Yessenia Sanchez, 32, is a convicted felon after accepting the plea deal that includes 30 years in prison and 20 years of probation.
A former Miami-Dade Schools Police officer who was caught on camera shooting her ex-boyfriend, a Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office deputy, pleaded guilty under a plea deal that will have her serving decades in prison.
Yessenia Sanchez, 32, is a convicted felon after accepting the plea deal that includes 30 years in prison and 20 years of probation.
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Sanchez had been charged with attempted first-degree murder in the November 2022 shooting of Damian Colon.
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"I think justice is served. I think she got what she deserved. I think she should have gotten more but I’ll take what she got," Colon said Friday.
Authorities said Sanchez, a former Miami-Dade Schools Police officer, had been tracking Colon using an app and found him at his Hialeah home. An argument broke out, and Sanchez allegedly shot him and drove away.
Graphic video from Colon's home provided by the state attorney's office showed the couple talking when Sanchez lifted a gun, pointed it at the victim's face and opened fire. Colon collapsed onto his back, motionless, and Sanchez walked away.
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Colon, a 17-year veteran of the Miami-Dade Police Department, survived the attack but has undergone multiple surgeries and therapies and is in a wheelchair with permanent injuries.
"No one is immune to the terror and horror of domestic violence. Former police officer Yessenia Sanchez’ shooting of her ex-boyfriend, another police officer, sadly proves this point. Her violent act displayed the sheer explosion of aggression inherent in every incident of domestic violence," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. "Sanchez’ 30-year sentence cannot restore the physical damage she did while trying to kill the man she once claimed to have loved. Sadly, those scars will last forever."
Colon has since left the department.
"They ended my career. I wouldn’t have ended my career, but she ended my career and she knows that very well. My career wasn’t going to be ending," he said. "Thank God for my family, for everyone who has been there for me. It’s been tough. But without them I probably wouldn’t have gotten through this."
The victim's family said the plea deal gives them some justice but said they believe Sanchez will never truly understand the pain she caused.
"I don’t think justice will ever be served but at some point you have to close a chapter and this is the way it’s going to close. She’s going to go to prison for at least 30 years. And that’s at least 30 years she won’t be hurting anyone on the outside," brother David Colon said.
Sanchez had resigned from her job as an officer in 2021 rather than be fired following her arrest on domestic violence charges in a separate case.
