City man sentenced up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to threatening bar security guard with gun

A city man was sentenced to eight to 20 years in state prison after he pleaded guilty this month to threatening a bar security guard with a gun.

Judge Dennis Reinaker handed down the sentence to Devin Edward Garcia-Rogers, of the 500 block of Ruby Street, on Dec. 1. Garcia-Rogers had pleaded guilty the same day to two felony firearms offenses and misdemeanor charges of simple assault and terroristic threats.

First Assistant District Attorney Travis Anderson, who prosecuted the case, argued that Garcia-Rogers deserved a lengthy prison sentence in part due to not having learned his lesson from a prior conviction for his role in a city shootout in 2015 that seriously wounded an innocent bystander who was struck in the back with gunfire.

Garcia-Rogers is prohibited from possessing a firearm due to that conviction. Garcia-Rogers, 29, waved the gun in the direction of the victim at a bar in the 2300 block of Columbia Avenue in East Hempfield Township during the early morning hours of Nov. 23, 2024.

Security staff inside the bar had removed Garcia-Rodgers earlier in the evening for disrupting other patrons. But Garcia-Rogers mere minutes later shortly after 1:30 a.m., this time armed with a handgun.

In a subsequent confrontation Garcia-Rogers waved the firearm in the direction of the victim, telling him to “go get your boy” – a reference to another member of the bar’s security staff – and “you got your gun and I got mine.”

East Hempfield Township Police Officer Kyle Brown filed the charges.