LOS ANGELES : Man Gets 10 Years for Shooting at MCA Building

An ex-employee who pleaded guilty to firing dozens of shots at the MCA corporate headquarters in Universal City last year was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison.

John Brian Jarvis, 58, pleaded guilty Feb. 9 to seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of firing at an occupied building. In a plea bargain, Superior Court Judge John Reid sentenced Jarvis to a third of the term he could have faced.

Jarvis, occasionally sipping liquor, calmly aimed a high-powered rifle at the MCA World Headquarters building April 20, authorities said. The company had fired him in 1986 from his part-time job as a driver. Jarvis reportedly saw that as the move that ruined his life, and police said he had thought about shooting up the building for years.

He also used the scope-equipped rifle to fire at a Bank of America building next door. The rampage lasted about 10 minutes from a vantage point a few hundred yards west of the high-rises. Two women in the MCA building were hit in the arm by bullet fragments, and six other women were taken to hospitals for treatment of cuts caused by flying glass.