A man found guilty of intoxication manslaughter in a crash that killed a Dallas police officer in 2021 has been sentenced to three decades in prison.
On Friday, a Dallas County jury found Phillip Mabry guilty of crashing into Dallas Police Officer Mitchell Penton’s car, killing him.
Following victim impact statements Friday night, Judge Amber Givens said she would take the weekend to consider Mabry’s sentence and announced on Monday morning that he would spend the next 30 years behind bars.
On Feb. 13, 2021, Penton was standing near his patrol car directing traffic around a crash along the northbound lanes of North Central Expressway and Walnut Hill Lane when Mabry slammed into the back of the officer’s cruiser.
The police car then hit Penton, knocking him off his feet. Penton was taken to Baylor University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
According to an affidavit obtained by NBC 5 in 2021, a woman riding with Mabry told police she had been drinking with him at a bar. Mabry told police he had “two tequila sunrises and maybe two shots of tequila” before the two left for his home in South Dallas, but told police he didn’t think alcohol played a factor in the crash, the affidavit read.
A tow truck driver who witnessed the crash told police that Mabry “never put on his brakes.”
Our partners at The Dallas Morning News reported prosecutor Andrew James said Mabry had seven and a half drinks in 74 minutes and that his blood alcohol content was 0.139 at the time of one toxicology test. The legal limit in Texas is 0.08.
At the time of his death, Penton was a husband and father of one child with another on the way.
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