Shooting nets jail escapee 14 years
Sheriffs injured in violent attack
A drug dealer who beat one sheriff and shot another during a violent 2013 escape from the Whitecourt courthouse now faces 14 years in prison.
Both the prosecution and defence recommended the sentence after Clayton Lee Ness, 32, admitted to his violent escape from his courthouse holding cell and brief taste of freedom on the morning of Feb. 26, 2013.
Ness had been scheduled to make a court appearance on drug charges. His cell door was left unlocked because provincial sheriffs had forgotten the keys. Ness’ handcuffs were removed so he could eat lunch, but his legs were shackled, when he leaned against the cell door and fell from his cell. A moment later, things turned chaotic.
“I didn’t know it was going to get crazy,” Ness later told investigators. “I don’t know why I went f-- king crazy like that.”
The six- foot- six, 300- pound Ness and a second prisoner attacked the nearest guard, Sheriff John Griffiths, 71.
Moments later, Sheriff Allan Buttree ran into the holding cell area and saw his colleague beneath the prisoners. All four men struggled for the sheriffs’ guns.
The second prisoner fired Griffiths’ gun during the fight and two bullets went through the wall into an adjoining courtroom. The 20 people inside screamed and stampeded for the door as shrapnel and wood shards flew through the room.
Ness yanked Buttree’s handgun from the holster and fired as the sheriff attempted to grab the weapon. The shot blew the fourth finger off Buttree’s right hand and he fell to the floor screaming. Moments later, the two prisoners each held a gun.
“I thought I was going to die,” Griffiths said in his victim impact statement. “It is the worst feeling a person can have.”
With Ness behind the wheel, the prisoners drove away in the sheriffs’ van as panicked bystanders ran from the courthouse.
The pair had no plan and ended up stuck in a snow drift at a farm eight kilometres outside Whitecourt.
Shortly afterward, RCMP officers arrived and Ness walked down the farm’s snowy driveway with his empty hands in the air.
Ness’ co- accused, Jake Allan MacIntyre, is scheduled to go to trial in November.