CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) - A St. Louis County man was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for killing a county police officer during a disturbance call.
Trenton Forster, 20, was sentenced for the 2016 shooting death of Officer Blake Snyder, 33. Forster was convicted in February of first-degree murder and other charges.
Snyder’s wife, mother, brother and fellow officers gave victim impact testimony at Thursday’s sentencing. Before the punishment was handed down, Forster apologized but also expressed anger at how poorly he thought prosecutors treated him.
In October 2016, police were called to a home in south St. Louis County. The caller said Forster, then 18, was banging on the door of a teenage girl’s home. Forster had a prior relationship with the girl.
Prosecutors said that when Snyder approached Forster, who by then was in a parked car, the officer said, “Hey bud, let me see your hands.” According to testimony during the trial, Officer John Becker then saw Snyder fall and fired at Forster, hitting him five times.
Public defender Stephen Reynolds had sought a second-degree murder conviction, maintaining that Forster did not think before shooting Snyder.
Reynolds also cited “diminished capacity” because of Forster’s history of trauma, mental illness and drug use. A second-degree murder conviction would have carried a lesser sentence.
At Forster’s trial, prosecutors said he talked on social media and in text messages about wanting to die in a “suicide by cop” encounter. At the scene of the shooting, prosecutors said Forster told Becker to shoot him.
Assistant prosecutor Alan Key said at trial that in the week before the shooting, Forster tried multiple times to buy firearms and ammunition at gun stores and pawn shops, but was turned away because he appeared to be high.
Eventually, someone put him in touch with a private seller, who sold him a pistol and a rifle.
At the time of his death, Snyder also left behind a then-2-year-old son.
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