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Leavenworth man sentenced to 17 months in prison for Kmart incident

By Shawn Linenberger - | Sep 8, 2010

A 26-year-old Leavenworth man who carried a concealed handgun into the Leavenworth Kmart and made threatening statements over the store’s intercom has been sentenced to 17 months in prison.

Judge Gunnar Sundby sentenced Oliver Gillom Jr. on the following counts: aggravated assault, criminal threat, fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer and criminal use of a weapon. Each count carried prison time, all to run concurrently. The greatest sentence of 17 months was for aggravated assault.

A release from Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson said Gillom’s attorney, Deb Snider, argued that her client should be placed on probation because of remorse of his remorse for his actions, as well as counseling that he began following the incident. Michael Jones, assistant county attorney, opposed the request for probation.

Jones read from a statement given by one of the witnesses to the incident who reported that “O.J. (Gillom) walked behind the service desk. He paged the store and said ‘Attention Kmart shoppers: anyone who doesn’t want to die today please leave the store now.'”

Gillom pleaded guilty to the four charges on July 21. Information provided to the court at that time indicated that Gillom became angry when the mother of his child came into the store. He left the store, retrieved a loaded handgun and came back into the store. Once back inside, he got on the store’s intercom system and told everyone in the store to leave because he was going to kill someone. He was holding the gun at the time. Gillom later fled the store and led police officers on a chase through Leavenworth. A roadblock was set up to apprehend him.

Gillom was taken into custody after the sentencing hearing.