Man Gets 5-year Prison Sentence for Burning Police Cars
(KLIX) – An Emmett man has been sentenced to five years in prison for burning several police cars.
Darrel Rich, 69, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court to 60 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, “for damage by fire to vehicles owned by an institution receiving federal funding and damage by fire to vehicles used in interstate commerce,” according to U.S. Attorney Bart M. Davis.
The 5-year sentence will run partially consecutive to Rich’s 6-year fixed prison sentence in Gem County for his July 2017 unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and felony driving under the influence, Davis said in a news release. Rich pleaded guilty to the federal arson offenses on Feb. 11.
The news release said court records show that on July 25, 2017, after police had visited Rich’s residence in Emmett, he told his sister over the phone that police needed to “back off now or somebody is going to get hurt” and that if she “call[ed] the cops on me again. . . we’re done.”
A little after midnight on July 26 of the same year, Rich drove his Chevrolet Impala to the Emmett Police Department and parked it across from the Emmett Police Department in an unsecured back parking lot.
Rich exited the car, opened the trunk and retrieved a gasoline canister, walked to the rear of four police cruisers parked in the back parking lot, and poured gasoline from the canister behind each of them. Rich then lit something on fire, threw it toward the police cruisers, and they ignited. In lighting the police cruisers on fire, Rich acted maliciously and without justification or excuse.