Man Found Guilty of Attempted Murder in Shooting of Santa Monica Police Officer

By Jorge Casuso

May 11, 2018 -- An ex-convict who seriously wounded a Santa Monica police officer and attempted to shoot two others during a DUI stop in 2010 was found guilty Thusday of three counts of attempted murder.

The jury, which deliberated for about two hours, also found Dante Glenn Leverette, 40, guilty of three counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm on a police officer and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.

Leverette was free on bail in a pending case when he shot at the officers in the early moring hours of May 18, 2010 during a DUI stop at the intersection of Lincoln Boulevard and Bay Street.

Leverette, who was a passenger in the vehicle that was pulled over, jumped out and shot at the officers, who were administering a sobriety test on the driver.

The officers returned fire, and the suspect fled, police said.
A perimeter of the area was set up, and SMPD’s S.W.A.T. Team and K-9 officers were called in to assist with the search.

Officers from the City of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Inglewood, El Segundo, Gardena and California Highway Patrol also responded.

After a three-hour search, Leverette was located in an alley adjacent to where the initial traffic stop occurred.

He confronted the officers and was shot multiple times, SMPD officials said. Leverette was taken to a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries from the K-9 contact and gunshot wounds.

On Thursday, the 11-man, one-woman jury found that the attempted murders were "willful, deliberate and premeditated," according to media reports.

Leverette's defense attorney argued that the injured officer may have been hit by friendly fire, according to reports.

“What we have here is we have a police officer who it appears was shot by one of his own men,” attorney Edmont Barrett said in his closing argument.