59 Year Sentence For "Best Window Cleaner"

Officer's shooter gets maximum sentence: Brian Reese spent most of the past decade free from trouble. A friend called him the best window cleaner in the city, and two daughters said Reese showered them with affection and support. But that seemed like a different Reese from the man sentenced to 59 years in prison Friday for nearly killing Indianapolis police officer Jason Fishburn during a foot chase in July 2008. Testimony from the daughters, their mother and a friend who ran a window cleaning business with Reese was hard to square with the image of him, then a crack-cocaine user, shooting the patrolman in the head.

Reese is accused of killing three other people that week, with trials coming soon. Before giving the maximum penalty Friday, Marion Superior Court Judge Lisa Borges said Reese, 37, deeply hurt his own family as well as Fishburn's, and she issued a $4,000 fine. "To your children," the judge said, "I would say that choices have consequences. And your dad made some very bad choices: the choice to use drugs, the choice to carry a gun and the choice to run from police."

Reese was convicted last month of attempted murder, resisting law enforcement and carrying a handgun without a license by a jury in Northwest Indiana's Porter County, where the trial was moved because of publicity. Reese's attorneys challenged the lead charge, arguing that Reese didn't shoot with intent to kill. At Friday's hearing in Indianapolis, Fishburn's presence brought home the enduring effects of his encounter with Reese between two houses shortly after the officer had joined the chase on Indianapolis' Eastside.

Fishburn, 30, hobbles wearing a leg brace, can barely move his right arm and sometimes struggles to find the right words. Returning to street duty might be an elusive dream. He now handles administrative tasks at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Fishburn displayed what might be his deepest emotional wound when Deputy Prosecutor Denise Robinson asked, "Did you like being a police officer?" "Yes," he replied tearfully.