A 17-year-old youth has been sentenced in connection to the Sept.1 shooting incident in the city.
The youth, who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was sentenced to 160 days in open custody and 80 days of community supervision for a total 240 days.
This is in addition to the 72 days of time already served behind bars in closed custody.
In addition, the youth must serve an additional nine months probation, which will include the usual conditions as well as no-contact orders, and is also ordered to not be in communication with known street gang members. The youth must also comply with an order for DNA as well as a firearms prohibition order for three years.
The accused youth entered guilty pleas Nov. 6 to accessory after the fact to aggravated assault, a possession of prohibited weapon charge and a breach charge involving alcohol.
The sentence imposed by Judge Lloyd Deshaye Tuesday covers the accessory charge. The youth was also sentenced to one month open custody plus 15 days supervision for the other two charges, which will run concurrently to the accessory charge.
The Sept. 1 shooting case has also seen two other individuals, Justin Fineday and Valen Nicotine, implicated and charged with aggravated assault, weapons and other counts.
According to the sentencing submissions presented in court, both Fineday and Nicotine exited the vehicle used at the time of the incident and Fineday fired shots at the intended victim. The victim was shot in the chest. The youth had stayed in the suspect vehicle when the incident happened, but was later told to take the sawed-off .22 rifle that was fired and to get rid of it, which he did by hiding it in a bush.
Police recovered the weapon, but it was noted in court this was done without any cooperation from the alleged perpetrators.
In presenting her sentencing submission to court the previous week, Crown prosecutor Jennifer Schmidt had noted the attention and public uproar that the case had provoked.
Judge Deshaye took note of that in imposing sentence, saying the "public is outraged and frightened and justly so."
He said the accused clearly "sought to assist the shooter by trying to hide evidence from the crime." Deshaye also noted the sentence falls into the appropriate range for the offence.
The sentence takes care of matters involving the youth accused, but the case against the two others remains before the courts.
Preliminary hearing dates are set for mid-April for counts against Fineday. The counts against Nicotine, meanwhile, return to provincial court Dec. 23.
