Daniel Andrew Mills, 41, of Jerome, Idaho, is headed to federal prison for a decade after an armed, high-speed confrontation with law enforcement that brought local agencies to their knees in the dead of night. Mills was sentenced today to 100 months for unlawful possession of firearms and an additional 24 months for violating the terms of his supervised release—time to be served consecutively, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson confirmed.
The standoff, which unfolded at 2:15 a.m. on January 11, 2016, began when a Jerome County Sheriff’s deputy tried to pull Mills over for a broken taillight. Instead of stopping, Mills punched his car past 100 miles per hour through darkened rural roads. The chase ended only after he crashed through a fence and slammed into a parked vehicle. Trapped but defiant, Mills refused to exit the car and repeatedly extended the barrel of a loaded shotgun out the driver’s window, daring officers to move.
For hours, law enforcement surrounded the wreckage in a tense, high-risk standoff. It took a hostage negotiator from the Twin Falls County Sheriff’s Office to finally coax Mills out of the vehicle without further violence. Inside, deputies recovered a loaded 12-gauge shotgun and a .25 caliber pistol—both legally off-limits to Mills, a convicted felon already under federal supervision for a prior gun offense.
Mills’ criminal history is long and violent. He has prior convictions for assault with intent to commit a serious felony, aiding and abetting delivery of a controlled substance, escape, forgery, eluding arrest, and possession of controlled substances. At trial in Boise last October, a jury heard how Mills was already wanted by the U.S. Marshals Service on a federal warrant for violating supervised release when he sparked the confrontation.
Senior U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge didn’t mince words at sentencing. He called Mills a “significant danger to the community,” citing his willingness to brandish a weapon at law enforcement and his decision to lie under oath during trial. That perjury, Lodge said, eliminated any chance of leniency. “This made it impossible to impose a sentence of less than ten years,” he stated from the bench.
The investigation was a joint effort between the Jerome County Sheriff’s Office, Jerome City Police Department, Twin Falls County Sheriff’s Office, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Federal prosecutors emphasized that no amount of negotiation or second chances could excuse the threat Mills posed that night—or the pattern of violence he has maintained for years.
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