Man convicted of shooting officer Mike McClaughry sentenced to life without parole

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. -- The man convicted of shooting Mount Vernon police officer Mike McClaughry will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was sentenced Wednesday.

Ernesto Rivas automatically received a life without parole sentence under the three-strikes law. Rivas was found guilty of attempted murder in August for the 2016 shooting that left McClaughry permanently blind.

Prosecutors opened the trial by calling the shooting an unprovoked attack on an officer, and McClaughry said he wants to put the event behind him after Rivas was found guilty.

“I’m done. I want to forget anything about that. And if anybody else wants to remember, that’s fine," McClaughry said after the trial. “We’re inexplicably intertwined in that fashion, I get that, but I’m done."