Jason Pohl

jasonpohl@coloradoan.com

A man who fired a .45-caliber handgun at another vehicle during a heated road-rage incident last year in Loveland was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison.

Isaiah Shaw, 23, pleaded guilty in September to attempted first-degree assault — a Class 4 felony — from the September 2013 altercation. Shaw was driving a pickup “extremely aggressively” when he came upon brothers Anthony and Timothy Jaramillo, all northbound on Garfield Avenue, court records show.

The brothers were in front of Shaw’s pickup at an intersection when one of them signaled that he wouldn’t let Shaw pass. When their pickup slowed to make a left turn, Shaw fired a shot that put a hole in the grill and caused a radiator leak.

Nobody was injured during the altercation. The brothers let Shaw pass and then followed him to Fort Collins, calling police in the process.

Police reports show Shaw admitted to shooting at the truck and said he pulled the gun out during the incident, held it “in his lap for several blocks and kept telling himself to calm down.”

“I’m pretty shaken up,” Shaw said Monday in court, his voice wavering. “I know what I did was wrong.”

Shaw’s attorney, Brandon Marinoff, urged 8th Judicial District Judge Stephen Howard to impose a sentence on the shorter end of the 5- to 16-year range Shaw faced. He stressed that the shooting was a “ridiculously stupid act” in an effort to “scare” the occupants in the other car and reiterated that Shaw, a father of two and former oilfield worker, did not have a criminal history.

Shaw faced a lengthy list of charges, including attempted murder and numerous sentence enhancers, before striking a deal with the DA’s office in September to the single amended count.

“I think he was trying to kill these people,” Deputy DA Joseph Petrone said during the hearing, adding that his “flippant” behavior after the incident suggested he was trying to dodge blame. Petrone asked that Shaw be sentenced to 14 years in corrections for what he described as a “drive-by shooting.”

“Frankly, I’m not entirely sure that you knew what you were doing at the time,” Howard said prior to imposing the sentence.

Nobody else spoke on Shaw’s behalf or against him during the hearing. He was remanded into custody in the courtroom.

Reporter Jason Pohl covers breaking news and courts for the Coloradoan. Follow him on Twitter: @pohl_jason.