The 23-year-old Baltimore man convicted of killing an off-duty city detective in a robbery attempt outside his girlfriend's home was sentenced yesterday to life in prison without parole.
In issuing the sentence for the murder of Detective Troy Lamont Chesley Sr., Baltimore Circuit Judge Timothy Doory described Brandon Grimes as a "cruel and cowardly criminal" whom the citizens of Baltimore had "every reason to fear" for "every day of his adult life."
Chesley's mother, Joyce, began sobbing on the stand, and a detective stepped in to finish reading her written remarks.
When asked whether she had anything to add, Joyce Chesley turned to face Grimes, who was sitting at the defense table a few feet away, and propped up a small photo of her son on the ledge of the witness box.
"I have to go to the cemetery twice a week to see my son and talk to him," she said. "You should have been put away a long time ago, long time ago."
Grimes showed no emotion during the two-hour hearing and declined to say anything. He whispered, "I love you, too," to his family as corrections officers led him from the courtroom.
Grimes had been arrested 17 times, including twice for handgun possession in the year before the January 2007 killing. But he had been convicted only six times, for nonviolent offenses, and did not spend significant time in prison.
The gun used to kill Chesley, 34, had been seized in a 2001 police raid but was returned to the owner when the case collapsed. Five years later, the owner reported that his son had stolen it, but city police never moved forward on that investigation.
Police do not know how Grimes got the gun, a 9 mm Sig Sauer that investigators found equipped with a laser-targeting device.
Grimes' criminal trajectory highlights two perennial problems at the crux of the Police Department's efforts to curb homicides: locking up gun offenders and reducing robberies.
Four days before Chesley's killing, police say, Grimes carjacked two men, stealing a driver's license and credit card and then dumping the vehicle nearby. The victims called police, but officers did not take a report or investigate.
The allegation was labeled unfounded until Sgt. Richard Purtell began reviewing evidence from the homicide. He found the stolen license and credit card inside a wallet recovered from the getaway van that Grimes used in the Chesley shooting.
