Father still feels ‘ raw’ pain of son’s death at hands of gangster
Russell pleads guilty to killing Jonathan Barber, conspiring to kill Bacons
The father of a young man gunned down by mistake in a 2008 gangland shooting told reporters Tuesday that “it’s still very painful and raw.”
Michael Barber spoke briefly outside a high- security courtroom where high- ranking United Nations gangster Daniel Russell pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the death of Barber’s son Jonathan on May 9, 2008.
Russell also pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to murder the Bacon brothers between Jan. 1, 2008 and Feb. 17, 2009.
B. C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen reserved his ruling on sentencing until Friday.
Sitting in court through a full day of submission was tough, said Michael Barber, who praised police and prosecutors for their work on the high- profile murder case.
Jonathan Barber, a 23- year- old stereo installer, had just picked up a Porsche Cayenne owned by the Bacons to do some work on the vehicle. Minutes later, it was sprayed with gunfire on Kingsway in Burnaby. He was killed and his teenage girlfriend, following behind in Barber’s vehicle, was wounded.
“He was a powerful man who I miss very much,” Michael Barber said. “We moved here for some peace from back east and this never should have happened.”
Russell addressed the court briefly, but his comments were inaudible to those in the public gallery, including Barber’s parents.
The day began when Russell, now 32, was escorted into courtroom 67 at the Vancouver Law Courts wearing a dress shirt and dark pants.
Gang officers from the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit patrolled the courthouse corridors and sat in on the hearing.
After a new indictment, which was filed against Russell last month, was read out in court, the longtime gangster was asked to enter his pleas on the two charges. He stood and repeated “guilty” twice.
Immediately after the pleas, Cullen imposed a sweeping publication ban on evidence and submissions by Crown prosecutor Ralph Keefer and Russell’s lawyer Len Doust. The ban is to remain in effect until the completion of five trials in which suspects linked to the UN face a variety of charges.
Russell was first arrested in May 2009 with several other members of the UN gang and charged with conspiring to kill Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon, as well as their Red Scorpion gang associates.
Then in January 2011, police announced that the original defendants, as well as two new accused — Conor D’ Monte and purported hitman Cory Vallee — were also being charged with murder for the shooting death of Barber.
D’Monte and Vallee have never been captured and are believed to have fled the country.
Russell, an original member of the UN gang, is also facing charges south of the border for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. His co- accused in the Washington state case, UN gang founder Clay Roueche, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years.