NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A Brooklyn man was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for shooting an NYPD detective in 2018, prosecutors announced.
Kelvin Stichel, 37, pleaded guilty in January to second-degree attempted murder after opening fire on four officers and striking Detective Miguel Soto in the leg, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said.
Prosecutors said Soto and the other cops were driving an unmarked car on Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant on July 7, 2018, around 6:40 a.m. when they saw Stichel walking on the sidewalk and recognized him as a suspect in a previous armed robbery case.
Stichel saw the officers making a U-turn and fled the scene, turning onto Tompkins Avenue and then Decatur Street, according to the evidence. The officers pursued him in the car and then on foot, identifying themselves and ordering him to show his hands.
Stichel then pulled out a .45-caliber handgun, opened fire on the officers, and hit Soto. The officers returned fire, striking the 37-year-old once in the leg.
The defendant was eventually arrested at 39 Kingston St., and his handgun was recovered from a trash can in front of a nearby building.
Soto, a seven-year NYPD veteran who received the NYPD Medal of Valor in 2016, was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County and treated before being released.
Stichel was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
"The six shots this defendant fired at officers as he fled could have killed them and highlights the risks our police partners take every day on the job," Gonzalez said in a statement. "We will never tolerate violence against law enforcement in Brooklyn, and today's sentence holds this defendant accountable for his deplorable crime."
