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VERNAL — A judge has dropped a contempt of court citation against an Oregon parolee accused of trying to kill a Utah police officer after the man apologized Thursday for cursing more than once during a court hearing last month.
"I just want to take a second to say, 'My bad. I apologize for that,'" Kiel Kane Kimball told Judge Ed Peterson near the end of a brief hearing where the judge outlined the multiple felony and misdemeanor charges against Kimball in five separate cases.
Kimball, 28, used a profanity more than once during his Oct. 28 initial appearance and swore at Peterson when the judge ordered him to stop, according to court personnel. Peterson found Kimball in contempt, ordered bailiffs to remove him from the courtroom and postponed the hearing.
"It's nothing personal. I was not angry with you," Peterson told a respectful and subdued Kimball on Thursday.
"If you come up and use inappropriate language, everybody else in the room figures, 'Well, (the judge) isn't going to do anything about it, so I can do it, too,' and I'm going to do something every single time."
Kimball is accused of firing at least two shots at Vernal police officer Chris Gardenheir on Sept. 9 after the officer attempted to pull him over for a minor equipment violation. One of the bullets was found lodged in the wall of a nearby apartment, investigators said. No one inside the apartment was injured.
Gardenheir was not wounded and fired seven rounds at Kimball while seeking cover behind his patrol car. Two of his shots hit the driver's door of the pickup, according to a search warrant that was unsealed last week.
Neither Kimball nor his passenger, 23-year-old Savanah Marie Hackford, were hit by gunfire, investigators said. They initially avoided arrest but were taken into custody separately during the two-day manhunt that followed the shooting.
Kimball is charged with attempted murder, possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, obstruction of justice and failure to stop at the command of police. Hackford is charged with failure to stop at the command of police.
Court records show the pair had pending charges in Utah at the time of the Sept. 9 incident. Kimball was also on the "most wanted list" in Malheur County, Oregon, where he is on parole for kidnapping and hindering prosecution convictions.
Since his arrest in September, prosecutors have filed felony charges against Kimball in three other cases — one stemming from drugs police say they found in Kimball's room while searching for him, another for a second police chase that ended with his arrest and a third for alleged assaults on Uintah County corrections officers two days after his arrest.
Prosecutor Mike Drechsel said Thursday that he may soon be filing new charges against Kimball in connection with another incident in the jail.
Kimball is due back in court Nov. 25 for a status hearings in all five of his cases. Hackford is scheduled for a preliminary hearing the same day.
