Elyria man sentenced to 15 years for 2012 police standoff

An Elyria man found guilty of attempted aggravated murder is headed to prison stemming from a 2012 standoff he had with Lorain police.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Raymond Ewers sentenced Jarelle Guice, 25, to 15 years behind bars Dec. 17.

Kyle Gelenius, president of the Lorain Fraternal Order of Police, said he’s outraged by Guice’s sentence calling it “a slap in the face to all law enforcement.”

“The FOP is absolutely shocked by this light sentencing,” Gelenius said. “We go out there every day and put our lives on the line so you would think our lives would be worth more than 15 years. Pretty much all of the officers who came to his sentencing hearing left the courtroom shaking their heads.”

Last month, a 12-person jury convicted Guice.

Guice was sentenced on four counts of attempted aggravated murder, one count of attempted murder and five counts of felonious assault.

He also was sentenced on five counts of assault and single counts of aggravated burglary and having weapons under disability, inducing panic, obstructing official business and criminal damaging or endangering.

All but two of Guice’s charges had firearms specifications attached, according to court documents.

Guice was issued a 20-count indictment in August 2012, two months after he was shot six times during the standoff with Lorain police officers.

During Guice’s trial, defense attorney Anthony Manning declared that Guice was guilty of many of the crimes he was charged with, but acted on the “spur of the moment” never intending to actually kill anyone.

Assistant Prosecutor Sherry Glass, however, claimed that during the standoff, Guice had several opportunities to cooperate with police, but instead made matters worse when he was caught, saying, “I’m going to kill me a cop tonight” and fired shots at the officers.

According to a police report, prior to the standoff, Guice had broken up with his then-girlfriend and demanded that she move out of their Foxhill Lane apartment in Elyria.

After barging into her family’s home on Oakdale Avenue in Lorain on June 2, 2012, Guice threatened to harm his exgirlfriend, the report stated.

The report also stated he later showed up at her friend’s apartment in the 1600 block of East 29th Street in Lorain on June 3 and threatened to beat her and shoot up the residence.

A short time later, Guice left the home after making the threats, but officers located him when he crashed his car into the East 29th Street apartment building, police records show.

Police said Guice then got out of his car, shot at an officer in a cruiser and ran. When officers located him again, Guice allegedly held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot himself before firing at officers again and forcing police to return fire, according to the report.

In her closing argument, Glass claimed that Guice only held the gun to his head to try to turn the situation from “homicidal to suicidal” while Manning stated the only person Guice intended to hurt was himself.

Guice is set to serve his sentence at the Lorain Correctional Institution.

Guice