A Queens man who shot and wounded a rookie NYPD cop and tried to shoot another after a dispute on a city bus was hit with a 39-years-to-life sentence Monday.
Devin Spraggins, 24, who was convicted last month of attempted murder and other charges in the April 2023 shooting of city cop Brett Boller on 161st Street, was berated by the judge as Boller and about 50 other police officers looked on.
Spraggins, wearing a white shirt and a striped tie, did not speak as Judge Kenneth Holder tore into him prior to delivering the sentence.
“For me, the defining moment in this case was not that you shot Police Officer Boller in the leg,” Holder told Spraggins during the proceedings.
“It’s that you, not knowing the magazine had fallen out of the gun and while watching Police Officer Boller on the ground screaming in pain, you pointed your gun at him and you pulled the trigger,” he said. “You effectively tried to execute him.
“And here’s the irony,” the judge added. “That day and any other day, Police Officer Boller and Police Officer [Anthony] Rock would have risked their lives to save any of your four sisters, your brother, even you. But you tried to kill him. You didn’t give a damn about his life.”
Spraggins was on an MTA bus on Jamaica Avenue on April 5, 2023, when he got into a fight with another passenger, then slugged the victim and pulled out a gun — prompting the driver to flag down two cops.
Boller and Rock confronted Spraggins, who took off running and fired at the officers, hitting Boller in the leg. He would have fired another shot at Rock had his gun not malfunctioned, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the gunman went home, trimmed his hair and changed clothes to try to dodge justice, but was nabbed two days later after police reviewed dramatic surveillance footage of the incident.
He was arrested and charged with attempted murder of a police officer, assault, criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.
Last month, he was convicted of all those charges but acquitted of attempted murder of Rock.
“All of this started because of a seat on a bus,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement Monday. “A police officer has spent over a year with surgeries and physical therapy recovering from getting shot, and only by a twist of fate was not killed.
“With the officer on the ground, this defendant did not attempt escape,” Katz said. “Instead, he aimed that gun and pulled the trigger again. This would have been a cold-blooded execution if not for the magazine dropping from the gun as Spraggins ran from the police.”
Spraggins’ lawyer Michael Horn argued in court Monday for the minimum sentence of 20 years to life, claiming that the system failed his client — contrasting his life to the wounded officer’s.
“On one side we have Officer Boller — affluent, supported, stable environment,” Horn said. “Mr. Spraggins lived the opposite — broke, broken and riddled with trauma, untreated mental health issues, a family that’s full of alcoholism, abuse and absent parenting.”
But Holder waved off the lawyer’s bid for the minimum prison sentence.
“I really don’t have a lot of faith in the parole board,” the judge said.
Spraggins claimed when he was questioned by detectives at the 103rd Precinct stationhouse after his arrest that the gun was in his waist and accidentally went off — a claim rebuffed by video footage.
He also declined to testify at his criminal trial or at the sentencing.
Boller was promoted to detective following the shooting.
“We’re thankful for this judge, who understands the importance of keeping this attempted cop-killer off the streets and behind bars for a long, long time,” NYPD PBA president Patrick Hendry said Monday.
“What this judge did today is he sent a clear message to every courthouse across this city, to every bench, that if you assault a New York City police officer, if you shoot a New York City police officer, you’re going to stay behind bars for a long, long time.”