One of several teens charged in connection with a deadly attack on a 16-year-old boy in 2022 has been handed a three-year sentence.
The teens involved as well as the name of the school near where the attack happened cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act and because of an additional publication ban.
The teen was originally charged with second-degree-murder but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter.
According to an agreed statement of facts, the teen got out of a car and approached the victim.
He was joined by other teens, one carrying a field hockey stick, and started chasing the victim.
The victim pushed him to the ground and kept running.
Two other teens pursued the victim, firing at him with CO2-powered pellet guns.
A bystander heard one of the teens yell, ‘Where your boys now?" at the victim.
The victim was knocked to the ground, where the group caught up to him and were “punching and shooting pellets.”
“(The victim) received a cut on his shoulder and a stab wound in the chest which punctured his heart,” the statement continued.
The victim dropped his backpack and ran towards a transit bus parked on the street.
“(The teen) ran up behind (the victim) and stabbed him in the lower back. The stab wound punctured his kidney,” the statement continued.
An adult in a nearby parking lot yelled at them to stop, then the teens started walking away from the area.
The victim collapsed to the ground as he approached his backpack, got up, but fell again.
“He never rose to his feet again,” the statement read.
The victim was taken to hospital, where he died from his injuries a few days later.
“The stab wound to (the victim’s) kidney caused internal bleeding that accumulated about one litre of blood inside his body. That blood loss added significantly to the blood loss caused by the stab wound to his heart and thus contributed to his death,” the statement said.
In the agreed statement, the teen took responsibility for one of the stab wounds. It did not outline who was responsible for the one to his heart.
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During the sentencing hearing, more than a dozen victim impact statements were read.
“No words can truly capture the depth of our pain,” the victim’s cousin told the court.
“Because of your actions, I live in constant fear,” she said, telling the teen she’s scared of losing someone else she loves.
She also told the court the victim was the “heart and soul” of his family.
“The trauma of losing (the victim) in such a violent manner has shattered us,” she said.
Several of the victim impact statements came from school and community members shaken by the incident.
Through his defence lawyer, the teen expressed remorse.
“Something (the teen) will have to deal with for the rest of his life,” said Christian Manucci.
“While sentiment in the community is he should be locked up and throw away the key, this is not the way with youth criminal justice,” Manucci added.
The Crown prosecutor and defence put forward a joint sentence submission through the Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision Program (IRCS).
During her decision Justice Lynn Angotti said the situation involved many youth and began in the months prior when there were attacks on single members between two groups of teens.
Behaviour she described as “deplorable”.
“It was terrible, the taking of someone’s life,” Angotti said.
She sentenced the teen to three years through the IRCS program, 18 months to be completed in custody, the remainder under supervision.
It’s the longest sentence to be handed down so far.
Two teens were previously sentenced to probation.
In August, another teen was sentenced to eight months jail followed by one year probation.
Three more teens are still before the courts.
