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 3 1/2 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 back yards like little stalkers."
In reply, one of the two he had 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 "through-and-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.
