Michael Peverieri, 44, of Sweet Home was convicted on Thursday of attempting to murder a Sweet Home police officer.
Judge John A. McCormick found Peverieri guilty and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
After an altercation between Peverieri and another man on Sept. 26 at Peverieri’s home in the Foster area, Peverieri fired at Office Vic Clodfelter, striking glass in the patrol car. Officer Clodfelter’s hand was injured by flying glass in the shooting.
While on the phone with dispatcher Lisa Davis, Peverieri demanded that Officer Clodfelter leave the area. He gave him to the count of five before he began firing. Peverieri had been drinking alcohol and was intoxicated. A note from Linn County Jail later said he tested positive for alcohol, marijuana and methamphetamine. Peverieri’s defense contested the note’s contention of methamphetamine use by Peverieri.
The incident was taped through the dispatcher’s open telephone line. The tape was played in court. On the tape, Peverieri could be heard swearing, demanding the officer to back away and counting down before he opened fire on the officer.
“I don’t think there’s much of an issue,” District Attorney Jason Carlile said in closing arguments. “He tried to shoot Vic Clodfelter.”
There was no contention about the facts of the case, Carlile said. The defense only raised one issue. “Was he doing it intentionally? As far as his intended actions are concerned, you have in some respects a remarkable picture of everything about what the defendant intended to do.”
On the tape, Peverieri stated many times what he was doing and who he was shooting out, Carlile said. Essentially, he said “‘ if you don’t do what I want you to do, I’m going to shoot you,’ then the gun goes off.”
Not only is there the evidence on the tape, Carlile said. The physical evidence shows the same intent and Officer Clodfelter’s testimony.
There were approximately 80 feet between Officer Clodfelter and Peverieri, a relatively short distance, Carlile said. Officer Clodfelter knew Peverieri already and as the situation escalated, Officer Clodfelter’s sense were heightened. He responded, dropping down, as the shots were fired. The shots hit the patrol car close enough to the officer that shrapnel hit his hand.
Bullet fragments pulled from the scene were in a line of sight with Officer Clodfelter, Carlile said. Shots did not hit along any other line of sight, and Peverieri hit the window on the patrol car, the only place where he could see the officer.
“This isn’t shooting above a guy’s head,” Carlile said. “This is trying to blow his brains out.”
It was an intentional act to fire every single shot, Carlile said. “Vic Clodfelter made a mistake, and if you don’t do what he wants you had a price to pay. In this case, it nearly cost Vic Clodfelter his life.”
Even if the state did not call an expert witness to the stand to testify to Peverieri’s mental state, the facts clearly show the intention, Carlile said. Persons do not fire the way Peverieri did when they are “whacked out.” Delusions were totally absent.
“Let’s assume for a minute there was mental disease and defect…. What is it that compelled him to fire the shots,” Carlile asked. “He knows exactly who the players are in this case.”
When he was sneaking away, he was “blowing smoke” right away after confronted by an officer until he faced officers he knew, Carlile said. “To conclude, this was an intentional act. There can be no mistake about what he intended to do that night.”
“The state has to prove that Peverieri took a substantive step toward killing Mr. Clodfelter,” Peverieri’s attorney Pool said. There is no question that pulling a trigger on a rifle is substantive. Clodfelter was receiving reports that Peverieri was preparing to shoot.
Officer Clodfelter took cover behind the open door to his patrol car, in the ‘V’ between the door and patrol car, Pool said. Shots did not go through the ‘V’ and they did not go into the door of the car. They went through the window.
“(Peverieri) could se through the glass, and he could see that Officer Clodfelter was not there,” Pool said. “He could see the man if he was there. He could see that he was not there.”
Peverieri showed his intoxication on the tape, slurring his words, sounding incoherent and repeating himself, Pool said. That goes toward showing Peverieri’s intent. The defense’s expert witness, a psychologist and medical doctor, testified that Peverieri had dementia and delirium. He had based that on liver failure related to alcohol.
The state’s psychologist agreed that Peverieri was incoherent and repeating himself, Pool said, but the state’s doctor examined Peverieri three months later and found that he did not have a mental disease or defect.
“Surprise, surprise,” Pool said. Peverieri had been on an appropriate diet with no alcohol for three months.
“All the state’s got to rebut that with is the facts and the evidence,” Carlile said. “That’s all we need.”
In response to the defense argument, “he was so drunk, he missed his head,” Carlile said. “He was shooting at the level that he last saw Vic Clodfelter’s head. That’s a frightening act.”
He related Peverieri’s countdown.
“He goes, ‘Five. Four. Three. Two,'” Carlile said. “‘ Goddamn it. If he doesn’t get out of there now, too fucking bad.'”
Then shots were fired,” Carlile said. “If there’s ever been a clearer statement to what somebody intended to do, I’ve never seen it.”
The defense’s doctor was the only one to diagnose Peverieri with a mental disease or defect, Carlile said. A real parallel was in 1999 when Peverieri went to the Good Samaritan Hospital emergency room.”
Peverieri had a .20 blood alcohol content, Carlile said. Two psychologists did not go anywhere near evaluating Peverieri with dementia or delirium at that time.
“This guy’s mean and he gets angry and he was drunk,” Carlile said. “You put that together, and you get attempted murder.”