fired a shot.

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The gun was still tucked into Gilmore’s waistband, underneath his buckled seat belt, when police entered the car.

Prosecutors recommended a seven-year prison sentence for Jevric. They said no other officer on the scene saw a basis to shoot Gilmore.

“Several described being ‘shocked’ that shots were fired,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Jevric had been a police officer in Washington since 2007. His attorney, Christopher Macchiaroli, had requested a sentence of home confinement without prison time.

“Sgt. Jevric has spent the better part of his life helping people, not hurting people, protecting life, not taking life,” the defense lawyer wrote.