Dealer Captured In Shootout Gets Almost 20 Years

TACOMA - Although his supporters mailed dozens of letters to the court and pickets throughout the day referred to Brian Eggleston as a victim of the criminal-justice system, the former bartender was sentenced yesterday to nearly 20 years in prison.

The letters described Eggleston as "a tragic victim," Pierce County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee said.

But, McPhee said, the reason the 26-year-old Tacoma man is facing prison can be traced to his decision to become an armed drug dealer.

In April, Eggleston was convicted of assaulting county sheriff's Deputy Warren Dogeagle during an Oct. 16, 1995, drug raid. He also was convicted of possessing drugs with an intent to sell them and of related drug charges. A jury could not reach a decision on a murder charge, although Eggleston faces a retrial later this year.

Deputy John Bananola died during a morning raid at the Eggleston family home in the 900 block of East 52nd Street.

Defense attorneys and Eggleston's friends who addressed the court portrayed him as a gentle man and loyal friend who had always respected the law - and was having difficultly living with the fact that he had taken a police officer's life.

The reasons for the tragedy have their "roots in the commerce of drugs," McPhee told Eggleston as he gave him a maximum sentence for drug dealing and in the high end of possible sentencing for the assault.

In the trial, prosecutors contended that Eggleston was furious at seeing his narcotics business coming to an end and chased Bananola down a hallway, shooting him nine times, three times in the head.

Eggleston's attorney, Monte Hester, argued that Eggleston was groggy with sleep when deputies raided the house and that he instinctively fired at the deputies to protect his home.

It was a theme pickets used when they paraded outside the courthouse earlier in the day, one wearing a black ski mask like those worn by deputies during the raid, and carrying a sign asking, "Does this look like a police officer?"

Eggleston was shot in the chest and groin during the raid.

For the Eggleston family, the verdict was devastating.

"I'm angry," said Linda Eggleston, the defendant's mother. "Brian was railroaded. Pierce County botched the raid, and Brian is asked to pay."

Brian Eggleston's friends have formed a Web site and continue to campaign, maintaining his innocence.

"I will never stop until Brian is free," his mother said.

For the Bananola family, the ordeal continued as well.

Yesterday, dressed in her father's black uniform sweater with a county sheriff's patch, Brooke Bananola, 16, sat in the front row of the courtroom as she did for much of the four months of the trial.

She said she wore the sweater as she walked through the protesters "to make a statement of my own."

She said she was happy about the outcome of the sentencing, but "these charges really have nothing to do with me."

The retrial is another matter.

The first trial consumed so much of Brooke Bananola's life that she never had the chance to feel what it was like to be a sophomore and go to school dances, she said. Now the second trial will begin with her junior year, and she said she's eager for a time when she can remember her dad for how he lived and not how he died.

"I'm not going to say (to Eggleston), `I hope you'll be executed,' " she said. "Whatever the court decides, I can live with."