A Tarrant County jury has sentenced Timothy Huff to life in prison without parole for the September 2018 murder of Fort Worth Police Officer Garrett Hull, the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office confirmed Wednesday.
Huff was previously found guilty of capital murder Monday morning and the DA's office sought the death penalty.
Officer Hull was killed during an investigation into a string of robberies.
Investigators suspected Huff, Dacion Steptoe and Samuel Mayfield were responsible for 17 robberies in the area and that they had been targeting Latino bars in and around Fort Worth under the belief that Latino victims would be less likely to report a robbery to authorities.
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
Joel Fitzgerald, who was chief of police in Fort Worth at the time, said a group of undercover and uniform officers identified the three men as suspects and were watching them as they entered Los Vaqueros Sports Bar on Sept. 14, 2018.
Fitzgerald added then that the officers were wary of endangering bystanders and waited for the three men to leave the bar before confronting them. When the men were outside and around the corner police tried to arrest them and that's when the gun battle began.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Hull was shot in the head in the exchange. Instead of waiting for an ambulance, officers decided to rush Hull to the hospital in a police car.
Dacion Steptoe, the man believed to have fired the shot that killed Hull, was killed in the shootout with police. In the days after the shooting NBC 5 learned Steptoe had been released from prison early and wasn’t sent back when he was arrested twice earlier in the year -- even though he was on parole, according to Tarrant County court records.
Mayfield is also charged with capital murder but has not yet gone to trial.
