Co-accused gets 12 years for role in West Broadway drug slaying

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This article was published 12/10/2023 (735 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a daytime drug-world slaying that sent bullets flying into a nearby convenience store and prompted the lockdown of a private girls’ school.

“This is the stuff that numbs Winnipeggers, making them feel scared and unsafe,” King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin said Wednesday at a sentencing hearing for 23-year-old Theodoros Kyriakakos.

Kyriakakos was originally charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter for the June 14, 2021 shooting that claimed the life of 29-year-old Kyle Anthony Braithwaite.

Braithwaite was shot twice in the chest and back following a beef over drug territory near Balmoral and Young streets, a short walk from Balmoral Hall private girls’ school.

According to an agreed statement of facts previously provided to court, Braithwaite, a member of the B-Side street gang, and a number of males confronted Kyriakakos and co-accused Dahir Abdi behind the nearby Granite Curling Club around 3:40 p.m., accusing them of dealing drugs in B-Side territory.

The two parties separated, with Kyriakakos and Abdi, who court heard were not affiliated with any gang, driving away in their rented Jeep.

Minutes later, Kyriakakos and Abdi parked outside an apartment building at Balmoral and Young, where Braithwaite was within earshot. Kyriakakos , the driver, yelled out the passenger window at Braithwaite, saying: “I got something for you.”

As Braithwaite walked toward the Jeep, Abdi fired six shots from a 9-mm handgun. Braithwaite tried to run away but collapsed and died in front of the Young Street Food Mart.

One bullet went through the window of a basement apartment and another through the building’s main door. A fifth bullet went through a window of the food mart. A sixth bullet was not recovered.

“It was sheer luck that the gunshots didn’t hit anyone else,” Martin said.

Kyriakakos denied knowing Abdi intended to shoot Braithwaite.

“Mr. Kyriakakos facilitated the threat… calling (Braithwaite) over,” Martin said. “He was an active participant leading up to the shooting… The plan was inherently, remarkably dangerous. Anything could have happened.”

Born in Eritrea, Kyriakakos was raised in a middle-class home and was the target of racism at school and in the community, according to an Impact of Race and Culture Assessment report commissioned by the defence. The report is akin to a Gladue report, which is used in the sentencing of Indigenous offenders.

Martin said he had no doubt Kyriakakos has experienced racism, but questioned the validity of the race report, which included a claim that Black people in Toronto are more likely to be murdered by police than any other racialized group. Martin said the source material for that claim appeared to be a newspaper report examining fatal police shootings, not murders.

“As the author (of the race and culture report) must know, shot and killed in the context of police shootings is not equivalent to murder, though they used that term for the report. Overall, I had the sense that this report… inappropriately tilts towards advocacy.”

Martin said it was not clear racism played any role in Kyriakakos’s decision to deal drugs or in the killing.

“He may have had difficulty maintaining or securing employment , but (racism) is not a satisfactory answer for his actions,” Martin said. “Only a few Black men turn to crime. It must be clear there is no moral equivalency to the unconscionable treatment and discrimination Indigenous, Inuit and Métis people suffer as a legacy of that.”

Braithwaite was part Black, said his mother-in-law Linda Pelletier, who rejected the claim racism played any role in Kyriakakos’s criminal trajectory.

Pelletier said Braithwaite was trying to work his way out of the gang life so he could be a better father and role model for his young daughter.

Braithwaite’s killing “literally feels senseless,” she said. “What has it done? It has taken 12 years from (Kyriakakos’s) life and a lifetime from my granddaughter and her family.

“I hope (Kyriakakos) can be rehabilitated… and make something good of his life.”

Abdi has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and has yet to be sentenced.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Court judgment