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Tuesday, March 19, 2019 | Your urr community community newspaper newspaper ssince inc 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Tiny dancer Nolan Robinson competes during the 2019 Prince George Dance Festival in Vanier Hall on Monday morning. The festival is celebrating its 43rd year in Prince George. Dancers receive feedback from adjudicators and compete for prize money, provincial placements and scholarships. The festival runs until Friday. There are approximately 500 festival participants from across the province competing in ballet, jazz, contemporary, modern, hip hop, song and dance and cultural specific dances.

Shooter sentenced to five years in jail Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

A vigil was held on the steps of city hall on Saturday afternoon in memory of the mass shooting that recently occurred in New Zealand.

Vigil held for massacre victims Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca Nobody is safe from hatred. It can strike anywhere at any time. Nowhere was that more apparent than Friday afternoon in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a 28-year-old man walked into two mosques and opened fire, killing 50 Muslim worshippers and injuring 50 more. “What they said in New Zealand was they felt so safe there, it’s a very peaceful country, so it’s really heartbreaking that’s been shattered now,” said Cathy Jackson, who joined the gathering of about 150 people at a late-afternoon vigil Saturday on the steps of Prince George city hall. Jackson was among several people holding a candle in honour of the victims and she was encouraged by what she saw and heard during the hour-long presentation. “I strongly believe that what we think about, we bring about, and if we think about hate and violence and put all our energy into the perpetrator then that’s what we’re go-

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ing to bring about is more violence and less love,” Jackson said. “We need to focus on the most important thing, which is love. Being together and supporting each other in whatever negative situation that might happen. Being that there are so many different nationalities here today, that made me very happy. One love, one world, it’s the only one we’ve got. ” Like Jackson, Fizza Rashid was pleased with the diversity of the crowd gathered for Saturday’s vigil, and that message of love and understanding helps the healing process. “Seeing so many people of different faiths, different backgrounds, different cultures is really supporting and heartwarming because I feel that it enhances what everyone feels as a community in Prince George,” said Rashid, a UNBC psychology student and co-president of the South Asia Student Association. Rashid spoke of the first victim of the shootings, 71-year-old Daud Nabi, and how he greeted his killer with the words, “hello brother,” as he walked into the Al Noor

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mosque holding a shotgun. Rashid referred to the comments of Australian senator Fraser Anning, who blamed Muslim immigration as the real cause of the bloodshed in New Zealand, and U.S. president Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the rise in white supremacy movements. Neither of them reached out to the Muslim community to provide comfort in the wake of the tragedy and she said their loud words embolden groups that inspire ignorance and race- and religionbased hatred. Rashid is of Pakistani descent and said she first encountered racism when she was three around the time of 9/11 attacks in 2001 when someone walked up to her mother and told them to go back to their country. “There’s always that little seed of fear planted within me,” she said, “especially after things like this and the Quebec shooting a couple years ago. But ever since I’ve been here, it’s been seven years, and everyone has been incredibly kind and supportive and welcoming.” — see ‘STAY STRONG, page 3

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A young Prince George man was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for shooting a man who confronted him and a fellow culprit caught sneaking onto a neighbour’s property. Less credit for time served prior to sentencing, Smitty Ralph Bent, 21, has a further three years and three-and-a-half months to serve for the Sept. 24, 2017 incident. It was just before 11 p.m. when the man who would be the victim was in the back yard of his home on the edge of the VLA neighourhood. He heard noises from his neighbour’s yard and when he looked closer, he saw two young men. When he yelled at them, they took off. But fed up with rampant crime in the area, the man did an “unwise thing,” the court was told, and went after them. The man grabbed his BB gun, got in his car, drove into the VLA and found them in the 2200 block of Oak Street. He got out but left his BB gun in the car and launched into an extended, expletive-filled tirade, in part telling them to “get a life” and accusing them of “creeping around people’s backyards like little stalkers.” In reply, one of the two he had

MP fighting to put Legebokoff back in maximum security Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty is continuing the fight to return convicted serial killer Cody Legebokoff to maximum security prison. The Conservative MP said

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been berating pulled out a can of pepper spray but failed to check the direction of the wind and the spray blew back on him when he pressed the nozzle. The man laughed and said words to the effect of “you’re such an idiot, you can’t even work a can of mace.” By that point he had stopped moving towards the two and wasn’t yelling at them anymore. But Bent pulled out a gun of his own and pulled the trigger, firing off a .22-calibre round. The man suffered a “throughand-through bullet wound” that punctured his right lung and splintered his shoulder blade. He nearly bled to death and ended up hospital for over a week. As of February, when a sentencing hearing was held, the victim still had trouble with his breathing and use of one of his arms, the court was told. However, he declined to provide a formal victim impact statement. Bent and his accomplice ran away but were tracked down by the RCMP and taken into custody shortly after the incident. Bent eventually pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm with intent to wound. The duration of Bent’s sentence was reached via a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels.

Monday he has written a letter to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale outlining his concerns with a decision that will put Legobokoff in a mediumsecurity facility starting in late January. — see LEGEBOKOFF, page 3

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