A 31-year-old man was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for ramming a rental car he was driving into the vehicle of a federal law enforcement officer on Oahu.

Gary Griffith of Honolulu was sentenced today to 46 months imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release for driving into a Deputy U.S. Marshal who was operating a work vehicle on Nimitz Highway.

In September 2019, Griffith was driving the rental vehicle in the wrong direction on the highway and stopped facing the deputy’s vehicle. Griffith then made a shooting motion with his hand toward the deputy, crossed the median and began driving in the correct direction.

But Griffith crossed the median again, and the deputy began pursuing him in his vehicle. During the pursuit, Griffith rammed his vehicle into the deputy’s several times and also hit the vehicles of bystanders.

The deputy eventually apprehended Griffith, and officers with the Honolulu Police Department arrested him.

“As the Court observed during the sentencing hearing, the defendant’s crime was ‘egregious.’ The defendant put dozens of lives at risk, including those of the Deputy U.S. Marshal and innocent bystanders in cars and on foot,” said Judith Philips, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii, in a statement. “That no one was seriously hurt or killed was pure luck.”