HOLLIDAYSBURG — An 18-year-old Altoona man received a time-served sentence plus five years’ supervision Friday in connection with his threatening behavior in April at a local motel parking lot where he repeatedly yelled at Logan Township police officers to shoot him.

“He was having a mental health crisis,” Chief Public Defender Russ Mongtomery said Friday on behalf of Maurice Decker-Decort, who entered guilty pleas to three counts of aggravated assault and single counts of retaliation against a victim, escape, theft, harassment, recklessly endangering another person and related offenses.

Decker-Decort apologized in court for his actions, then offered his own explanation.

“I was high and drunk that night,” Decker-Decort told President Judge Elizabeth Doyle.

Mongtomery showed video in court, captured by responding Logan Township police officers in the parking lot of the EconoLodge, to show the distraught Decker-

Decort repeatedly yelling “shoot me” at the officers, then using a knife to stab his ex-girlfriend’s vehicle.

Officer Tyler McClellan told Doyle that when he arrived at the parking lot, he saw four people arguing, including Decker-Decort who had two knives and was angry.

McClellan said he and fellow responding officer Benjamin Shanholtz drew their weapons and repeatedly told Decker-Decort to put the knives down.

In the video, Decker-Decort is seen walking toward a vehicle and stabbing it. Later video shows him in the motel’s stairway where his sister talked with him within earshot of police.

Assistant District Attorney Ian Hausner asked Doyle to consider a sentence addressing the gravity of the situation, that Decker-Decort also used a knife to threaten his ex-girlfriend and that he created a public safety risk.

“It’s commendable what the Logan Township police officers did that day,” Hausner said. “They displayed exceptional judgment by not using their weapons as he approached them with two knives in hand.”

Montgomery and Doyle also praised the responding officers for never firing.

“I think the officers properly recognized that Mr. Decker-Decort was a young person going through a mental health crisis,” the judge said.

In handing down the time-served sentence, Doyle reported that Decker-Decort has been in the county prison for about 10 months, which falls into the mitigated range of the state’s sentencing guidelines for the aggravated assault offense.

Before he can be released, she said he must have arrangements for mental health counseling as well as housing with a responsible adult.

Decker-Decort is also incarcerated, with bail set at $75,000 cash, on intention to riot and related charges filed against him in October by Hollidaysburg Borough police. He was one of eight inmates involved in a jailhouse brawl that injured a corrections officer.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.