It wasn’t until the cab driver heard what sounded like balloons popping that he thought anything was out of the ordinary.
What unfolded then, on the morning of May 14, 2022 on the Squamish Nation’s X̱wemelch’stn (Capilano 5 Reserve), was more like the scene from a movie, according to events described Tuesday in Vancouver Provincial Court. That included one person being shot and a getaway by suspects in a taxi, who then fired more bullets at a bystander from the fleeing car.
On Tuesday, Harry William Nahanee, 41, was sentenced to time served in jail since his arrest plus three days – for a sentence of just under three-years – as well as one-year probation for his role of discharging a firearm towards a person.
A judge also sentenced Nahanee to an 18-month conditional sentence for a separate drug trafficking offence.
In court Tuesday, Judge Patrick Doherty described the what took place on the day of the shooting, starting with an exchange of texts between Nahanee and his father, which outlined threats made to the father by another man.
Nahanee then got together with two people he knew, who are co-accused in the case.
At around 7 a.m. that morning, the group of three arrived on X̱wemelch’stn (Capilano 5 Reserve), which is on Squamish Nation land near West Vancouver. The cab pulled up in front of the residence of the man who threatened Nahanee’s father, the judge said.
After the cab driver heard sounds like balloons popping coming from the home, the dispute continued outside, where one of the other two co-accused shot the man who threatened Nahanee’s father in the abdomen, and Nahanee pepper sprayed that man, Doherty said.
The trio then made their way back to the waiting cab, the court heard. Meanwhile, a neighbour had witnessed some of the events, became angry and began throwing rocks at the co-accused, some of which hit the cab. With the gun, Nahanee shot in the direction of that man, with one bullet hitting the house where the incident had started.
No one was hit by Nahanee’s gunshots, and the man shot in the abdomen later recovered, the judge told the court.
While fleeing the scene toward downtown Vancouver, the cab driver told a friend what was happening over the phone in Punjabi, and police were called. The driver later said in court that he never felt threatened, and that the passengers even offered to pay him more for his trouble, which he refused.
Minutes later, police arrested the trio without incident, the court heard.
At the same hearing, the judge also described a separate incident on Jan. 11, 2021, where police witnessed Nahanee make three hand-to-hand transactions. Police then searched Nahanee, finding meth, rock cocaine, fentanyl, carfentanyl and $910 cash.
Accused suffered 'extremely sad and chaotic childhood'
Before Doherty gave his reasons for judgment, Nahanee addressed the court directly.
“I just wanted to say that I apologize for my behaviour, with discharging a firearm in the community,” he said. “It was dangerous, reckless, I scared a lot of people, and I do apologize for that.”
Nahanee said he agreed with conditions suggested by the Crown that he should stay away from the Capilano Reserve. The accused also apologized for the drug trafficking offences, acknowledging that his own brother has suffered from fentanyl addiction.
Crown counsel Jason Krupa argued that Nahanee should serve a sentence on the higher end of a suggested range between three and four years. Acknowledging how much time the accused had already spent in custody, the judge questioned if there was any practical good to having Nahanee serve time for another few months.
“He, with his [support] worker, have come up with a release plan that is strict with little flexibility, that basically forces him to remain drug free and crime free,” Doherty said. “And if he steps out of line, he knows he will be brought back and serve his time in the jail.”
If given a longer sentence, Nahanee might lose his scheduled spot at a recovery centre, the judge added.
Among aggravating factors in the case, Doherty listed the use of a firearm in a residential community, which comes with a high risk of someone being shot, as well as the accused's long criminal record.
Mitigating factors mentioned by the judge included Nahanee’s guilty pleas for both offences, and his Indigenous background. Doherty also acknowledged the accused’s “extremely sad and chaotic childhood,” which involved substance use in his immediate family, and residing at 25 different addresses in foster care.
One of those was a facility run by the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Doherty said, where one aspect of discipline was “to lock the children in a dark room for hours.”
“This was extremely traumatic for Mr. Nahanee and the other children in the place, and as a result there’s a class action lawsuit against the Ministry for such treatment,” he said.
