Attempted murder linked to anger from sexual abuse while at residential school

When Dale Ahpay shot Devon Cyr in the face with a sawed-off shotgun, he was feeling a rage that stemmed from his childhood sexual abuse at an Indian residential school, his lawyer says.

Defence lawyer George Combe said his client’s moral culpability is “exceedingly high” for trying to kill Cyr, who lost his upper lip and nose in the June 22, 2015, shooting behind a house in the 300 block of Avenue R South in Saskatoon.

Ahpay was convicted of attempted murder and 11 weapons offences in December following a trial in October.

Queen’s Bench Justice Richard Danyliuk found Ahpay was chased by three men after flashing his gun at a man he felt had threatened him. Cyr had a gun and fired the first shot, so Ahpay fired back twice, chased him into a yard and fired a third shot “execution-style.”

At a sentencing hearing on Friday, Crown prosecutor Will Collins said Ahpay was in a street gang and carried a concealed, prohibited weapon while walking around a residential area to sell methamphetamine.

Cyr had dropped his rifle as he fled and was crouching, crying and begging for his life, when Ahpay deliberately shot him in the face.

Collins recommended a sentence of 23 years and six months, including 17 years for attempted murder, 42 months consecutive for using a prohibited weapon, three more consecutive years for three firearms offences and seven more terms of 42, 18 and 12 months for firearm offences to be served concurrently.

Collins said Ahpay should be ineligible for parole until half the sentence is served.

Combe recommended his client be sentenced to 15 years, less the 34 months he has served on remand. The first two years were spent in segregation, where Ahpay lived with the “demons” that are his memories of repeated sexual assaults by an adult who worked at the residential school where he started living at age six, Combe said.

Combe referred to the adjudicator’s report from an independent claim assessment process, in which Ahpay recalled feeling abandoned and punished by being forced to live at the school, where children were encouraged to fight among themselves. A male employee was kind to him and would rub his back, giving him the sense that somebody cared for him.

The kindness was grooming for repeated sexual offences that included being forced to perform oral sex and being pinned down by the man, raped and left bleeding, court heard.

“His view of the world changed. His protector had betrayed him and degraded him,” Combe said.

After that, Ahpay shut people out, saw authority figures as enemies, felt unprotected and couldn’t tell right from wrong since the one who was doing those things to him was seen as good, Combe said.

Ahpay began drinking and smoking pot at a young age and joined a gang. As an adult he couldn’t hold a job.

The adjudicator found Ahpay has insomnia, anxiety, fear of being alone, inability to trust, especially authority figures, poor relationships, aggression, alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Combe said Ahpay feels remorse for his crime and is leaving gang life. He has progressed out of the jail’s gang unit to one where he has earned the trust to do a cleaning job.

He wants counselling and addictions treatment. These may seem like small steps, but in Ahpay’s world they’re significant, Combe said.

The judge reserved decision on the sentence.