Rioter hit with 17-month sentence

VANCOUVER — The f i rst Stanley Cup rioter to be sentenced will spend a little over a year in jail, a judge decided Thursday.

The s entence f or Ryan Dickinson c o mes e i g ht months after the Coquitlam, B. C., man was captured on video throwing a newspaper box into an unmarked police car and later tossing a mannequin leg into a destroyed storefront.

Last month, he pleaded guilty to charges of participating in a riot, and breach of recognizance, stemming from breaking a court- ordered curfew from an earlier nonrelated charge.

Dickinson was sentenced to 17 months, minus 3.5 months for time already served.

Dickinson — who was 20 at t he t i me of t he June 15 riot and has been in custody since early December — has become a poster boy of sorts in the riot investigation. His sentence i s expected to set the tone for future sentences. On Tuesday, the judge was t old in a pre- s entencing report how Dickinson helped destroy two police cars parked on the street. The court also heard how he then shared his exploits the following morning with a friend on Facebook.

The Crown urged the judge to consider t he cont e x t , noting i ndividual actions such as Dickinson’s helped influence the larger outcome of the riot.