Man gets 10 years for several crimes

A methamphetamine-addicted felon was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for prowling a car, using a pistol to threaten three Spokane County sheriff’s deputies who caught him and, in an unrelated incident, causing a car crash that seriously injured a Rathdrum, Idaho, couple.

Ronald D. Baker Jr., 32, asked for a minimum-standard 8 1/4 -year sentence, but Superior Court Judge Linda Tompkins gave him the maximum. Tompkins said Baker had caused “staggering” harm.

Baker had already gotten a break when Deputy Prosecutors Clint Francis and Rachel Sterett agreed to consolidate the unrelated cases, allowing Baker to serve all his sentences at the same time instead of consecutively.

Sterett said Baker had three felony convictions, dating from the early 1990s, before he caused the July 11, 2004, crash that injured Roger and Carol Hansen. Then he got caught jacking up a Spokane Valley woman’s Jeep to steal the tires on Feb. 22.

Confronted by the Jeep owner’s boyfriend, Baker denied he was stealing tires. He walked away, but sheriff’s Deputy Jason Petrini soon found him.

When the Jeep owner and her boyfriend identified Baker, Petrini tried to frisk Baker for weapons. Baker ran and was pursued by Petrini and deputies Robert Brooke and Griffin Criswell. When the officers were within a few feet of catching Baker, he turned and pointed a loaded .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol at Petrini.

The deputies ordered Baker, at gunpoint, to lie down. He started to comply, but ran again and tossed away his gun before he was tackled and subdued with a stun gun.

Petrini said in court Wednesday that the moments he was looking down the barrel of Baker’s pistol changed his life. He became more concerned about safety, bought a new holster that allows him to draw his gun faster and is quicker to resort to the weapon.

“I could have been dead, or he could have been dead,” Petrini said. “Next time, maybe he would pull the trigger.”

Carol Hansen said her life and her husband’s also were permanently altered.

“His Chevy Blazer was just as deadly a weapon as having a gun pointed in your face,” Hansen said.

She said she and her husband were hospitalized for 10 days with broken bones and other injuries, and were out of work for months.

“When we were allowed to go back to work, we no longer had jobs and we no longer had a home,” Hansen said.

“No words could ever express how sorry I am to them,” Baker said.

He and Assistant Public Defender Steve Reich pointed out that Baker hadn’t previously hurt anyone physically, and that he had a strong work record before drugs took over his life.

Baker pleaded guilty last month to two counts of vehicular assault, first-degree theft, unlawful possession of a firearm, and three counts of second-degree assault involving the deputies. One of the assault charges, regarding Petrini, included a three-year sentence “enhancement” for use of a firearm.