Woman found not guilty after teen dragged by car
Encounter at Armour Hill caused woman to fear for her safety, judge rules
Brittany Zeus has been found not guilty of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
Judge Stuart Konyer dismissed the charge on May 15, after hearing evidence over a four-day trial in Peterborough provincial court.
In July of 2016, Zeus was involved in a dispute with a group of others on Armour Hill. In her attempts to flee from the situation, a 17-year-old was hit by a vehicle and dragged across the parking lot. The teen was taken to a Toronto hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Defence lawyer Dave McFadden argued his client acted in self-defence, and the judge agreed.
“Ms. Zeus subjectively believed that a threat of force was implicit in the circumstances that existed when she was surrounded on July 16 by Mr. (Mason) Mullen and his group of friends,” Konyer said in his ruling.
He added Zeus played no role in provoking the situation of hostility and would have been unable to defend herself had violence erupted in the parking lot at the Armour Hill lookout on July 16, 2016.
“Ms. Zeus was alone, and surrounded by a group of 12 hostile young men and women. The inescapable conclusion is that she had been lured there to be confronted for supposedly spreading false rumours.”
In his decision, Konyer explained the only reasonable choice available to her to protect herself from that very real threat was to leave.
“The Crown has not proven that the means she employed to make her escape was unreasonable,” he added.
According to Konyer’s ruling, the events of July 16 began with another incident at the Armour Hill lookout two nights earlier. Justice Konyer heard evidence that Zeus and two friends were there to play Pokemon Go, a game played in outdoor locations with smartphones, when several people driving large, loud pickup trucks in an aggressive manner arrived.
The Pokemon players yelled at the other group, complaining about the noise and pollution. Things escalated to where a push occurred, although there’s conflicting stories of who pushed whom.
Zeus testified in her own defence at the trial, saying a number of the people in the group shouted derogatory comments about her sexual orientation. She further told the court that she and her friends left in her vehicle despite arriving in two. The confrontation had caused one friend to have an anxiety attack.
When they returned to get the car later that night, they found Zeus's friend's car had been broken into and a phone charger stolen. Rumours started to circulate that Mason Mullen was allegedly responsible for the theft.
Jamie Lynn MacLeod, a friend of both parities who had recently been involved in a brief relationship with Zeus, texted Zeus on the afternoon of July 16 to ask Zeus to meet her at Armour Hill to discuss the earlier incident.
According to the evidence, Zeus came alone, but MacLeod had two friends with her. A video recorded by MacLeod captured some of the events that unfolded over the next seven minutes.
Immediately after their arrival, Megan Armstrong got out of a car and engaged in a verbal confrontation with Zeus.
“Although not everything can be heard on the cellphone recording, her tone was loud and angry and it is clear that she was upset with Ms. Zeus over the apparently false allegations being made about her friends,” Konyer said in his ruling.
Zeus quickly turned toward her car and walked away from Armstrong.
However, before she reached her vehicle, two cars and two pickup trucks pulled up and stopped in quick succession. They parked in an arc between the Armstrong and Zeus vehicles, facing toward the same edge of the parking lot.
By the time all of the vehicles were parked, a total of 12 people were part of the group involved in the confrontation with Zeus.
“Once all of the vehicles pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the lookout, people quickly spilled out, and the scene immediately became loud and chaotic," Konyer writes.
"Although not everything can be seen or heard on the video, it clearly shows groups of people taking turns engaging in verbal confrontations with Ms. Zeus.”
Zeus testified she was terrified by the time she got back to her car. She agreed that she took some aggressive actions toward members of the group.
For example, after Mullen and other men confronted her near her vehicle, she yelled at them, raised a fist and attempted to “chest bump” Mullen. Zeus also admitted she told people she was leaving and told them to get out of her way or she would run them over. “I find that the words she uttered prior to getting in her car were an effort on her part to convince the people surrounding her to let her leave in peace,” Konyer said.
According to Konyer’s findings of fact, Mullen stood directly in front of her car. Tyler Wood lay down near the front of her car.
Joel Telford, another member of the group, threw something at her car, and then stood in front of her car and “mooned” her.
Konyer added that the video shows Zeus accelerate at a moderate pace after starting her car, allowing Mullen, like the others, time to easily step out of her path once she began moving.
“From my view, the video is consistent with Ms. Zeus’ claim that Mr. Mullen deliberately hopped onto the hood of her car once she began moving. It certainly does not show that Mr. Mullen was struck forcefully and flung onto the hood,” Konyer ruled.
After he is on the hood, the video shows two other men running toward and kicking at the car, which speeds up and moves out of the camera’s view.
The video does not show how Mullen became dislodged from the hood or how he came to be underneath the car. It is apparent, however, that these events happened quickly, in a matter of seconds, added Konyer.
According to the responding officer’s evidence, he observed red fabric along a set of tire tracks in the parking lot. These stretched for a distance of 35 feet (10.7 metres) along the tire tracks. Mullen was wearing a red hoodie, which was shredded as he was dragged along the pavement by Zeus’s car.
“That she panicked as a result is understandable. That Mr. Mullen suffered serious injuries is truly regrettable,” Konyer said.
“But neither of those things mean that her response to the threat he and others posed was unreasonable.”