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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA man was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for a fiery 2019 crash that killed a police dog in northeastern Indiana.
Clarence Shearer, 33, pleaded guilty in Whitley Circuit Court to unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and causing the death of a law enforcement animal. Under a plea agreement, charges of resisting law enforcement and criminal recklessness were dismissed, The Journal Gazette reported.
Judge Matthew Rentschler ordered the 10-year sentence to be served consecutively with a 26-year sentence Shearer received in Marshall County for armed robbery and auto theft in the same case.
After Plymouth police reported an armed carjacking, a state trooper saw the vehicle traveling east on U.S. 30 west of Warsaw, police said. The chase by officers from several departments entered Whitley County, where Deputy Gary Archbold deployed stop sticks and parked his vehicle in a crossover between the eastbound and westbound lanes, the sheriff’s department said.
Shearer drove into the crossover and struck Archbold’s vehicle at high speed. Archbold’s police dog, Castorka, or “Cas,” was trapped inside the vehicle as it became engulfed in flames, the sheriff’s department said.
The dog died. Archbold was not injured.
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