A Beaver County man convicted of attempting to kill a Monroeville police officer faces up to 70 years in prison.
On January 3, 2024, Jamal Brooks shot Monroeville Sgt. James J. MacDonald.
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Brooks, 34, of Aliquippa, was sentenced Monday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court to 20 to 40 years in prison, followed by a 15- to 30-year sentence for attempted homicide.
He also received concurrent sentences for aggravated assault and firearms crimes.
Brooks faced a mandatory 20- to 40-year jail sentence for assaulting MacDonald.
Brooks allegedly fired at least 16 shots at MacDonald and his police SUV following an armed robbery at Crumbl, a cookie shop in Miracle Mile Shopping Plaza. At 9:13 p.m., police responded to the mall in McDonald. Someone in the police station that night noticed Brooks driving down Monroeville Boulevard.
Shortly after stopping his police SUV, MacDonald stated in October that he was attacked.
After firing six bullets, MacDonald attempted to flee in his SUV by shifting into reverse. But, as he backed away, the shooter moved to higher ground and fired ten more times.
Three rounds passed through MacDonald’s windshield. Two of them struck him, fracturing his left elbow and passing through his left buttock to the right side of his torso.
A jury deliberated for less than three hours last October before convicting Brooks on four counts.
Brooks, who appeared in court Monday wearing a fluorescent yellow Allegheny County Jail uniform and sporting a thick beard, refused to listen to MacDonald’s victim-impact statements before Judge Elliot Howsie issued his verdict.
“I would prefer to be excused (and) I’m asking nicely,” Brooks told Howsie as MacDonald walked to a microphone just feet in front of the man who shot him.
“I’m sympathetic to (MacDonald) as a human being, as an individual,” Brooks added. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“But you did it,” Howsie later told him. “And now you’re not man enough to sit here and listen to what he has to say about his experience.”
As Brooks left the courtroom, he lifted his middle finger and looked at multiple Monroeville police officers, some of whom were in uniform.
Family impact
In victim impact statements read aloud by MacDonald, the sergeant’s family discussed how the shooting affected them.
“I feel scared (and) no kid should have to live with that,” his 14-year-old daughter, Abigail, wrote. “What was done to my Dad didn’t just put him in danger. It changed our lives.”
“The chaos of that night put fear in our home,” wrote MacDonald’s wife, Amy. “There is no forgiving it. There is no erasing it … the impact of this crime is permanent.”
MacDonald’s son, Connor, also 14, recalled how seeing Monroeville police Chief Kenneth D. “Doug” Cole arrive at the front door to tell the family about the shooting “didn’t seem real.”
“I just stood there, scared and shocked and angry,” Connor said in his statement. “What happened to my Dad changed the way I see the world.”
Before reading Brooks’ sentence, Howsie referred to the defendant as “a violent person” whose life has revolved around “a history of violence.”
Brooks had left the courtroom without hearing the judge.
“This is a very cold, calculated offense,” Howsie said. “I think his goal was to take Sgt. MacDonald’s life.”
Excessive or appropriate?
Attorney Ben Jackson, who represented Brooks at the hearing, objected to a prosecutor’s proposal for two 20- to 40-year terms served consecutively.
“Forty to 80 years is excessive,” Jackson told Howsie. “I understand the commonwealth’s argument … but people who are convicted of murder rarely get that long.”
Brooks had a criminal past when he appeared in court on Monday, according to Howsie and documents.
He was convicted twice of gun crimes. Prosecutors declined to press charges in two other cases: a robbery and a narcotics charge.
Brooks negotiated a plea deal with prosecutors in 2015, pleading guilty to retail theft and a gun offense, according to court records. A judge sentenced him to one year of probation.
Brooks, who represented himself last year, told jurors that his October trial was driven by “deception.” On Monday, he called the legal process that put him behind bars “a charade.”
However, prosecutors provided jurors with a different perspective.
“Every single piece of evidence in this case points to one person,” Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Ilan Zur argued during the trial. “It’s as simple as that — because he did it.”
MacDonald declined to comment after the hearing.
“We’re satisfied,” Zur added, outside the courtroom. “I think the judge considered (Brooks’) criminal history and fashioned an appropriate sentence.”
