Jacob Rice
A local man who was shot while police were investigating an possible attempted burglary in the Forest Park neighborhood in Columbus was sentenced to 36 years in prison Thursday.
Jacob Rice, 40, received 12 years for unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon. But since Rice admitted to being a habitual offender in January, Bartholomew Circuit Court Judge Kelly Benjamin enhanced the sentence by adding an additional 20 years during the sentencing hearing.
Rice has been convicted 27 times and sent to prison six different times, Benjamin said. He had only been set free by the Indiana Department of Correction for four months when he was shot in the Forest Park residential neighborhood.
The defendant has also had 47 different contacts with law enforcement over the past 30 years, the judge said. In addition, petitions to revoke Rice’s probation have been filed 18 times. His record shows a unusual number of physical attacks on law enforcement officers, she said.
Rice was described by the judge as a danger to the community for most of his life who has refused to let others help him.
Benjamin also gave Rice an additional two-and-a-half years for theft of a firearm, as well as a year-and-a-half for theft of property (a bicycle). Both of those sentences will be served consecutively with the unlawful possession conviction.
While the judge also handed down two more years for criminal recklessness committed with a deadly weapon, Benjamin ordered that time to be served concurrently.
Following nearly seven hours of deliberations that ended Dec. 15, a six-man and six-woman jury found Rice not guilty of trying to kill Columbus Police Sgt. Lukas Nibarger during the incident. Nibarger said he fired his weapon and wounded Rice in the leg only after the suspect had fired a stolen gun in the officer’s general direction, according to court records.
However, the jury did find Rice guilty of the four lesser felony counts involved in Thursday’s sentencing.
A few hours before dawn on the morning of June 27, 2021, an audio/video system linked to a security system alerted a vacationing homeowner in Ohio that someone was trespassing on his Grove Parkway property. After watching video of his house on a mobile device for about 20 minutes to see if the trespasser would leave, the homeowner notified emergency dispatchers in Columbus.
While approaching the home, Nibarger testified that he saw Rice attempting to look through the windows of the home.
Rice fired a stolen 9mm Smith & Wesson M&P Shield handgun after Nibarger identified himself as a police officer and demanded that he raise his hands. But the jury maintained that prosecutors had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Rice intentionally tried to kill Nibarger.
There are still two open cases against the defendant. Rice is charged with dealing in a narcotic drug as a Level 2 felony from an incident that occurred in March 2021. He’s also charged with possession of a narcotic drug as a Level 3 felony, possession of methamphetamine as a Level 6 felony and unlawful possession of a syringe as a Level 6 felony.
A change of plea hearing has been scheduled on March 9 at 10:30 a.m., with a tentative trial date slated for April 11.
