Ten years for shooting into house
David Antonison fired ‘Dirty Harry gun’ after dispute about dog on lawn
KITCHENER — A Cambridge man who fired four shots from a “Dirty Harry gun” into a house after a trivial dispute over a dog on a lawn has been sent to prison for a decade.
The homeowners, a retired couple, were inside when David Antonison began shooting from the porch.
“This was a completely over-the-top, unprovoked attack that happened in broad daylight at a time when kids were (heading) off to school,” Justice Patrick Flynn said Tuesday in sentencing Antonison for attempted murder.
On Nov. 2, 2017, around 8:20 a.m., Bruce Coghill, 74, saw Antonison’s dog on his lawn. It was about to urinate or defecate.
Coghill, inside his house on Eagle Street South near Vine Street in Cambridge, tapped on the window and told Antonison, “That’s my lawn — not on my lawn.”
Antonison, 67, who lived a few doors down, responded with: “You’re a (expletive) a—hole. I’m going to (expletive) kill you.”
He walked away but returned with a Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum handgun and a rifle. He fired the handgun four times through the front door and a window, sending glass and pieces of wood flying through the house.
Coghill and his wife, Joyce, 69, both retired elementary school teachers, were inside. No one was hit, but the Coghills suffered “deep and lasting emotional harm,” Flynn said.
Just before the shooting, the Coghills were getting ready to pick up their grandchildren and take them to school.
“I would put it mildly to say that this was a startling event,” the judge said of the shooting. “Mr. Antonison’s egregious behaviour shattered the usual calm of an old residential neighbour
hood.”
Flynn called Antonison’s actions “an explosion of anger” and referred to Antonison’s weapon as a “Dirty Harry gun,” alluding to the 1971 Clint Eastwood movie “Dirty Harry” in which a rogue police officer described his .44 Magnum as “the most powerful handgun in the world.”
Antonison was licensed to own the handgun and rifle.
“There’s a lot in the media and the noise that comes from it about guns,” the judge said. “And oftentimes that concern morphs into dread of unlicensed guns coming over the border.
“But this case shows that that concern about guns isn’t just about unlicensed guns in the hands of hardened criminals. These guns were registered. Mr. Antonison was licensed.”
Antonison has no prior record and no history of violence. He doesn’t usually drink alcohol but did the night before the shooting and mixed it with medications, court was told. After the shooting, he was diagnosed with anger management issues.
“We cannot tolerate people expressing their anger in public places by the use of a deadly handgun, whether it’s legally registered or not,” the judge said. “The licence to store the gun, the licence to take it to a shooting range, whatever you use that licence for, does not include a licence to kill.”
The Coghills and Antonison had lived in the neighbourhood for decades, but Bruce Coghill testified that before the day of the shooting, he had only one interaction with Antonison, when Antonison’s dog was squatting on a boulevard.
“Make sure you pick that up,” Coghill said he told him. “I will,” Coghill said Antonison replied.
The Crown and defence were miles apart on the appropriate sentence for Antonison. Crown prosecutor Aaron McMaster asked for 13 years. Defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme sought five to six years.
The judge sentenced Antonison to 10 and a half years. Antonison has been in jail since the shooting. He got extra credit for pretrial custody, leaving another seven years and two months to serve.
Antonison, heavy-set with a moustache and goatee, showed no reaction as the sentence was handed out.
“I’m genuinely sorry for my actions,” he told the judge before sentencing.
Antonison faces a lifetime weapons ban and must give a DNA sample for the national database.
Antonison fired six shots that morning, although only four hit the house.
When police arrested him at his home, the handgun was fully loaded.
“We don’t know what he was planning to do with it, but the fact that it was reloaded at least suggests that he considered using it for some other purpose after he returned home,” McMaster said.