{"id":202983,"date":"2026-05-26T23:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/202983\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T23:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:35:11","slug":"man-banned-from-owning-gun-after-killing-of-reading-police-officer-convicted-on-firearm-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/202983\/","title":{"rendered":"Man banned from owning gun after killing of Reading police officer convicted on firearm count"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Reading man previously convicted in the 2004 killing of a Reading police officer has been convicted of illegally possession a gun and other crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Following a three-day trial last week, Andrew Smith, 46, was found guilty by a Berks County Court jury of illegally possessing a firearm, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, receiving stolen property and conspiracy.<\/p>\n<p>Further details were unavailable.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, who was returned to Berks County Jail in lieu of $20,000 bail, is to be sentenced in June.<\/p>\n<p>Smith is prohibited from possessing a firearm due to prior convictions, including a manslaughter conviction for the death of Reading Police Officer Michael Wise II.<\/p>\n<p>Wise, 32, of Myerstown was working undercover when he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingeagle.com\/2014\/05\/30\/from-the-archive-reading-policeman-killed-in-the-line-of-duty-6204\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shot once in the back of his head<\/a> during a gunfight on June 5, 2004. His death was the first time an on-duty city policeman was slain in more than 30 years.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, 24 years old at the time of Wise\u2019s death, was found to have initiated the gunfight that claimed the officer\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>He was acquitted of murder but convicted of involuntary manslaughter in late 2005 and sentenced in early 2006 to 13 1\/2 to 23 years in state prison.<\/p>\n<p>Smith was released on state parole in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Reading man previously convicted in the 2004 killing of a Reading police officer has been convicted of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-202983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}