Seattle cop killer Christopher Monfort sentenced

SEATTLE, Wash. — Christopher Monfort, the man who killed a Seattle police officer in 2009, was officially sentenced to life in prison Thursday.

Monfort was 41 when he killed Seattle police Officer Timothy Brenton on Halloween night 2009. The same jury decided his punishment convicted Monfort last month.

Monfort was also found guilty of attempted murder for shooting Brenton's partner, Britt Kelly, and arson for destroying vehicles at a city maintenance yard weeks before the fatal attack.

The officer's mother, Penny Brenton, called Monfort a "coward" and a "self-absorbed whiner.'"

As Monfort was officially sentenced, both Brenton’s family and Monfort had opportunities to speak.

“You are not a martyr to any cause, and you are no less a coward than any other drive-by shooter,” Penny Brenton said to Monfort.

She continued, “You wanted to be a rockstar. You wanted the podium for your prattlings and your ramblings and your outbursts.”

She and Lisa Brenton, the officer’s widow, told anecdotes illustrating a shy, humorous man, whose main goals in life were to be a good police officer and a good father.

Lisa Brenton retold one story, in which Timothy Brenton had said he watched a little girl lose her shoe as she was being led across the street by her mother. He told his wife the little girl couldn't get her mother's attention, so he ran to grab the shoe and return it to the girl.

Instead of showing gratitude, the girl’s mother scolded her daughter not to talk to cops, "because they’re all a—holes."

Lisa Brenton said her husband came home that day, saying, “Hopefully,when this child grows up, she’ll remember the police officer that gave her her shoe and simply walked away.”

Family members expressed Brenton’s sense of duty, character and honor, while they denounced Monfort.

Lisa Brenton said that her husband’s worst fears were to grow old and become paralyzed, two things, she said, Monfort would now experience in prison.

After the murder, Monfort was confined to a wheelchair when a bullet lodged in his back during a shootout with police.

Lisa Brenton said, “You took away their father and their ability to grow up in safe world. You took away him never knowing what they would look like when they grew up and the amazing people they’ve become.”

Monfort told the court he was sorry for the family, and that he realized he had killed a good man.

He told the judge he had hoped that night to gun down an officer with a history of brutality complaints. He continued to try to justify his actions by saying they were necessary to protest police brutality, comments that upset Brenton’s mother and caused her to leave the room.

The president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, Ron Smith, told Monfort that if he were truly concerned about police misconduct, he could have joined various organizations or boards to address the problem.

“But you chose instead to become a domestic terrorist,” Smith said.

Judge Ronald Kessler told Monfort he had wasted potential.

“What could have been a life seeking social justice will now be spent in prison. Had the jury returned a verdict of death, we would be reading about Mr. Monfort for the next 15 or 20 years. The jury, having decided to be merciful, in a year, there will be a one-inch story in the newspaper about his appeal. And Mr. Monfort will pass into pitiless insignificance,” Kessler said.

KIRO