Pasadena, Md. — A Pasadena man was sentenced to six months in jail Tuesday for threatening to shoot an Anne Arundel County police officer with a bow and arrow in July.
Steven Wade Shore, 22, of Riverside Drive, will spend the first 60 days in a local detention center. The remainder of the sentence will be served on house arrest. Shore pleaded guilty to first-degree assault.
The sentence was handed down by Judge William C. Mulford II in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court in Annapolis.
Prosecutors said that on July 1 at about 3:30 a.m. 911 dispatchers received a call from someone who immediately hung up. When the dispatcher called back, Shore answered the phone and gave his address.
He also cursed at the dispatcher and said police should get there quickly or he was going to "knock her out," Assistant State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said.
When county police Officer Joseph Eckloff arrived, he saw Shore's grandmother standing on the porch. As Eckloff paused, Shore appeared from behind a pickup with a Bear Strike compound hunting bow and arrow.
Shore was crouched and walking slowing in an ambush position, with the bow drawn and ready to fire, Leitess said.
Eckloff ran behind his patrol car, drew his gun and told Shore to drop the bow and arrow.
Shore cursed at the officer and eventually threw away the bow, but kept the arrow in hand. After demands from the officer, he dropped the arrow.
As other officers arrived at the home as backup. Shore, who smelled of alcohol, told police he was ready for whomever came.
Leitess said Shore yelled, "I'm not going back to jail. I had one ready and the rest were going to keep flying after that."
When questioned, Shore told police he had gotten into an argument with his sister and she began hitting him. She was gone from the residence by the time police arrived.
Shore said he called 911, then waited behind his truck with the bow and three arrows.
Leitess said Eckloff was very concerned about being shot that day and that Shore called police and waited for their arrival, crouched with the weapon.
"I don't know what would prompt Mr. Shore to do that," Leitess said at Tuesday's hearing.
Defense attorney James Keatts said his client had no recollection of saying those things to police. He said Shore had spent the day drinking on a boat with his friends and was extremely intoxicated.
"He doesn't remember very much of this," Keatts told the court. "He certainly doesn't remember making a phone call with the purpose of getting police there to do something. He's very fortunate he wasn't hurt when the police officer came."
Mulford agreed.
"What you ought to be really happy about is that (the) officer had the restraint and the training to just scream at you to drop the weapon instead of just unload on you," he said.
If that had happened, Mulford said, the result would have been a "clean shoot."
"Find a guy on the ground, bow and arrow loaded, capable of pierc