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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ramon Antonio Vargas

US man named Loony Toon sentenced to 20 years for shooting at police officers

stock image of police officer conducting traffic stop at night
Loony Toon must pay restitution to Milwaukie’s municipal government for damaging a police cruiser and the owner of a car that he struck. Photograph: Michael Matthews/Police Images/Alamy

A man with the unusual name Loony Toon and a lengthy rap sheet has been given 20 years in prison after admitting that he shot at police officers in Oregon, according to authorities.

The 43-year-old whose name calls to mind the classic television cartoon franchise Looney Tunes – as well as a colloquial term some invoke when describing an eccentric or irrational person – fired a gun at three officers while speeding away from a 20 June 2025 traffic stop in the community of Milwaukie, local prosecutors said in a statement on Thursday.

Loony John Franklin Kolb Toon was on probation in connection with a first-degree attempted kidnapping charge at the time, the Clackamas county district attorney’s office said in its statement. He subsequently abandoned his car, ran on to a golf course and eluded authorities until they arrested him about 20 miles (30km) away in the city of Sandy, Oregon, four days later.

Prosecutors thereafter charged Toon with attempted first-degree assault with a firearm, illegal use and possession of a gun, and second-degree escape. He agreed to plead guilty on Thursday to those charges as well as outstanding, unrelated ones in four other counties – purportedly in exchange for a single 20-year prison sentence.

Toon must also pay restitution to both Milwaukie’s municipal government for damaging a police cruiser and the owner of a car that he struck with bullets, the district attorney’s office said.

Some Milwaukie police officers who were involved in that confrontation with Toon attended the hearing at which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced. They declined to make any statements when offered the opportunity, and so did Toon, the office said.

The office noted that Toon’s criminal history includes 25 convictions, including for 16 felonies.

Rebecca Wareham Portlock, the Clackamas deputy district attorney, said in a statement that the latest of those convictions for Toon stemmed from “incredibly dangerous” actions.

Toon that day “showed callous disregard for every single person in his path”, she said.

Milwaukie is a city outside Portland and has a population of about 21,000 people.

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