MIAMI — Wilkhari Jones was a Miami Edison Senior High School football player with a full Florida Memorial University scholarship when police officers arrested him about six years ago, court records show.
On Thursday, Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Laura Gonzalez-Marques sentenced Jones, 25, to 13 years in state prison for his role in the shooting of Officer Erica Socarras on April 24, 2020, in Miami.
“You are a very young man, Sir. And, I hope that you take the time in prison to reflect on the things that you have done, and come out of it differently, because you endangered an officer,” Gonzalez-Marques told Jones during the sentencing hearing.
Gonzalez-Marques also sentenced Jones to a three-year probation and ordered him to stay away from Socarras.
Jones pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted premeditated murder with a deadly weapon, throwing a deadly missile, aggravated assault with a firearm, and solicitation to commit murder.
Socarras, a tactical robbery unit detective in an unmarked Dodge Charger, wasn’t injured during the shooting in Brownsville. A round struck the Taser she had on her gun belt, according to police.
Deputy Chief of Miami Police Albert “Al” Guerra described Socarras as “incredibly courageous” and a “successful” top officer.
“As I sat next to her in the courtroom, I had asked her if the sentencing was adequate for her, and she said, ‘It is adequate,’ and she just wants it to be done already, so she is happy that it has finally come to a conclusion,” Guerra told reporters after the sentencing hearing. “It’s a good conclusion for us, and she is just in good spirits.”
In April, Gonzalez-Marques sentenced Antranard Womble, Jones’s co-defendant, to 15 years in prison for firing at Socarras during the traffic stop at the corner of Northwest 22nd Avenue and 54th Street.
“Mr. Jones unlike Mr. Womble was not in possession of a firearm nor was he identified as one of the shooters in this case,” Attorney Mayra Trinchet, who represented Jones in the case, wrote, according to the court record’s mitigation packet.
Jones, who had been in jail without bond since Aug. 20, 2020, has two pending cases on charges of battery by a detainee upon a visitor or another detainee, according to court and inmate records.
Local 10 News Photojournalist Tim McFarland contributed to this report.
Related story: Man gets prison after pleading guilty to shooting at Miami police officer
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