Sentencing hearing for Regent Park shooters hears about chilling effect on community

Global News

7 hours ago

It was a tearful and emotional day at the sentencing hearing Tuesday for the two men convicted of the senseless shooting of three childhood friends in Regent Park nearly four years ago, including 27-year-old Thane Murray, a youth worker who died.
Noah Anderson and Junior Jahmal Harvey sat quietly as Murray's mother delivered her victim impact statement, crying as she spoke about the devastating effect the murder of her son has had.
'What did my family do to deserve this? We are good people. We try to get along with everybody. It is hard to talk about my son in past tense. So, I say he was a good kid. He never gives anyone trouble, very respectful, kind, caring and helpful, loving, funny and so much more,' Dawn Murray told court.
Anderson and Harvey were found guilty by a jury in April of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. The jury believed they were two of the four suspects seen walking into a parking lot near Sumach and Oak streets just before 9 p.m. on Sept. 18, 2021, armed with guns and firing 59 shots.
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Assistant Crown attorney Karen Simone told court: 'On April 26, Harvey and Anderson were convicted of the most cold, calculated act. In addition to an automatic life sentence, the Crown is seeking life sentences for the attempted murders of (Murray's friends)'.
One of Murray's friends was shot once in the foot, the other sustained 11 gunshot wounds.
'Their lives have been changed forever. They ran for their lives under sheer, excessive gunfire. Their evil should not go unpunished,' Simone told Superior Court Justice Gillian Roberts.
One of the survivors wrote in his victim impact statement about how, after the shooting, his eyesight went white, and he felt someone holding his hand, which kept him alive.
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'From the waist down I was paralyzed, in a coma for three weeks,' he said. 'I was fed through tubes, had a catheter in my body, and breathing with medical assistance. Once I woke up out of the coma, my arm was in a cast, and I couldn't move for another three weeks. As time went by, nurses would help me physically into a wheelchair, so I could move around the ICU.
'The doctors had to go through two weeks of antibiotic trials to find ones that would work for the infection that happened in my kidney because of the incident.
'The nurses helped me to start to learn to walk again while I was still in the ICU, between the hospital and residential rehab at Bridgepoint I was in residential care for almost 4 months,' he wrote.
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After Bridgepoint, he went home and had to live with an ileostomy bag for one year and in total, had seven surgeries.
The survivor said he also suffered post-traumatic stress disorder in the months after the shooting. He can no longer play basketball nor does he hang out with friends outside anymore.
Rob Perry, who had known Murray since he was a child and worked for the Salvation Army in Regent Park, spoke about the chilling effect of the shooting on the community.
'Thane's death brought me, and a whole neighbourhood, immense sadness and grief. It was also a wake-up call. Sadly, in a community like Regent, I became used to funerals, and saying goodbye to young people I had known their whole lives. What made Thane's loss different was that he really did try to do everything right,' Perry wrote.
'With this loss, we were not grieving unfortunate choices made by someone we love or wondering how we could have done better to rescue him from a path of drugs or violence. Thane was never into those things. He was quiet, he was faithful, he tried to be a good person. I do not elevate him as some kind of hero of the community who campaigned for justice or rescued people from the street.
'But in a way, he was a hero, as he chose the harder path — that is to try to be good, to make positive decisions, to operate with thoughtfulness and kindness, and not to follow the negative stereotypes or paths some of the people he grew up with may have followed.'
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Many of the authors of the victim impact statements spoke about how ironic it was that a man who fought to help youth stay out of trouble was murdered by young men — both Anderson and Harvey were only 20 years old at the time.
'Gun violence isn't new in our community, but this, this was different. Thane wasn't in the streets. He wasn't involved in that life. He worked with youth, giving them guidance and inspiration. To lose someone like him so violently and senselessly felt like a nightmare we couldn't wake up from,' Jahmeeka Hussey told the court.
'It left many of us questioning: What's the point of doing good if this is the outcome? It robbed our youth of hope. Thane was proof that change was possible, and now that light has been stolen,'
Simone and assistant Crown attorney Alexander Merenda told Roberts that there was no motive or reason for the shooting. Simone suggested the lyrics and rap song found on Anderson's cellphone are strong evidence of an animosity towards Regent Park, 'an oppositional area to that of Mr. Harvey and Mr. Anderson.'
The defence argued that a more appropriate sentence for the two attempted murder convictions would be 12 and 15 years. Both Harvey and Anderson will serve an automatic life sentence with a period of parole ineligibility of 25 years for the first-degree murder.
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The sentences for the attempted murder will be served concurrently.
Neither Harvey nor Anderson stood up and addressed court when they were given an opportunity. Roberts will deliver her decision on a sentence for the attempted murder convictions next month.
The Crown alleges the two other suspected shooters are Jabreel Elmi and Rajahden Angus-Campbell. Elmi was arrested in Saskatoon in January, more than three years after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Angus-Campbell remains at large. A trial date has yet to be set for Elmi.