CALIFORNIA
Nevada man sentenced Friday to nearly 30 years in prison for wounding two law enforcement officers during a gun battle, officials announced.
U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. sentenced Brent Douglas Cole, 61 to 29 years and seven months in prison today for the assault on law enforcement officers.
“Every day, our officers go to work not knowing what dangers they may face,” said Commissioner Joe Farrow for California Highway Patrol. “This case demonstrated not only the challenges and dangers, but also the cooperation and teamwork among agencies that protect the people of California. On behalf of the CHP, I would like to express my appreciation to U.S. District Judge Burrell for his deliberations in pronouncing the nearly 30-year sentence.”
On Feb. 11, 2015, after a three-day trial, a federal jury found Cole guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon that inflicted bodily injury, assaulting a person assisting a federal officer with a deadly weapon that inflicted bodily injury and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
Cole, of Nevada, has posted on the United Truth Seekers website, writing in regards to an arrest that “I was protecting life and property by discharging a weapon to stop a violent assault, which had devolved to a struggle over a loaded gun when I fired into the floor, according to The Union website.
“They put me through a criminal trial for five months,” Cole wrote in the post.
According to evidence presented at trial, on June 14, 2014, this is the evidence:
- A Bureau of Land Management ranger stopped Cole while he was driving a vehicle on a closed dirt road on BLM land near the South Yuba River campground.
- The ranger gave Cole a warning and allowed him to leave without issuing him a citation.
- The ranger continued up the dirt road and discovered a makeshift campsite with two motorcycles – one of which had been reported stolen and the other with expired tags.
- The ranger requested the California Highway Patrol’s help to impound the motorcycles.
- While the ranger and a CHP officer were preparing to move the two motorcycles, Cole emerged from the brush surrounding the campsite and announced that he was coming to get his things.
- The ranger asked Cole if he was armed and when Cole replied that he was, the ranger reached for his handcuffs. Cole said he would not allow the ranger to place the handcuffs on him.
- Cole then drew a Taurus .44-caliber revolver from the right side of his waist, pointed the weapon at the ranger and fired multiple rounds. One round struck the Ranger in the left shoulder.
- The ranger and the CHP officer returned fire.
- Cole fired multiple rounds at the CHP officer and one bullet struck the officer in the right leg. Cole was struck several times by law enforcement.
- After expending his ammunition and being shot multiple times, Cole gave up and was arrested.
- Cole, the BLM ranger and the CHP officer received medical attention and all survived their wounds.
“The defendant has repeatedly demonstrated that he lacks remorse and has no respect for the law,” said Judge Burrell in the sentencing. “…He has a stunning lack of regard for anyone other than himself.”
In the documents Cole filed in Nevada County Superior Court, The Union reported that Cole asserted that “Officers acted without warrant or any probable cause to seize my person using a swat team style assault, and then started looking for something to charge me with. I was attacked and molested, unconstitutionally arrested, unlawfully incarcerated, repeatedly intimidated and coerced to plead guilty to having committed a crime, held in secret for five days, and my property and liberty taken from me since January 26, 2014. I am being persecuted for being a gun owner, and for exercising my inherent Right by unwitting or unknowing accomplices of a seditious conspiracy against rights instituted by foreign powers inimical to the United States of America.”
The investigation was conducted by the Bureau of Land Management, the FBI, the California Highway Patrol, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office and the Nevada County District Attorney’s Office.