Crown seeks 45 months in jail for man caught with four guns
A man arrested after Vancouver police seized four guns from him during a routine traffic stop should spend 45 months in jail, a prosecutor argued Wednesday.
Last November, Alexander Bell pleaded guilty to four firearms-related counts in connection with an incident in downtown Vancouver on April 5, 2014.
On that date, two police officers pulled over a black Cadillac being driven by Bell at the corner of Thurlow and West Hastings streets.
The cops intended to issue Bell tickets for two driving violations but one of the officers noticed Bell was sweating profusely and had bloodshot eyes. As there was no smell of alcohol coming from him, the officer suspected that he was under the influence of drugs and asked him to get out of the vehicle.
While conducting a safety search, the officers discovered two loaded handguns, likely smuggled in from the United States, Crown counsel Michelle Merry told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather Holmes during sentencing submissions.
When the vehicle was searched, police found a gym bag with a loaded sawed-off shotgun and a rifle as well as more than $32,000 in cash.
“They’re designed to shoot people,” Merry said of the weapons. “They’re not for hunting. That’s not what this is. All of the firearms were concealed. They were all of course improperly stored.”
In a report prepared for the sentencing, Bell claimed that he’d purchased the guns off the street and at the time of the arrest he was transporting them to a different location so he could properly store them.
But Merry said it was “very difficult” to put much weight on those claims because he’d transported the weapons in “possibly the most dangerous manner conceivable. Namely, loaded with rounds in the chamber.”
Terence LaLiberte, Bell’s lawyer, is expected to give his sentencing submissions Friday.