Gunman in Ten X club shooting gets seven-year prison sentence
Video of the Ten X nightclub shooting showed a “very disturbing” crime a judge said Thursday, in handing gunman Mohamed Salad a seven-year penitentiary term.
Provincial court Judge Bob Wilkins accepted a joint sentencing recommendation by Crown and defence lawyers, saying the punishment fit the crime.
Salad, 30, pleaded guilty earlier this month to two charges of recklessly discharging a restricted firearm into the crowded bar during the early morning hours of Jan. 10.
Salad fired three shots into the club from the entrance, seriously injuring one patron and grazing a second man.
During a subsequent struggle with bouncer Ziad Chehade, a fourth bullet discharged, passing through the man’s jacket pocket and striking his key fob, which prevented him being injured.
Wilkins, who was shown two different surveillance videos of the shooting, including one in which Salad fired through the glass door, narrowly missing a woman standing right inside, said it was surprising the carnage wasn’t greater.
“It’s very fortunate that more people were not injured, it’s very fortunate no one was killed,” Wilkins said.
“There’s no place in this city for people to be running around and discharging firearms randomly.”
Crown prosecutor Carla MacPhail said the two videos, one showing Salad as a passenger in a Ford Fusion that pulled up to the bar before he got out, showed “the dangerousness of the conduct.”
Defence lawyer Hersh Wolch said Salad, a Somali native who immigrated to Canada as a child with his family to escape his war-torn home, was extremely remorseful.
“He has taken responsibility,” Wolch said, noting the guilty pleas.
“On the night in question he took MDMA,” Wolch said, explaining his client has no idea why he shot up the club. “The offence is unexplained, he had no grudge against anybody,” the lawyer said.
“It disturbs him a great deal, he is very remorseful and very disturbed (by his conduct).”
Wolch added Salad was a productive citizen beforehand, whose only blemish was a conditional discharge for possession of a controlled substance.
“He had virtually everything going for him,” he said.
The lawyer said Salad actually overdosed on the MDMA he consumed. “He can’t recall why he took so much drugs,” Wolch said.
Before sentencing, MacPhail read a victim impact statement from patron Kenneth Duru, who was badly injured in the shooting.
Duru described “bitterness, anger, frustration and sadness” over the wound which still causes pain.
“I frequently have intense nightmares,” he said in his statement.
“I just feel like I’m not safe anymore.”
A second suspect, Mohamed Elmi, had charges against him stayed the day Salad pleaded guilty.
MacPhail told Wilkins an unknown man was driving the Fusion at the time of the shooting and Elmi was in the rear passenger seat.
With credit for pre-trial custody, Salad will have to serve another 70 months, Wilkins said. He’s prohibited from possessing firearms and banned from having contact with witnesses and Elmi.