Tyler Pitzl, of Waterloo, was 17 when police say he attacked his parents at the home they shared and shot at two Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies who responded to the Sept. 3 call of a disturbance. One deputy was shot in the hand and forearm. Deputies returned fire, hitting Pitzl in the abdomen and rupturing one of his kidneys.

On Thursday, Pitzl admitted to the assault, attempted assault and a weapons count. Defendants in juvenile court admit or deny charges instead of pleading guilty or not guilty.

Pitzl had initially been charged as an adult with five felonies that could have put him in prison essentially for life, but a judge ruled his case should be heard in juvenile court.

Pitzl will now remain under juvenile court authority until he turns 19 in February.

Court records say 38-year-old Eric Scott entered the pleas Wednesday to charges of escape, assault on an officer, theft and use of a weapon. A second weapons count was dropped.

Officials say Scott was being driven to court in Fremont Sept. 20 by a Dodge County sheriff’s deputy in an unmarked government car when he slipped his handcuffs and used his leg-iron chain to choke the deputy. Scott gained control of the car in Saunders County, forcing out the deputy.

Scott was arrested the next day after he was found walking near the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Officials found the Dodge County deputy’s service weapon on Scott when he was arrested.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A former doctor convicted of killing four people connected to an Omaha medical school will learn his fate in a few weeks: life in prison or the death penalty.

On Tuesday Judge Gary Randall set the sentencing of Anthony Garcia for Sept. 14 in Douglas County District Court in Omaha. A three-judge panel last month heard arguments about the sentence options.

Garcia, of Terre Haute, Indiana, was convicted of fatally stabbing 11-year-old Thomas Hunter, son of Creighton University School of Medicine faculty member William Hunter, and the family’s housekeeper, 57-year-old Shirlee Sherman, in 2008.

Garcia also was found guilty of two other killings in a separate incident five years later, the 2013 Mother’s Day deaths of another Creighton pathology doctor, Roger Brumback, and his wife, Mary, in their Omaha home.

Prosecutors say Garcia blamed Hunter and Brumback for his 2001 firing from Creighton’s pathology residency program.

Douglas County Court records say Donovan Fryer is charged with second-degree murder and two weapons crimes. The records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for him. Police say he was arrested and booked into jail Wednesday.

He’s accused of shooting to death 20-year-old Roderick Moore, whose body was found July 5 outside an apartment building several blocks west of downtown.

Douglas County District Court records say 21-year-old Malcolm Ward was sentenced Tuesday to up to 60 years for killing 29-year-old Brandon Mutum. Ward had pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and two weapons charges after prosecutors lowered the murder charge and one of the weapons counts.

Prosecutors say Mutum had been criticizing Ward for leaving empty beer bottles around the apartment of one of Mutum’s friends, where friends had gathered April 20 last year. Prosecutors say Ward shot Mutum as the argument escalated.

BELLEVUE, Neb. (AP) — A man who confessed that he’d killed his wife in an Omaha suburb will be tried on a charge of first-degree murder.

The judge ruled Monday that 38-year-old Brandon Norton, of Bellevue, will face the upgraded charge for the slaying of 32-year-old Jennifer Norton. Her body was recovered from the Missouri River on June 8.

Norton initially was charged with second-degree murder, but prosecutors say investigators found information that warranted the new charge.

He was arrested after walking into the Sarpy County Jail on June 5 to tell authorities that he had killed his wife the day before and dropped her body from a bridge into the river. He reported that he’d choked her to death after an argument.