In the hallway outside the courtroom where he was about to face a judge for sentencing for participating in the riot that gave Vancouver a black eye a year ago, Emmanuel Alviar said he didn’t think he was going to jail.
“The judge used to be a defence lawyer and he knows how Crown blows things up,” said the quiet-spoken 20-year-old from Surrey before telling a reporter he didn’t want to make any comments to the media.
Minutes later, a Vancouver provincial court judge told Alviar, a slight man dressed in black, including suit and tie, he was sending him to jail for one month. It’s the second sentence handed out in the year since the riot.
“This is crazy,” Alviar said before being handcuffed with his hands behind his back and escorted into custody by a sheriff.
The young drywaller who was caught on video a dozen times spanning four hours on June 15, 2011, rocking vehicles and tossing a board through the window of the Telus building on Seymour Avenue, had in court last month expressed remorse for damaging property that night.
That and the fact he had no criminal record, turned himself in and pleaded guilty were all taken into account in deciding sentence, said Judge Reginald Harris.
Harris noted Alviar had no substance abuse or mental health issues and that his parents, with whom he still lives, called him “respectful, caring and kind” and noted he attended church regularly. His decision to plead guilty saved society the cost of a trial, the judge said.
But he also noted that Alviar “lacked some understanding” of how his actions that night hurt society by saying the owner of the car he helped damage shouldn’t have parked downtown and maintained that “everyone knows the police dropped the ball.”
His lawyer, Gary Botting, had requested a year’s probation for his client but Crown had said “real jail time” of four months was necessary to denounce the crime and deter others.
Harris agreed to the jail time “to send a message to others without a criminal record that they can’t engage in acts of civil disorder” without consequences, noting that Vancouver has had two riots following Stanley Cup losses, the first in 1994.
He also sentenced Alviar to 16 months of probation and 150 hours of community work and ordered him to write letters of apology to Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.
Alviar’s mother and brother left court quickly without speaking to media. In the courtroom hallway earlier after Alviar was sentenced, his brother blinked away tears but had no comment.
Botting said outside court his client got “caught up in the riot and the whole atmosphere” and said he was sorry.
“The judge made the point: It’s sending the message to everyone in Vanocuver, people are going to go to jail even if people haven’t had a record,” he said. “He is an example as he is the first person to come through the system without a record.”
There are no plans to appeal.
Botting said Alviar will likely be jailed at the Fraser regional jail, which houses those convicted of crimes punished up to two years in jail.
“The prison authorities are obviously going to make sure he’s protected” from other inmates, he said.
Botting said the jail sentence may deter others still wanted by police from giving themselves up in hopes of avoiding jail.
Crown spokeswoman Samantha Hulme called the judge’s ruling a “just sentence” that fulfils the principles of denunciation and deterrence. She wouldn’t speculate on whether it sets a precedent for other cases to follow because each one is judged separately.
Vancouver defence lawyer Michael Tammen, who declined to comment on the appropriateness of the specific sentence without knowing the case, said, “It’s pretty rare in Canada to see someone sent to prison for a first offence when the offence is non-violent and prosecuted by summary conviction.”
He said a “short, sharp sentence” is used to send a message to others.
Alviar is left with a permanent criminal record that may cause problems for him when he applies for jobs or wants to travel outside of Canada.
His charge was one of 276 charges approved against 104 suspected rioters for crimes committed on the night of the riot, when more than 150,000 people converged on downtown Vancouver to take part in festivities after the Stanley Cup final last year, when the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins in Game 7.
The rioters caused $3.7 million in damage, which included the trashing of 112 businessess and 122 vehicles.
Only one other rioter, Ryan Dickinson, has been sentenced to jail in the year since. Dickinson, who has a criminal record, is serving 17 months in jail — 16 months for participating in a riot and one month for breaching bail conditions from an earlier unrelated violent assault conviction.
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