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[h1]Man who shot Coral Springs police officer gets 14 life sentences[/h1]
FORT LAUDERDALE —
On Thursday, his 26th birthday, a man convicted of shooting a Coral Springs police officer was sentenced to 14 life terms.
After a courtroom deputy fingerprinted Yancy Polk, he defiantly flipped double middle fingers to a news photographer, police officers and witnesses who attended the sentencing hearing.
In November, a Broward County jury convicted Polk of shooting Officer Paul Kempinski four times as Polk fled a robbery. Then he held a family of four hostage in their home for more than an hour.
Kempinski survived the May 23, 2009, shooting.
On Thursday afternoon Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson sentenced Polk to life in prison for each of 14 convictions, including attempted murder, kidnapping, robbery and aggravated assault.
"Your choices and your conduct were obviously reprehensible," Levenson said. "Each step along the way it escalated. Each step along the way you had a choice. And each step along the way you made a bad choice."
During Levenson's rebuke Polk looked toward the judge, then away with seeming disinterest. By the time Levenson pronounced the 12th life sentence, Polk sat slouched in his chair.
According to trial testimony, after Polk and Jeremiah Derico, 21, robbed an Advance Auto Parts store of about $1,200, police gave chase. The fleeing robbers crashed their white Ford Crown Victoria near Coral Springs and Ramblewood drives and ran.
Polk went to a nearby house, shot out a picture window, entered and held hostage four people, a family with a 9-year-old child and a man in his 80s.
After an hour, with his ammunition exhausted and surrounded by SWAT teams, Polk surrendered.
Derico was found under a bridge. He pleaded guilty to robbery and is serving an 18-year sentence.
Real life. This is it.
