Surrey man jailed four years for carrying loaded gun into hotel

Drunken party at Vernon inn led to arrest

An Okanagan judge has imposed a four- year sentence on a Lower Mainland man caught with a loaded gun at a hotel in Vernon.

B. C. Provincial Court judge Robin Smith rejected a Charter challenge of the mandatory minimum three- year sentence for such firearms offences in handing the longer term to 23- yearold Jonathan Alexander Brown of Surrey.

Smith said he felt Brown deserved more than three years based on the circumstances of the case, so he didn’t need to weigh in on the constitutionality of the minimum- sentence law.

“Considering the principle of proportionality, the aggravating and mitigating factors, and other general principles of sentencing, I would have found the appropriate sentence for Mr. Brown would have been in the three- years range, even in the absence of the mandatory minimum,” Smith said.

Brown and two friends were partying in their Vernon hotel room on Dec. 7, 2012, sparking repeated complaints from other guests.

The drunken trio attempted to leave the hotel at about 4 a. m. after the police were called. One of them pulled the fire alarm along the way, forcing the evacuation of about 100 guests.

Smith noted that police arrived and asked Brown to stop, but he walked into the crowd of hotel guests “carrying a plastic bag which contained a loaded .40 calibre Smith and Wesson Glock 22 handgun with 11 rounds of ammunition in the clip.

“The bag also contained some used clothing, making the gun difficult to see,” Smith said in his ruling. “The gun was unregistered and had somehow been smuggled in from California. With the assistance of a hotel guest, the officer again located the accused in the crowd and approached to arrest him for mischief.”

The officers didn’t see the gun at first. It fell out during the arrest.

At the time, Brown was on a 10- year firearms prohibition from an earlier youth court sentence.

The accused was not in Vernon as a tourist, to visit family, or for any other innocent purpose.

ROBIN SMITH

PROVINCIAL COURT JUDGE

The three men had $ 27,490 seized from them by police, most of it “rolled up in $ 1,000 amounts,” the ruling said.

“With sentencing submissions, counsel for the accused conceded the accused was not in Vernon as a tourist, to visit family, or for any other innocent purpose. The court was never told the specific purpose for his being in Vernon,” Smith said.

Brown’s lawyer Craig Sicotte suggested a sentence of two to two- and- ahalf years was appropriate, while the Crown argued for between four and five years.

Smith said the aggravating factors warranted the tougher sentence — Brown was drunk, he carried the gun into a crowd and it was loaded and unregistered in Canada.

“He was argumentative and noncooperative with the arresting police officer at the time of arrest when he still possessed the handgun,” Smith said.

Smith also imposed a lifetime firearms ban and ordered a DNA sample to be given.

Mandatory minimum sentences for certain firearms offences came into effect in Canada in 2008, but they have been struck down as unconstitutional by courts in Ontario and B. C.