FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A former Broward Sheriff's Office detention deputy was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday after she was convicted of shooting at deputies from inside her house in December 2010.
Kelly Garrick, 45, worked with the BSO since 1997, but years later she would find herself on the other side of the law numerous times.
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In 1997 Garrick was involved with a violent struggle with an inmate which caused her to suffer nerve damage and a concussion.
The concurring pain led to an escalating dependence on prescription medication. Garrick was arrested for cocaine possession, possession of drug paraphernalia and child neglect March 2007.
She was arrested again for trafficking Oxycodone, possession of Xanax, withholding information from a practitioner and obtaining a controlled substance by fraud July 2010.
She was arrested for the third time Dec. 3, 2010, for violating the conditions of her release, and 29 days later -- she would reach rock bottom. On Dec. 30, 2010, about 5:15 p.m., "she refused to come out of the house and threatened to kill law enforcement officers," Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Dani Moschella told reporters.
Garrick, then 41, had been asked to leave a court-ordered halfway house. She was holding a gun and was threatening to commit suicide at her parents house. Her mom called police. For nearly three hours, the incident caused shut downs of Interstate 95 ramps at Cypress Creek Road.
About 7:43, Garrick fired at deputies from inside the house, and an hour later she walked out the front door holding a gun with both hands. Snipers blew off two of her fingers and shot a femoral artery. Rescue took her to North Broward Medical Center, where she underwent blood transfusions and surgeries -- including the amputation of her left leg above the knee.
Prosecutors dropped the March 2007 and July 2010 charges. The December 2010 case went to court after Garrick refused a plea offer of six years in prison.
Garrick was charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon.
She was also sentenced to five years probation following her release from prison.
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