NORRISTOWN >> A Berks County man was sentenced to a lengthy term in state prison for a 2014 shooting in Norristown.
Franklin Lamar Butler, 33, of the 200 block of Arlington Street, Reading, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court by Judge Thomas P. Rogers to 15 to 30 years, with credit for about two years of time already served, according to court documents.
Butler was convicted in June of charges of aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure, persons not to possess firearms and receiving stolen property in connection to an incident on the 600 block of West Lafayette Street Nov. 3, 2014, according to the criminal complaint.
Residents of a home on that block reported that Butler had come to the house at about 8:30 p.m. to talk with his ex-girlfriend, and fired a gun into the side window of the home. Butler fled after firing the shots, the complaint said.
One resident told police that an 8-year-old child was watching television inside the house, within a few feet of where the bullets struck, the complaint said. No one was injured, but the complaint states that five people, including the child, were inside the home and “placed in danger of serious injury or death.”
Shortly before midnight, Norristown police responded to a report of a man sleeping on a patio on the 1200 block of Arch Street. According to the complaint, when police arrived, they found Butler, who seemed to be intoxicated. He had a Springfield Armory XDS-9 handgun in his waistband, which had been reported stolen out of Lansdale.
Butler was taken into custody and admitted to police in a statement that the gun was stolen and that he had intentionally fired it through the window of a home, police said.
The judge ordered that Butler attend anger management training, according to court documents, and that he receive care in a dual diagnosis intensive treatment program.
