Fitch sentence: Life without parole
Updated 1:55 p.m. | Posted 10:21 a.m.
Brian Fitch was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole for murdering Mendota Heights Police Officer Scott Patrick during a July traffic stop.
Fitch, 40, had pleaded not guilty to fatally shooting Patrick when the officer walked up to his car. Jurors Monday also found Fitch guilty on all other charges, including three counts of attempted first-degree murder tied to a shootout with officers who ultimately captured him.
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"Brian Fitch Sr. deserves the life sentence he received today," Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said. "It was a cold-blooded murder committed with malice and without remorse."
At the hearing, Fitch proclaimed his innocence. He said police didn't consider any other suspects. "They didn't take up any other avenues once they had my name," Fitch told the court.
Mike Brue, Patrick's half brother, spoke after the hearing.
"His (Fitch) accountability and his remorse, whether its today or in 10 months, or in 30 years may be the only thing that truly gives him a chance to regain a sense of his humanity," said Brue. "And we wish him well in his own journey there."
Fitch's mother Alice wept when Patrick's family — his daughters Amy and Erin and wife Michelle — told the judge about the impact of the crime on their family.
Alice Fitch was still emotional after deputies took her son away to prison.
"They don't have their father no more. They don't have their father no more," she said of Patrick's daughters. "I can go visit my son. I love him. He's my son. I always will. I'm his mother. But their father isn't here to go visit him, or go up and have breakfast with him. It's very hard."
She watched her son's sentencing, but said she didn't know if he was guilty of the shooting.
"I wasn't there," she said. "I'm a mother. I want to believe him. In my heart I want to believe him, that he wouldn't do such a crime, to take someone's life."