Shot in the face, NC cop thought he’d die. Now he hopes for shooter’s redemption.
Mario Garza III pleaded guilty Wednesday to shooting a Harnett County sheriff’s deputy in the face and chest, a crime he committed as a troubled teenage runaway.
Garza will serve 13 to 16 years in prison, getting credit for nearly two years in jail since the 2018 shooting.
Sgt. Eric Cook stood and told the court the bullet passed through his face and under his eye, requiring intense surgery and frightening his young daughter so badly that she was scared to look at him.
He recalled approaching the 16-year-old Garza in Cameron, touching him on the bicep and falling over from the force of a .45-caliber blast.
“As I fell to the ground,” he said, “I remember thinking ‘I often wondered how am I going to die. Now I know.’”
Cook returned to duty last year, reporting no pain, few scars and a slight ache in his ankle when the weather changes. At 38, he still goes out on patrol.
“I only hope the defendant turns his life around,” the deputy said. “He one day might be able to help troubled teens that are starting to walk the path he did that day.”
In court Wednesday, Garza stood and apologized, flanked by his Raleigh attorneys Christian Dysart and Ryan Willis. He will undergo mental health treatment as part of his sentence.
“There’s no words that could ever express how remorseful I feel,” he said. “Sorry will never suffice.”
Assistant District Attorney Don Harrop said Garza’s stepfather reported him missing in April of 2018, and that the 16-year-old had run away before.
One deputy spotted him the next day and chased him, unsuccessfully, through dense woods. Through “pings” given off by his cellular phone, deputies tracked him to Cameron, where Cook parked his patrol car at a church and approached Garza from behind.
The teen tensed, turned and fired into Cook’s face, knocking him backward. While the deputy struggled on the ground, blinded and rendered temporarily deaf by the shot, Garza fired again into his chest.
“Fortunately,” Harrop said, “Deputy Cook was wearing his vest.”
Cook was able to drag himself out of the woods as Garza fled again. Deputies and state troopers later surrounded him as he hid under a storage shed. The gun, they later learned, belonged to his mother.
Dysart said his client is grateful for Cook’s recovery and “there is hope for Mr. Garza in the future. ... This is a terrible case for everyone.”
As a Superior Court judge questioned him during his plea, Garza said the last time he consumed drugs or alcohol was April 13, 2018 — the day before he shot Cook.
“He’s fairly young,” Cook said later Wednesday, adding that he accepts the plea bargain. “He does have a lot of his life left ahead of him. If he could change and honestly wanted to change, he still has the opportunity to do it.”
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