Accused claims self-defence
Violence was common in their relationship, and a man who shot his roommate two years ago in Penticton claimed afterwards the wounding was purely in self-defence.
“I never went there with a chip on my shoulder to shoot my roommate. That’s 100 per cent not what happened,” Matthew Cameron told police on July 14, 2015, a day after the shooting.
A video recording of his statement was played Thursday in B.C. Supreme Court for the jury deciding the case against Cameron, who’s charged with aggravated assault and using a firearm to commit an indictable offence.
He blasted Kyle Miller in the leg with a shotgun following a dispute between the men, both of whom were 31 at the time and lived in a small rental house on Lindsay Road, just south of the boundary between Penticton and Naramata.
Cameron told RCMP Cpl. Darren Durnin tensions began simmering in the hours before the shooting, when Miller, who was drunk, slapped him several times while the two were driving back to Penticton from Peachland. Such physical violence apparently wasn’t unusual.
“I’ve come close to kicking him out multiple times for this. He gets drunk and he gets a bit angry and violent – and stupid,” Cameron said in his statement.
“He’s gotten drunk and stupid, tried to slap me around or something and I’ve just left.”
Cameron did indeed leave the night of the shooting, abandoning the truck with Miller in it in downtown Penticton and getting a ride home from his mom.
Once back at Lindsay Road, where Miller had already returned by cab, Cameron said, he made a beeline to his bedroom to grab money, keys and his dog, then turned to leave.
“I walked back out the door and he come on me with the gun, and I started to f-----g wrestle with him. I fell backwards and I pulled the trigger as I fell,” Cameron recalled.
He said he then hustled away from the scene with his mom, because “I didn’t want (Miller) to pick the gun up and come after me.”
Near the beginning of the statement, Cameron asked about Miller’s condition, and then seemed blindsided when told he was being investigated for attempted murder.
“Attempted murder? If I was attempting to murder him, don’t you think I would have shot him somewhere other than the leg?” he said.
Cameron’s two-hour statement to Durnin was interrupted by RCMP Const. Andrew Grant, who burst into the interview room at the Penticton detachment and accused Cameron of lying.
“You got the gun and you came back. You loaded it in front of him and you shot him with it.
“And then you left with it. No matter what you say, that’s what happened,” said Grant, who had been responsible for monitoring the statement.
“You’re lying and you can’t get out of it. Stop talking.”
Grant later suggested Cameron’s mother might be arrested, too.
In response, Cameron asked for a lawyer and ended the interview.
Cameron’s statement to police contradicted testimony earlier at the trial from Miller and a third man, Oliver Bell, who was present in the home during the shooting.
They both testified that Cameron emerged from his bedroom with the shotgun and fired upon Miller.
The trial continues today and next week in front of Justice Gary Weatherill.