SCREAMS AND TEARS AS FARMER NOT GUILTY OF MURDER.
Anguish in courtroom as verdict delivered
BATTLE FORD, SASK .• In a trial that captivated and polarized the province, Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley has been found not guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Colten Boushie, a young Aboriginal.
As soon as the verdict was delivered at 7:35 p.m. there were tears and screams in the courtroom.
“The system is broken,” someone yelled. “There is no justice.” Boushie’s mother Debbie Baptiste wailed.
Jade Tootoosis, Boushie’s cousin, sobbed in her seat as many other family members cried outside the courtroom.
“Shocking ,” Boushie’s uncle, Alvin Baptiste, said as he walked out of the courtroom.
Boushie, a 22- year- old from Red Pheasant First Nation, was fatally shot on Aug. 9, 2016, on Stanley’s farm near Biggar, Sask. Late that afternoon, Boushie and four friends — Cassidy CrossWhitstone, Belinda Jackson, Eric Meechance and Kiora Wuttunee — got into a grey Ford Escape and drove from Red Pheasant First Nation to a swimming spot by the river. All had been drinking. After the group left the river, they got a flat tire and then drove onto a farm 15 kilometres northeast of Stanley’s farm and attempted to steal a truck by hitting the truck window with a .22- calibre rifle that was in the back of their SUV. They then drove onto Stanley’s farm. One of the group jumped out of the SUV and tried to start Stanley’s quad. Then their SUV collided with a parked vehicle on the property, court heard.
That’ s when Stanley rushed over to the SUV and fired his handgun three times, the jury was told. Boushie, sitting in the driver’s seat, was killed by a single gunshot to the head.
Stanley, 56, testified in his own defence, telling the jury he was filled with terror in the moments before his gun “just went off.”
Stanley said he and his son ran toward the SUV, kicked the tail light and hit the windshield with a hammer. He said he grabbed a handgun, normally used to scare off wildlife, when the SUV didn’t leave the yard, and fired two or three shots into the air.
“I thought I’m going to make some noise and hopefully they’re going to run out of the yard,” he told court. “I just raised the gun in the air and fired straight up.”
Stanley said he popped out the cartridge “to make sure it was disarmed.”
“As far as I was concerned, it was empty and I had fired my last shot.”
He testified he went up to the SUV because he thought it had run over his wife and he tried to reach for the keys in the ignition.
“I was reaching in and across the steering wheel to turn the key off and — boom — this thing just went off,” Stanley testified.
Stanley said he never intended to hurt anyone.
“I just wanted them to leave,” Stanley said. “I couldn’t believe what just happened and everything seemed to just go silent. I just backed away.”
Forensic investigation determined Boushie was shot with a Tokarev semiautomatic pistol that was found in Stanley’s home.
The judge told jurors that when Stanley grabbed his pistol and fired two warning shots into the air Stanley was acting lawfully. He told the jurors it would be up to them to decide if Stanley’s actions beyond that continued to be lawful.
In his closing address, defence lawyer Scott Spencer likened it to a home invasion
“In this circumstance, the question is: If you were in Gerry’s boots, would you reasonably be expected to do anything significantly different?”
There were three possible verdicts: guilty of seconddegree murder, guilty of manslaughter or not guilty.
The jury began deliberating around 4 p.m. Thursday and announced shortly before 7 p. m. Friday they had reached a verdict. The seven women and five men on the jury spent Friday morning relistening to testimony from Stanley and his son Sheldon Stanley.
Before the verdict there were calls for calm.
“This case has cracked open the racial undercurrent in Saskatchewan with the potential to further drive a wedge of mistrust between communities,” Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Mark Arcand and Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark said in a joint statement.
“We cannot build our future with hateful dialogue and divisiveness.”
But the case opened with controversy when several Indigenous people were rejected by the defence during jury selection with “peremptory challenges.”
“Peremptory challenges just are really asking lawyers to rely on their stereotypes about the person they see,” said Jonathan Rudin with Aboriginal Legal Services in Toronto. “The message that it sends is just awful ... In this case, that Indigenous people cannot be trusted to serve as a juror.”
In the hours before the jury began its deliberations, RCMP issued a statement “reminding all people and parties to conduct themselves in a peaceful and civil manner regardless of the outcome.”