Graffiti spree nets community service

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This article was published 30/06/2023 (1038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man who went on a spray-painting spree across Richmond Avenue after he was released from Brandon police custody last year will be doing some community service work.

Terrance Cavanagh, 24, was sentenced to a period of probation and 30 hours of community service work after he pleaded guilty to multiple mischief charges in court on Thursday. He also received time served for assaulting security guards at The Town Centre last year.

While prosecutors asked for a period of probation for the spray-painting, Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta ordered Cavanagh to do community service work in addition to the probation to make amends for the damage he caused to public property.

Crown attorney Melania Cannon presented the following evidence for the charges.

On May 7, 2022, the Brandon Police Service received numerous calls about a man who was spray-painting public property as he moved along a street. Callers to police reported that the man was moving east along Richmond Avenue as he continued to use spray paint. One of the callers was now former BPS chief Wayne Balcaen, who gave police a photo of the man he had watched create graffiti.

Officers recognized the man as Terrance Cavanagh, as he had just been released from BPS custody earlier that day. After receiving a tip that Cavanagh had scaled a fence on the 1400 block of Fifth Street, police found him in the back yard with a can of black spray paint.

By the time he was caught, Cavanagh had spray-painted 11 hydro poles, a bus bench, as well as a wooden fence between Fifth and 18th streets along Richmond Avenue.

A month later, BPS would run into Cavanagh again, this time in The Town Centre after security guards had detained him.

The Town Centre guards told police that Cavanagh, a man they had known to be banned from the mall, assaulted them by pushing them and trying to kick one of them in the face.

The guards said that Cavanagh then ran away, but returned about 45 minutes later and tried to grab the radio off of one of the guards as they attempted to escort him off of Town Centre property.

Cannon said that Cavanagh has two prior convictions from 2021 for property offences as well as a prior conviction for assault that same year. She asked the court to impose a suspended sentence with one year of supervised probation for the Richmond Avenue spray-painting and a 60-day jail sentence for the assault on the security guards.

Cannon emphasized that the sentence for the assault this time needed to be higher than the 30-day sentence Cavanagh received for his past conviction.

“He’s assaulting security officers in the course of their lawful employment trying to keep the peace in a public space,” Cannon said.

Cavanagh’s defence lawyer, Anthony Dawson, said that his client struggles with various mental health issues and has received diagnoses of ADHD and FASD. Dawson said that he has support from Life’s Journey, a non-profit organization that works with people with mental health issues.

Ultimately, Hewitt-Michta endorsed the sentence the lawyers recommended, although she decided to additionally sentence Cavanagh to community service.

“We need to do something to make things right with the community and to give back, and to me that’s the easiest way for us to address that,” the judge said.

Cavanagh, who appeared in court by video from Brandon Correctional Centre, declined to comment.

“You are making a real nuisance of yourself around Brandon. You’ve caused all kinds of damage and all kinds of inconvenience and trouble for a variety of people,” Hewitt-Michta told Cavanagh. “And we’ve been spending way too much time dealing with you in court.”

The judge acknowledged that Cavanagh’s mental health struggles make life harder for him, but told him that it was his responsibility to work with his supports at Life’s Journey.

In addition to the sentence, Cavanagh was also ordered to not return to The Town Centre.

Cavanagh is also co-accused in a matter from last month, when he was allegedly found in a car that was driving through Brandon streets with a loaded shotgun behind the driver’s seat. Those charges are still before the court, and Cavanagh’s matter is scheduled to next appear in Brandon court on July 31.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com

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