ST. Louis Man Setenced to Life in Prison for Carjacking & Shooting at Police
St. Louis, MO – Harold Ford was sentenced for his 2009 armed carjacking and shooting at police officers after abandoning the vehicle.
According to court documents, on April 23, 2009, a woman was putting gas in her car at a North St. Louis County filling station. As she turned to get back into her car, Ford ordered her into the car, and at gun point made her drive him to several locations in the area. Ford warned her that he had just finished serving 18 years of a 20-year sentence in state prison. After driving to other locations, Ford ordered her out of the car and took her cell phone and driver’s license, warning her that if she called the police, he would send someone to her home to take care of her.
Approximately two weeks later, on the early morning of May 7, 2009, St. Louis Metropolitan Police officers on patrol in South St. Louis City saw Ford run a red light in the carjacked vehicle and proceed the wrong way down a one-way street. When the officers activated the emergency lights on their marked patrol car Ford fled at a high rate of speed, ignoring traffic signals. Ford later crashed the car, exited the driver’s side door and fired two shots into the windshield of the marked patrol car. At point blank range, Ford fired three additional shots into the passenger side window of the patrol car, shattering the window, shooting one officer in the hand, and deafening the other officer.
Ford, 46, St. Louis, 63137, pled guilty last November to one felony count of carjacking, one felony count of brandishing a firearm in further of a crime of violence and one felony count of possession of a firearm by a felon. He appeared today for sentencing before United States District Judge Rodney W. Sippel.
This case was investigated by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Division, The St. Genevieve County Sheriff’s Office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Assistant United States Attorney Cristian Stevens handed the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
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