SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) — A Farmerville man was sentenced Wednesday to nearly 200 years in prison for a crime spree committed in Shreveport in August 2020.
Taniel Cole was found guilty of attempted manslaughter, four counts of second-degree kidnapping, and armed robbery in an incident at Oschner LSU Health St. Mary Medical Center. He was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor each in three second-degree kidnapping convictions. He will face 40 years for the fourth kidnapping conviction, 75 years for the armed robbery conviction, and 10 for attempted manslaughter.
Another five were added to the robbery charges for using a firearm without probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. Cole must serve at least two years without parole, probation, or suspension of sentence for each second-degree kidnapping sentence. He is sentenced in total to 190 years in prison, with a minimum of 83 years.
Cole’s charges stem from a chain of events that started on Aug 11, 2020, when his girlfriend’s daughter was in the Oschner LSU Health St. Mary Medical Center. He became jealous when she wanted to see her biological father and returned later to the hospital with a gun. He told the nurses to take him to the room at gunpoint, then told them to get on the ground as he argued with his girlfriend.
A person nearby overheard them and went to alert a supervisor. When the supervisor arrived, Cole pointed his gun at her, and she ran to alert security. He fired two shots at her and shot a person in a nearby room that tried to intervene in the leg. After running from the hospital, he forced a woman in the parking lot to drive him to Farmerville and robbed her. Cole then stole a vehicle from a Monroe car lot before being captured in Mississippi five days later.
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