Victim of anti-black racism gets suspended sentence for gun charges

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Breadcrumb Links Toronto & GTA Crime

The young black man threw his loaded gun in a schoolyard as he fled from Toronto police, but the judge denied the request for Crown jail

Posted on December 23, 2022 3 mins read

Shaquane Stewart was 19 when he threw his loaded .40 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun with an overcapacity magazine into a North York schoolyard while fleeing cops on Monday, September 24, 2018. Photo by Handout /Toronto Police Article content

On his 19th birthday, Shaquane Stewart fled a Toronto police teardown in a quiet North York neighborhood.

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He ran down the street, jumped a fence and landed in a school yard, where he threw his .40 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun, aiming at the roof of McKee Public School.

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Content of the article

Instead, the gun fell to the ground, where it lay in pieces, its bullets spilling everywhere, until a guard found it the next morning not far from both a play structure and of a primary school entrance door.

There was still a round of ammunition in the gun chamber.

Four years later, after being convicted of four counts of possessing a loaded prohibited firearm with an overloaded magazine, the 23-year-old father of a three-year-old son was back in front of a Toronto court to learn his sentence.

Shaquane Stewart was 19 when he threw his loaded .40 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun with an overcapacity magazine into a North York schoolyard while fleeing cops on Monday, September 24, 2018. Photo by Handout / Toronto Police

The offenses of which Mr. Stewart was convicted are very serious. A loaded handgun in a public place poses a significant and immediate risk to members of the public, Superior Court Judge Jill Copeland said in a ruling issued this week.

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He armed himself with a gun, he was walking through a residential area, he threw his gun in a schoolyard, of all the places, where tragedy could surely have followed.

How long should it take?

Shaquane Stewart was 19 when he threw his loaded .40 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun with an overcapacity magazine into a North York schoolyard while fleeing cops on Monday, September 24, 2018. Photo by Handout / Toronto Police

There is a perception by many that the courts are being too lenient, that as the city reels under waves of violence, the judiciary is more concerned with the criminal and not the community he has just threatened.

This judgment is probably not going to help that perception.

Copeland rejected the Crown’s call to send Stewart to jail for four years as a strong message to deter others who not only pack guns, but throw them in a public place.

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Instead, she said last year’s Morris Court of Appeal decision required her to consider the impact and role of anti-black racism in sentencing: Stewart is a young black Jamaican man with a learning disability, she said, who was a victim of systemic bias in the education system.

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Copeland also found that he was negatively affected by gun violence. He grew up in dangerous subsidized housing where gunshots were a common occurrence and his sister’s partner, who had acted as a father figure, was shot and paralyzed.

Mr. Stewart’s experiences with gun violence do not justify the offenses he committed or lessen their seriousness. Mr. Stewart’s actions put the community at risk, the judge noted.

However, the social context attesting to the impact of systemic anti-Black racism on Mr. Stewart, including enduring systemic bias in the education system and growing up with the experience of gun violence, is a factor that may be taken into account in the assessment of his moral responsibility. for his actions.

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Stewart told the social worker who wrote the enhanced pre-sentence report that he thought it would have been different if he had grown up with a father and wanted to break the cycle with his own son.

I don’t want him growing up in a life like mine. I have to teach him that’s not the lifestyle. I want to make him a good man, probably a basketball player.

He repeated the same thing to the judge.

My goal is to be there for my son, and that’s it, Stewart said.

All of these factors related to his social background as a young black man must be taken into account, Copeland concluded, as well as his good prospects for rehabilitation if he is allowed to remain in the community with the support of his family.

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She sentenced Stewart to a suspended sentence of two years less a day, citing the Morris decision, which found that suspended sentences can alleviate the long-standing problem of over-incarceration of young black men.

Hell will serve half of her sentence under house arrest and the other under curfew, she said, and will be subject to two years probation, 100 hours of community service and a weapons ban.

But were not to worry.

I am satisfied, given all the circumstances, that a suspended sentence would not endanger the community, the judge said.

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