A 29-year-old Baltimore man who was shot in the stomach by a city police officer last year was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Monday for being a felon in possession of a gun, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced.

Marcus Hill was turned in by a corrections officer who passed a "help" note to police in January 2009 inside a 7-Eleven store on the 4400 block of Belair Road. The woman later told police she had been arguing with Hill, who has three prior felony drug convictions, when he grabbed her hand and pressed it against a hard object she identified as a gun.

She asked him to pull into the convenience store and slipped the missive to officers while inside. They followed her to the car and ordered the couple to show their hands. When Hill began fumbling about the floor of the vehicle, an officer shot him once in the stomach, according to the attorney's office. The officer fired a second time but missed. A semi-automatic pistol was recovered from Hill's car.

tricia.bishop@baltsun.com