Man sentenced for crimes that led to shooting of Independence police officer
A man who took part in a home invasion robbery where an Independence police officer was shot in the head was sentenced Monday to 40 years in prison.
Joseph E. Wyatt was one of four men charged in the March 2017 crime where Officer Thomas Wagstaff was critically wounded.
Wagstaff had to take a medical retirement from his law enforcement job because of the injury.
Wyatt, 30, was found guilty in December of multiple charges including robbery and kidnapping.
“This was a brazen attack that the defendant must pay commiserate with the damage he inflicted,” said Michael Hunt, a chief trial assistant in the Jackson County Prosecutors’ Office.
According to court documents and testimony, Wyatt and another man targeted an 82-year-old man in the robbery. They forced their way into his house, tied him up, and tried to get into a safe.
Police were tipped off about the robbery while it was in progress.
But as arriving officers fanned out around the house, the robbers smashed through a closed garage door in the victim’s vehicle.
Shots were fired and Wagstaff was hit. Officials previously said that he may have been injured by friendly fire.
The cases against Wyatt’s alleged accomplice, and two other men accused of plotting the crime with them, are pending.
