Woman shot by North Little Rock police pleads guilty to aggravated assault

A former North Little Rock woman shot by police after pointing a gun at them pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated assault on Monday for threatening the officers with the weapon.

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Cierra Polizzi, 25, was sentenced to five years on probation and fined $1,000 in an agreement to plead guilty to the five charges, each a Class D felony that carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

The arrangement between defense attorney Mark Hampton and deputy prosecutor Lauren Eldridge will allow Polizzi, a Nevada native who now lives in Oregon, to have the case expunged once she completes probation.

Each count represents one of the North Little Rock police officers -- Randy Flippin, Jay Boody, Jon Crowder, Robert Emary and Karl Sorrells -- who had been called to her Schaer Street residence in August 2015 where a distraught Polizzi was suicidal.

Officers arrived to find her outside holding a gun to her chest, which led to a 45-minute standoff while police tried to talk her into putting the weapon down. She was shot when she pointed the gun at police, with the officers then performing life-saving first-aid until paramedics arrived.

She was arrested in December after spending several weeks in the hospital.

According to a police report, Polizzi spoke to investigators about two weeks after the shooting and "admitted to pointing her weapon at the police officers" and "stated that she wanted the police to shoot her." The affidavit states that Polizzi's girlfriend at the time, Jessica England, gave police two suicide notes Polizzi had written.

Officers had responded to a domestic disturbance involving the couple nine days earlier.

Four months before then, according to city records, Polizzi had applied to become a Little Rock police officer but didn't get the job.

A Schaer Street resident recorded the August standoff with a cellphone and posted the video online. Police obtained a copy of the video as evidence.

Metro on 03/15/2017

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