Officer won’t face charges in Trenton shooting
Hitchcock County Attorney D. Eugene Garner said it’s unlikely criminal charges will be filed against a sheriff’s deputy who shot a Trenton man Feb. 11.
“I do not anticipate that,” Garner said.
The deputy shot Ace Anderson, 30, in the incident, which happened in Trenton.
Anderson currently faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a deadly weapon.
The deputy’s shooting of Anderson was investigated by the Nebraska State Patrol. That agency turned the results of its investigation over to Garner, who had to decide whether to charge the officer.
According to documents from Hitchcock County Court, the sheriff’s office received a call at 1:10 a.m. Feb. 11 from a Trenton resident that Anderson was shooting a handgun in the yard of her Trenton home.
He was gone from the yard by the time deputies arrived but residents of the home told them Anderson had been at the house drinking beer and he had a semiautomatic handgun in his possession. Anderson was asked to leave the house and he walked outside and fired the gun near the detached garage.
As deputies were leaving, they saw Anderson near the garage and told him to get on the ground, the documents said. Anderson, who was holding two beer cans, shifted them to his left arm and reached into his right coat pocket, pulling the gun and aiming it toward one of the deputies. One of the deputies shot at Anderson and moved out of his line of sight.
A wounded Anderson fell to the ground. Deputies called for an ambulance and found the gun lying near Anderson. He was transported to McCook Community Hospital. He was then flown to Bryan Health West Campus in Lincoln.
Court documents said in 2015 Anderson was convicted of third degree assault on an officer and sentenced to 20 months to five years in prison.
The new charge against Anderson is a felony with a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison and a mandatory minimum of three years.
Hitchcock County Court Clerk Linda Smith said no court date has yet been set for Anderson.