Man sent to prison for shooting sister

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This article was published 19/11/2020 (1964 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man who shot and killed his little sister while high on methamphetamine was sent to prison for five years on Wednesday morning in a case a judge called “tragic.”

Lawrence Jade Shingoose, 26, was sentenced to a total of five years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal negligence causing death and possession of a firearm while prohibited.

Crown attorney Grant Hughes said the incident started when at approximately 6:30 p.m. on April 11, 2020, police got a report of a woman shot in the head in Waywayseecappo First Nation. When police arrived, they found a 15-year-old in the basement of the residence with a gunshot wound to her head.

She was taken by ambulance to the Russell hospital, where she later died, Hughes said. Police arrested Shingoose at the scene.

In a statement to police, Shingoose’s girlfriend told police she was in the basement when she heard a gunshot. She pulled aside a privacy curtain she was behind while on the phone and saw Shingoose holding a handgun, Hughes said.

Shingoose then left the apartment and his girlfriend saw his little sister lying on the ground bleeding from the head.

Shingoose’s mother told police she was upstairs in the house when Shingoose came to get her, the Crown told the court. He said something about someone being shot, so she followed him and found her daughter on the basement floor bleeding from the head.

Shingoose then left the basement briefly and came back holding a gun. Hughes said she had seen him load the gun earlier in the day and take it outside to shoot it.

Police also got a statement from Shingoose’s brother, who told police he was with his siblings in the basement that afternoon smoking a joint. He saw Shingoose “messing around” with a gun just before going to the bathroom. While in the bathroom, he heard a gunshot and Shingoose go upstairs. Hughes said the man heard Shingoose saying “I shot her,” and “Just shoot me.”

The man saw the gun earlier in the day when Shingoose showed it to him. He described the gun as a .22-calibre single bolt-action handgun with a sawed-off handle, Hughes said.

After his arrest, Shingoose told police he had been in the basement with his siblings and girlfriend passing around a joint. He wanted to show his sister “something cool,” and held the gun over his head, pointing downward.

He told police that after the shooting, he disposed of the gun down the lane from his house, but police were never able to find it. This makes it impossible to know what the gun actually is, but Hughes said it was either a handgun or a heavily modified rifle, which is illegal.

Shingoose had a serious meth addiction at the time, Hughes said, and he was using up to 1.5 grams each day — including the day of the shooting.

“This is particularly concerning. As is often said in this court: drugs and guns don’t mix, and this case clearly demonstrates that this is so,” Hughes said.

“Although Mr. Shingoose may have had no intention to hurt his sister, his negligence is possessing and handling a restricted or prohibited firearm — let alone any firearm — while intoxicated by a drug clearly demonstrated a wanton and reckless disregard for anyone in his vicinity and resulted in a truly tragic death.”

Hughes said Shingoose’s behaviour that day needs to be strongly denounced, recommending a five-year prison sentence for criminal negligence causing death and one year in prison for possession of a weapon contrary to court order.

Defence lawyer Katherine Bueti said Shingoose accepts responsibility for what happened and is extremely remorseful. Shingoose and his brother had taken the gun out earlier in the day to shoot geese, but at that point the gun wasn’t firing. Tragically, it did go off when he was showing it to his sister.

“At the time when he had the gun in the home, he didn’t know there was actually a bullet in the gun. It went off when he was playing around with it and he wanted to show his sister ‘something cool.’ There was certainly no intention to cause harm,” she said.

Bueti said the incident is closer to an accident than murder.

Everything in Shingoose’s life has been affected by addiction, and at the time he was using meth every day, she said. If not for the addiction, the incident may never have happened.

Bueti recommended a four-year sentence for criminal negligence causing death and a one-year concurrent sentence for possessing the firearm. She noted he is worried about his relationship with his family and he wants to seek forgiveness.

Speaking to Judge Donovan Dvorak, Shingoose said he wanted him to know it was an accident.

“These are tragic circumstances, Mr. Shingoose, and ones you’re going to have to live with for the rest of your life,” Dvorak said.

“Understandably you’ve had some difficulty coming to terms with this … the reality is it’s something you’re going to have to live with.”

Guns are too dangerous to be treated like a toy, the judge said, and people who handle them can’t be uncertain whether or not it’s loaded. If he had been sober, Dvorak said the incident may not have happened, but the meth impaired his judgment.

Dvorak sentenced him to a total sentence of five years in prison minus time served — four years for criminal negligence causing death and one year consecutive for possessing the firearm. Shingoose has approximately one year of time already served in jail.

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