By CASEY KNAUPP
Tyler Morning Telegraph Staff Writer, 4/29/08

A Tyler man who shot at law enforcement officers during a standoff was sentenced Monday to 50 years in prison.

After an 8-year-old child called 911 and reported that James Charles Rowe was physically abusing her mother, deputies converged on the scene and the defendant threatened to take them out with a rifle during a 3 1/2-hour standoff that defense attorneys called an attempted “suicide by cop.”

 

Rowe, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a public servant — shooting at Smith County sheriff deputies Kevin Fite and Bryce Hatton — and was sentenced to 50 years for each charge and a $5,000 fine. He also was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to deadly conduct.