MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. - The man responsible for the all-night shooting spree in 2016 along Beeline Highway (SR-87), was sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to the Maricopa County Superior Court.
Judge Greg Como sentenced James David Walker to 30 years in prison for 15 counts of aggravated assault and two counts of armed robbery.
Walker was accused of a shooting spree that spread 18 miles along SR-87 that last from Tuesday to Wednesday morning in May 2016.
Walker shot at and hit a DPS cruiser and two other vehicles, injuring two people.
It's believed Walker began shooting an AR-15 at cars on the highway around 8:30 p.m. on that Tuesday night. One of the two vehicles hit caught fire. One person's head was grazed by a bullet but did not require hospitalization.
Investigators said Walker carjacked a vehicle after the first shootings and drove from the scene, heading north on SR 87. He drove the vehicle into a ditch and opened fire.
Walker ran away and refused orders to surrender. A police dog caught Walker.
The shooting spree closed SR-87 from Gilbert to SR-188 northbound and southbound from SR-188 to Shea Boulevard until late Wednesday morning.
Walker was previously charged with first-degree murder in 1996. He shot two people on Halloween in 1995, when he was 16, after a fight started about the costume he was wearing. He killed one person and the other survived.
He spent 16 years in prison for second-degree murder and aggravated assault and was released in Jan. 2014.
Earlier in 2016, in March, Walker was arrested on suspicion of doing drugs in a parking lot. When Mesa PD tried to detain him, he rammed a police vehicle before he and his wife were arrested.