The son of a sitting Republican senator was sentenced to 28 years in prison Monday for killing a sheriff’s deputy after a 100mph meth-fueled car chase. Ian Cramer, 43, whose father Kevin Cramer is the two-term Republican junior senator from North Dakota, crashed into Deputy Paul Martin’s cruiser after escaping a hospital where his mother had taken him for mental health treatment and driving 70 miles at high speed across the state on Dec. 6 2023. Cramer, 43, was sentenced to 38 years with 10 years suspended for homicide while fleeing a peace officer, preventing arrest, reckless endangerment, fleeing an officer and drug- and driving-related offenses, the Associated Press reporter. Both his parents said he had damaged his brain through drug use and his mother apologized to the family of the dead deputy. She had taken her son to the hospital for help after he took meth and bath salts. At the hospital he crawled back into her car, crashed through the garage door of the ambulance bay then driven almost 70 miles before police caught up with him. He kept going after spikes burst two of his tires, which we when he crashed into Martin’s car. The deputy had been discussing retirement, the court heard. Cramer apologized to Martin’s family while in court, saying “I had no intention to do any of this. It was an accident, and I just hope that someday they can forgive me, and I think the best thing for me is to go to a hospital and just get more help.” His Republican senator father said that his son “suffers from serious mental disorders which manifest in severe paranoia and hallucinations,” AP reported.
