By Lance Benzel
The Gazette
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A Colorado Springs felon once considered a person of interest in the 2013 slaying of Colorado’s top prison official pleaded guilty Thursday to trying to kill a police officer while fleeing what authorities called a botched burglary.
Thomas Guolee, 35, a reputed member of the 211 Crew white supremacist prison gang, was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Prosecutors agreed to the penalty as part of a plea deal that tossed 18 of 19 counts against Guolee. He was on track for an Oct. 24 trial, court records show.
“Your actions placed people in the community in grave danger,” 4th Judicial District Judge Gregory Werner said in approving the plea deal and imposing sentence.
The brief hearing supplied few answers to why Guolee on Dec. 30, 2015 placed a bottle jack near a garage door at the home of a former prison guard - sparking fears of ongoing retaliation against public safety workers.
The guard’s wife, home alone with their two toddlers, huddled in a bedroom with the children after hearing banging outside, according to arrest papers unsealed in February after a successful push by a media coalition including The Gazette.
Guolee shot at least once in the direction of an officer when police responded to a report of a prowler in the 2400 block of Sierra Springs Drive. The faceoff led to a high-speed chase in which Guolee was shot in the leg after bailing out of a stolen vehicle.
The incident raised the fresh questions about the threat posed by the 211 Crew, which Texas Rangers linked to the March 2013 assassination of Tom Clements, who was shot at his doorstep by gang associate Evan Ebel.
Despite Texas authorities’ conclusion that Clements died as a result of a 211 Crew conspiracy, El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder has denied that anyone besides Ebel was to blame. Ebel was shot to death by Texas law enforcement authorities during a high-speed chase that began when he wounded a Wise County, Texas, sheriff’s deputy.
One of two reputed gang members arrested in Colorado Springs in the wake of Clements’ murder, Guolee denied involvement in the assassination during a jailhouse interview with The Denver Post in 2013. He was not charged in Clements’ death.
In addressing the court, Guolee, who has spent much of the past 15 years in prison or on parole, told the judge, “I really am sorry for the things that happened.” He said that he would focus on trying to become a productive member of society.
After Werner questioned why prosecutors agreed to a sentence in the middle of the 16-48 year range for attempted murder of a police officer, prosecutor Martha McKinney cited the risk that prosecutors would be unable to prove Guolee intended to kill, or even that he intended to break into the former guard’s home to commit a crime.
Defense attorneys for Guolee wouldn’t comment on their client’s motive, but suggested they would have argued that Guolee fired a shot to get away, not with the intent to hit someone.
In April, prosecutors won a judge’s authorization to obtain photographs of Guolee’s tattoos to explore their theory that his self-claimed 211 Crew ties were “the motive for all or part of what occurred.”
On Thursday, McKinney said she had no “specific evidence” the break-in or shooting were related to the 211 Crew. She said she had no definitive evidence about his motive in targeting the former guard.