Nine years for unprovoked fatal stabbing on city bus

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This article was published 07/04/2022 (1290 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man who stabbed and killed a 57-year-old stranger on a city bus in an alcohol-fuelled attack has been sentenced to nine years in prison.

Justin James, 48, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the slaying of Raymond Hill on May 24, 2020.

“This was a violent, unprovoked attack,” provincial court Judge Murray Thompson said Thursday. “This was near murder, but for the accused’s self-induced intoxication.”

Court was told Hill and James got on the bus outside Portage Place mall around 3 p.m. James, who was drinking from a king can of beer, sat down at the front of the bus and Hill took a seat near the back.

Bus security video showed James at the rear exit as the bus approached the University of Winnipeg when, without warning or provocation, James called Hill an “asshole,” pulled out a knife and stabbed Hill in the left side of his abdomen.

Hill stumbled out of the bus and called out to a police cruiser — which happened to be there — before falling to the ground.

James suffered a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a car two years ago “and has been dealing with the effects… ever since,” defence lawyer Crystal Antila told court at a sentencing hearing last month.

Antila said James has made repeated trips to hospital for debilitating headaches, but his complaints were dismissed.

“He wanted actual medical help, not just a handful of (Tylenol 3s),” she said.

The morning Hill was killed, James had been at the hospital again, where he was given a prescription for 20 Tylenol 3 tablets.

“He took about 10 of them and started drinking,” Antila said.

James, who Antila said suffers from paranoia as a result of his head injury, believed Hall was somebody from his home reserve.

A pre-sentence report prepared for court says James has a family and personal history marked by residential school involvement, substance abuse and violence. His criminal record includes multiple convictions for robbery and assault.

When James was 12, one of his brothers was stabbed to death at a party. At 14, he co-founded a “prominent” street gang. Six years later, another gang member shot him in the chest. He was later kicked out of the gang after he refused to kill the man who had shot him.

The Crown had recommended James receive a sentence of 10 years, which Thompson reduced by one year in recognition of his personal and family background, or “Gladue factors.”

“The significant Gladue factors that have affected Mr. James’ life are directly linked to colonization and his family history of trauma with residential schools,” Thompson said.

“However, …he is not a young man and has shown little history of change,” he said. “To his credit, he left gang life in 1998, but he has failed to address his alcohol addiction and has continued to offend violently in the community.”

James received credit for time served, reducing his remaining sentence to just under 6½ years.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca