Jury acquits Scarborough teen, who claimed self-defence in fatal Toronto school shooting. He told the court he carried a gun*n because his neighbourhood was ‘like Iraq’. Meanwhile, a Vaughan man faced charges for firing a warning shot during a home invasion. Same province. Different outcomes.
Toronto Star — A Toronto jury on Friday acquitted a 20-year-old man of second-degree murder, accepting his claim that he fired four shots in self-defence, believing the victim — 18-year-old Jefferson Guerrier — was “lunging” at him with a knife outside a high school in the city’s east end.
The fatal shooting just as classes were ending for the day on Halloween in 2022, drew widespread attention due to the proximity to students, one of whom filmed the incident on their cellphone.
Jurors, who deliberated for about a day before returning to the downtown courtroom Friday afternoon, also found the man not guilty of reckless discharge of a firearm that resulted in his brother being shot.
The man was 17 at the time and was tried under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. His identity is covered under a standard publication ban; he remains in custody and returns to court next week to address a remaining firearms charge.
“We are all very relieved,” defence lawyer, Kristen Dulysh, co-counsel with Jocelyn Heaton, wrote in an email to the Star.
The prosecution and defence agreed that the chain of events leading to the shooting began with an argument between the accused and a younger female student who took offence at the lyrics of a rap song he was listening to.
There was no question Guerrier — who wasn’t a student at the school, near Markham Road and Hwy. 401 — had a knife while the accused, a student, had a firearm. In her closing address earlier this week, Crown attorney Bev Olesko called him “the most dangerous person” at the school that afternoon.
Last month, the then-teen testified he initially thought Guerrier, who was wearing a ski mask, had a gun because he was “speed walking” toward him and his hands were in his pockets. The defence position was that Guerrier and two others came to the school to fight — though Olesko said there was no evidence of that. The victim didn’t know either the accused or the young girl from the initial altercation.
The accused testified he showed Guerrier he had a pistol tucked into his waistband in the hope he would realize “it’s a real gun.”
Instead, Guerrier started “lunging at me,” causing him to grab his pistol and pull the trigger. “I was just trying to protect myself,” he told court.
After firing the first shot, the defendant fell backward and fired three more times, one of the bullets striking his brother. “It was just like an instinctual reaction,” he told the jury. “I thought I was going to die … I just wanted him to stop lunging towards me and swiping the knife.” Three shots hit Guerrier. A projectile also struck the accused’s brother, who had surgery and survived.
The Crown’s position is that Guerrier lunged at the accused in an attempt to disarm him.
“It is Mr. Guerrier who was defending himself,” Olesko said in her closing remarks. “It makes absolutely no sense that Mr. Guerrier attacks … (the accused) with a knife when it is very clear” he had a gun.
“There is simply no contest between a gun and a knife — the person with the gun is always going to come away as the victor.”
Like many murder trials these days, video footage was key evidence. It included a cellphone video that captured the shooting — although both sides offered differing interpretations of what jurors were seeing. (The girl who recorded the video testified she took out her phone to record because she thought there was going to be a regular fight.)
