Jacqueline Reckling wore a black wedding band around her neck as she listened to the sentence handed down to the man who killed her husband, Oakland County Deputy Bradley Reckling, on Friday, Aug. 22:
Raymone Debose of Clinton Township was sentenced to 33-60 years in prison, per a plea agreement set in July. Authorities say he was the one who fired the fatal rounds at Reckling on a Detroit street on June 22, 2024, while the young deputy was pursuing an auto theft.
But Jacqueline Reckling said the system failed her husband — Debose won’t have to pay for his death for as long as she and their family will.
Jacqueline Reckling, wife of fallen Oakland County Sheriff deputy Bradley Reckling, wipes tears away after delivering her victim impact statement during the sentencing of Raymone Debose in the Wayne County Criminal Justice Center courtroom of Judge Charise Anderson on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025.
First-degree murder of a police officer is punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole. But under a Michigan Supreme Court ruling, people 20 or younger cannot receive such a sentence automatically.
“If it was your everything who had been deliberately murdered, what would you consider an appropriate sentence for the person that made that choice?” Jacqueline Reckling asked in Wayne County’s Third Circuit Court as a slide show displayed pictures of her husband and their children.
Bradley Reckling, 30, should have been there for their first daughter’s 6th birthday party, which was supposed to be the day after he was murdered, she said. He should have been by their second daughter’s side as she started preschool two months after he was killed. He should have told their third daughter how proud he was after she used the potty for the first time, three months later.
Bradley Reckling and his family.
And he should have welcomed his first son into the world six months after his death, a son he never had the chance to know he was going to have, Jacqueline Reckling said.
Oakland County Sheriff’s deputies flooded the courtroom during Debose’s sentencing, including Sheriff Michael Bouchard, who has said he prefers Debose behind bars for the rest of his life. Reckling’s loved ones wept — his father, Andrew Reckling, wept hardest. Loved ones for Debose were there, too.
The court had to create an overflow room for people to watch the hearing virtually — that’s how many people showed up.
Those in the courtroom heard victim impact statements from Reckling’s wife, mother, and father. They also heard Debose say the deputy’s death was an accident.
“I didn’t wake up and say, ‘I want to go kill a cop today,'” Debose said. He apologized to Reckling’s family for their pain, and to his own family as well.
“Things didn’t work out how it was supposed to.”
Deputy’s father: ‘I am ruined as a human being’
Reckling’s family described him as a selfless and loving husband, son, father, and brother; someone who was inherently good and built up everyone around him.
Jacqueline Reckling told the story of her husband once donating their own children’s diapers and clothes to a struggling mother he’d encounter on the job. He instilled the values of kindness, service, integrity, and humility in their children, she said.
They had a family of light, and her husband was their beacon — “that is, until the defendant murdered him,” she said.
Tammy Reckling, the deputy’s mother, recalled in court the way she kept begging for a miracle as she walked the hospital halls the night her son was killed. Before he succumbed to his injuries, she described her son’s half-opened eyes she said now haunt her. She wondered how much pain he had been in.
Tammy Reckling, mother of fallen Oakland County Sheriff deputy Bradley Reckling, wears a bracelet in her son’s honor as she reads her victim impact statement during the sentencing of her son’s killer Raymone Debose in the Wayne County Criminal Justice Center courtroom of Judge Charise Anderson on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025.
“I wake up every day with an ache in my chest knowing I will never hear Brad’s voice again. I will never be able to hug him, I will never be able to hear him laugh. There’s a constant emptiness in my heart. Grief follows me everywhere,” Tammy Reckling said.
She’d sell her soul to bring him back, she said.
His father, Andrew Reckling, couldn’t bring himself to read his impact statement. The prosecutor did for him.
“I am ruined as a human being, and I fear I will never be whole again,” Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Penney said on behalf of the weeping father.
Debose mostly looked straight forward, only sometimes glancing at Reckling’s loved ones.
What happened on June 22, 2024
Debose was among three teens charged in what began as an auto-theft ring and culminated in Reckling’s death, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has said.
Reckling was undercover on June 22, 2024, investigating a stolen SUV from Red Oaks Water Park in Oakland County when he pursued the trio in Detroit.
The SUV suddenly stopped around Park Grove and Schoenherr on the city’s northeast side, south of Seven Mile Road and west of Gratiot Avenue. After Reckling pulled up behind it, the trio exited the car, and Debose fired a handgun at Reckling, killing him. He was hit in the head, chest and elsewhere in the torso area.
Debose and the two other men in the car, Karim Moore of Clinton Township, and Marquis Goins of Detroit, fled on foot, police said. They were all 18 at the time.
“Deputy Reckling, who thought he was simply recovering a stolen car, was really pulled into what turned out to be a violent and far-reaching car-theft and carjacking criminal enterprise,” said Worthy in October 2024 after announcing the charges.
At the time of his death, he was a 9-year veteran of the sheriff’s office and a detective who had recently transferred to the department’s auto theft unit.
Debose pleaded guilty to first-degree murder of a police officer and a weapons charge in July. In exchange, authorities agreed on a sentence of 33-60 years in prison for murder, plus an additional two years for the weapons charge. Debose also faced criminal enterprise, carjacking and several weapons charges that were dropped in the agreement.
Third Circuit Judge Charise Anderson said to Debose during his sentencing on Aug. 22: “You are still walking around breathing.”
She advised him to be better, “in each breath that you have left.”
As for the two others charged in the deputy’s death:
Goins was sentenced to 8-30 years for carjacking, 5-20 years for conducting a criminal enterprise and 1-5 years for receiving and concealing a motor vehicle. It will all be served at the same time, but after another sentence Goins received on July 30: two years for possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Moore was sentenced to 3-20 years for conducting a criminal enterprise and 1-5 years for receiving and concealing a motor vehicle, which will be served at the same time after first serving two more years for a felony firearm charge.
Free Press staff writers Darcie Moran, Bill Laytner, and Kylie Martin contributed to this report.
Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at asahouri@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Debose sentenced in killing of Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputy Reckling