Prayers, apology follow manslaughter plea in 2021 shooting

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This article was published 07/07/2023 (1125 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Awaiting a judge’s decision in a homicide case that has irreparably changed all of their lives, members of the victim’s family embraced the father of one of the men accused in the death of their loved one outside a Winnipeg courtroom Friday afternoon.

Theodoros (Teddy) Kyriakokos, 23, is set to be sentenced for manslaughter for his role in the shooting death of 29-year-old Kyle Anthony Braithwaite.

The daytime shooting in West Broadway two years ago over drug-dealing territory prompted a lockdown at nearby Balmoral Hall private girls’ school and left bullet holes inside an adjacent Young Street convenience store.

Kyriakokos was the driver of a parked vehicle from which his co-accused, Dahir Abdi, fired six shots at Braithwaite from a 9-mm handgun June 14, 2021.

Abdi has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is awaiting sentencing.

On Friday, Crown prosecutors asked Court of King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin to sentence Kyriakokos to 15 years. His defence lawyer asked for an eight-year sentence.

The judge reserved his decision, and expressed his condolences to Braithwaite’s family, in a courtroom packed with both men’s relatives.

Outside, long after his son had been taken back into custody, Lambros Kyriakokos offered an apology to Braithwaite’s family.

In response, the victim’s mother-in-law and grandmother each hugged him.

Lambros Kyriakokos told a reporter his family is deeply sorry and is praying for divine justice.

“We are praying for the family of the person who was lost to give them strength,” he said. “(We are praying) first for them, and then for our son… We pray for our son that he will have the strength to redeem his soul.”

The shooting came soon after a confrontation and argument between Theodoros Kyriakokos and Braithwaite behind the Granite Curling Club. Braithwaite, a member of the B-Side Gang, asked Kyriakokos and Abdi if they were selling drugs in B-Side territory.

The two accused weren’t gang members, nor were they acting on behalf of any gang, Crown and defence agreed in their submissions to court.

Both were initially charged with first-degree murder but admitted to lesser charges. The incident was partially captured on surveillance footage from a nearby taxi.

Kyriakokos’s manslaughter plea was accepted on basis “he knew that his friend was going to flash a gun, and that was all that he knew,” defence lawyer Evan Roitenberg said in court.

“This is a tragedy for two families.”

Braithwaite’s family recalled him as someone who was loving and would’ve done anything for his young daughter.

His mother-in-law, Linda Pelletier, said she was on her way to visit her father’s grave the day Braithwaite was shot. Her father was killed in a shooting June 14, 1986.

“I’ve been trying to find a meaning why both these men’s lives were taken in the same manner, so violently, and on the same date,” Pelletier said in her victim impact statement.

Pelletier spoke directly to Kyriakokos, urging him “to find a way to do good with the rest of your time here in this world.”

When it was his turn to speak, the Kyriakokos apologized to Braithwaite’s family.

Outside court, Pelletier was clear about not glorifying gang life as she mourns her son-in-law. “Just because he made some choices doesn’t mean he’s still not a victim.”

Braithwaite’s family explained how some of his life circumstances growing up Black and Indigenous led to becoming a gang member.

“We want people to know the real Kyle,” said Stevie Hannah, Braithwaite’s lifelong friend. “I knew him before the tattoos. I knew him before the gangs, I knew him before the drugs.

“Just because we come from that life, we’re still humans… and not all of us have the tools or the people to show us there’s a better life,” she added. “It’s all we know, and we do the best we can with what we know.”

A sentencing date has not yet been set.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca