A Toledo man who fired six shots at a city police officer from behind a privacy fence in January was sentenced on Friday morning, November 13, to 39 years in prison, The Blade reported from the courtroom. Henry Goodlow, 37, received the maximum terms on the lead charges, run back to back — consecutive, not at the same time.

Source: The Blade via Lake Erie Inquiry

None of the six shots hit Officer Jason Bombrys on January 7. Bombrys told the court what he believed the shooting was meant to do: "He had every intent to kill a police officer that day," he said. "He tried to make my wife a widow and make my kids grow up without a father."

Two versions of the shooting

Goodlow told the court he fired into the air. A prosecutor answered that account with physical evidence: a bullet hole in the fence, the prosecution said, showed otherwise. The shooting followed a chase at more than 100 miles per hour, according to the reporting from the hearing.

The plea that led to sentencing

Goodlow did not go to trial. In the police-shooting case he pleaded no contest on October 20 to eight felonies, according to the Lucas County Prosecutor's release of that date, cited in the sentencing coverage. One assault count also carried two sentencing specifications — add-ons that can raise the punishment on a charge. A no-contest plea means a defendant does not admit guilt but accepts conviction and punishment; the case then moves straight to sentencing, which is what happened on Friday.

Why the sentence is built the way it is

Running maximum terms back to back is what produced the 39-year total: instead of serving the lead sentences at the same time, Goodlow must serve them one after another. The Blade was in the courtroom for the sentence and the quotations, and the Lake Erie Inquiry, which had printed the range Goodlow faced before the 10 a.m. Friday hearing, confirmed this is the term the court imposed.

What happens next

The case is not necessarily over. Ohio law gives Goodlow an automatic appeal of the maximum terms, according to the sentencing coverage — an appeal that follows from the kind of sentence imposed, whether or not his lawyers would otherwise have chosen to file one. No appeal outcome or timetable has been reported yet.

For Toledo police, the case closes the court chapter of a January day that began with a high-speed chase and ended with six shots fired at an officer who was not hit. Bombrys's statement in court — about his wife and children — is the account of that day that will stay on the record.