Machete attack near school nets year in jail

A Brandon man was sentenced to one year in jail after he struck a man with a machete in an incident that caused a nearby school to go into lockdown.

Hoksida Blacksmith, 19, pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon and failing to comply with a release order in Brandon provincial court on Thursday.

Crown attorney Nikki Boggs said that although the victim wasn’t left with serious injuries, since the machete blade must have been dull, it would be a “terrifying” situation for the victim.

“The psychological impact in this case outweighs any type of physical injury,” she said.

On Sept. 10, 2025, a woman called the Brandon Police Service and said her boyfriend had been attacked with a machete near Kirkcaldy Heights School.

She told police the suspect ran away and gave a description of him.

“Given the nature and proximity of Kirkcaldy school, (officers) attend quite rapidly, patrolling the area. At this point, Kirkcaldy school is placed in lockdown,” Boggs said, noting that the altercation happened around the noon hour.

Officers found a man matching the suspect’s description on Paterson Crescent and arrested him. He was later identified as Blacksmith.

Boggs said police didn’t locate the machete.

The woman who called 911 gave a statement to police, saying she and the victim had been driving when a man standing on the street made a rude comment toward her, Boggs said.

She told police she had her passenger seat window down, and the man threw something at the vehicle, prompting her partner to get out of the vehicle and approach the man.

She said the man pulled out a machete and hit the victim with it, Boggs said. The victim turned to run away but lost his balance and fell. The woman said the man hit the victim again with the machete before fleeing, court heard.

“Anytime somebody is arming themselves with this type of weapon and walking down the street, it’s just a matter of luck, from the Crown’s perspective, that there wasn’t a more serious injury,” Boggs said.

The Crown and defence jointly recommended a one-year sentence for assault with a weapon and a concurrent sentence of 15 days for failing to comply with a release order, which Blacksmith breached by possessing the machete.

They recommended the sentence be followed by 18 months of unsupervised probation.

Boggs said she acknowledged the proposed sentence was on the low end of the range for this type of offending, but that it took into consideration that Blacksmith pleaded guilty, despite several triable issues.

She said identification could have been an issue during trial, since the victim didn’t know Blacksmith and police didn’t do a photo lineup to “solidify the identification.” She also noted there were potential charter issues.

Defence lawyer Hayley Allardyce said Blacksmith has struggled with addiction and, at the time of the altercation, was under the influence of alcohol, crack and methamphetamine.

“He’s described to me that that really influenced his paranoia about the situation,” Allardyce said, adding that she wasn’t suggesting he was acting in self-defence.

She said Blacksmith was feeling “really scared” when the victim got out of the vehicle and that he responded in the “worst way possible.”

Blacksmith continues to think about the altercation and feels extremely remorseful, she said.

She said Blacksmith has Gladue factors, including that he didn’t have a strong familial role model to look up to, and he bounced between being in his mother’s care and Child and Family Services until his early teens, when he started moving to foster homes.

Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta imposed the joint recommendation and warned Blacksmith about the risk he is putting himself into by walking around with a machete.

“When you approach somebody and you pull out a machete, you have no idea what that person has in their pocket, in their back seat … what they might pull out and use on you,” she told Blacksmith.

“You risk setting into motion a set of circumstance that you can’t predict … and you could have just as easily ended up very seriously hurt.”

» sanderson@brandonsun.com