Shooting hoax officer gets 2 years

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LOS ANGELES, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles County judge sentenced a former school police officer to five years in jail Wednesday for staging his own shooting.

Jeffrey Stenroos, 31, was told he would have to serve only two years if he completes 400 hours of community service, paid an undetermined amount of restitution and met other terms of his probation, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Stenroos, a veteran of nearly eight years of the Los Angeles Unified School District police, was convicted in September of planting false evidence, insurance fraud and other crimes for the incident.

A passerby found Stenroos lying on the sidewalk in pain in January near El Camino Real High School in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills. Stenroos said he had been investigating a report of a car burglar when a man shot him in the chest and fled -- his bulletproof vest prevented the bullet from causing serious injury.

Police carried out a manhunt for the alleged shooter, at a cost of more than $350,000. Stenroos admitted lying about the shooter and said he accidentally shot himself inside the school while he was cleaning his gun, the Times reported.