A man convicted of attempted murder and other charges for trying to shoot at a Greenwood police officer was sentenced to 62½ years in prison Tuesday.
Paul J. Kinnaman, 38, received the sentence from Judge Lance Hamner inside Johnson County Superior Court 3. In addition to being convicted of attempted murder, Kinnaman had also been found guilty of pointing a firearm, possession of a firearm by a violent felon and resisting law enforcement.
Hamner had previously ruled that Kinnaman was a habitual offender, which further increased his sentence.
“What you did could have destroyed a life, and several families, including your own. By the grace of God, that didn’t happen,” Hamner said as he delivered the sentence.
Kinnaman, 38, was accused of leading Greenwood police officer Adam Bandy on a pursuit through Greenwood and into Indianapolis on the evening of June 27, 2016, before crashing his car at the intersection of Stop 11 Road and Shelby Street. As police arrived on the scene, Kinnaman was accused of fleeing on foot and pointing a gun at Bandy, though the gun did not fire. The officer then shot Kinnaman in the waist and apprehended him.
During a three-day trial in March, Kinnaman and his attorneys had argued that the officer trying to arrest him had acted recklessly by pursuing him during rush-hour traffic and by firing his weapon. The defense also countered that Kinnaman was not trying to point the gun at the officer, but was trying to get rid of the weapon in his hand.
But after deliberating for nearly two hours, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all charges.
Kinnaman had previously been sentenced to crimes including dealing methamphetamine, robbery, resisting law enforcement and auto theft. At the time of the 2016 incident, he had a suspended sentence of 33 years, 9 months and 16 days in Franklin County. Franklin County officials have not decided how much of that suspended sentence he will serve moving forward, which will add to his time in prison, said Joe Villenueva, Johnson County chief deputy prosecutor.
Before the sentence was handed down, Kinnaman had an opportunity to address the court and the charges. Though he did not blame the jury, they got the situation wrong when they delivered a guilty plea, he said.
He also apologized to Bandy, though he argued that the entire situation could have been avoided.
“You had no reason to stop me that day. You have no reason to do the things you did that day,” he said.
Matt Solomon, one of Kinnaman’s defense attorneys, echoed those points. He vigorously disagreed with the verdict in the case, and asserted to Hamner that a life sentence would not fit the crime.
“Stacking up all of these charges, having a sentence that would be decades and decades long, is not one that would fit the crime,” he said.
Prosecutors argued that Kinnaman should be given the maximum for all of the charges, which would have added up to 74 1/2 years. Hamner opted for a sentence 35 years for the attempted murder charge, 10 years for possession of a firearm by a violent felon, 2 1/2 years for resisting law enforcement and 15 years for being a habitual offender. All of those charges will be served consecutively.
Kinnaman also received two years for pointing a firearm, though Hamner agreed that sentence should be served concurrently with the rest of his sentence.
“You’ve taken some bad roads, and made some bad choices,” Hamner said.
Kinnaman will appeal the conviction and sentence.
