Lyons Man Gets 62 Years For Shooting At Trooper

A Lyons man faces more than six decades in prison for trying to kill a Kansas Highway

Jason Gleason was sentenced Friday to about 62 years in prison. He was convicted in August of attempted first-degree murder and other charges.

Gleason was spotted in a sport utility vehicle with his girlfriend, Chrystal Bell, and her children several hours after an October 9th, 2012, bank robbery in Rice County. Following a chase that ended in southeast Saline County near Gypsum, multiple shots were fired.

Gleason was convicted of firing his Emerson 9mm pistol at KHP Trooper Ryan Wolting. A bullet Gleason fired also struck Bell’s 12-year-old son in the mouth and lodged in Bell’s abdomen.

Gleasons’s attorney, C. Richard Comfort, said Wolting wasn’t hit by a bullet and asked the judge to depart from sentencing guidelines because they’d result in an “absurd, irresponsible and unjust conclusion.”

Prosecutors said Gleason shouldn’t get special consideration just because he didn’t kill Wolting.

Associated Press information from: The Salina Journal