33 years for cop shooting
Gang member was part of probe
A gang member was sentenced to 33 years in prison for shooting an undercover Oakland police officer who was investigating his role in the attempted murder of a gang rival, federal prosecutors said.
Damien Edward McDaniel was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Oakland after pleading guilty in April to charges of racketeering conspiracy, attempted murder in aid of racketeering, assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering resulting in serious bodily injury, and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
“Mr. McDaniel posed a significant threat to the public,” said U.S. Attorney Brian J. Stretch, adding that the sentence “assures the public that this violent criminal will be off the streets for the next three decades.”
Federal Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton also gave the 27-year-old McDaniel five additional years of supervised release upon the completion of the prison term.
He shot Officer Eric Karsseboom in East Oakland in 2013 as the undercover detective was conducting a stakeout on the 1700 block of Seminary Avenue. Karsseboom previously worked as a Fremont and Oakland Housing Authority police officer and had been on a Federal Drug Enforcement Administration task force.
The officer was part of the Hans Reiser investigation and had performed surveillance of Reiser before the computer entrepreneur was arrested and later convicted of murdering his wife, Nina Reiser, in 2008.
Before getting shot in the line of duty, Karsseboom was investigating McDaniel and three other members of the Sem City street gang in the attempted murder of a rival gang member they spotted on their turf in the Seminary neighborhood of Oakland, prosecutors said. The men opened fire on the rival gang member at a bus stop on Jan. 20, 2013, then shot him in the head at close range while he lay on the ground, according to a Department of Justice statement. The victim survived the attack.
The next day, police got a tip that the suspects’ getaway car was at an apartment complex in East Oakland. Karsseboom went to the area in an undercover car to stake out the suspects when McDaniel saw him, opened the passenger door and grabbed the officer’s off-duty weapon from the center console, according to court records.
Karsseboom identified himself as a police officer, but McDaniel and three accomplices told him they didn’t believe him and didn’t care if he was, Officer Leo Sanchez wrote in a sworn affidavit.
Deante Terrance Kincaid and another Sem City gang member pointed guns at Karsseboom as McDaniel tried to take another gun from the officer’s waistband, Sanchez wrote. As his accomplices pistol-whipped Karsseboom, McDaniel shot him in his left forearm.
McDaniel and the two other assailants were later arrested and charged in connection with the attack.
McDaniel’s co-defendants, Kincaid and Joseph Pennymon, pleaded guilty last month to charges connected to the shooting and beating of Karsseboom. A fourth defendant charged in the attack, Purvis Lamar Ellis, has pleaded not guilty but has an upcoming change of plea hearing scheduled, officials said.