‘Every law-abiding citizen’s worst nightmare’

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This article was published 10/01/2025 (244 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg judge has sentenced a teen to three years in custody for the “senseless and cowardly” fatal stabbing of an innocent stranger in an unprovoked attack outside a city bar in 2023.

The offender, who is now 17, was among five youths captured on security video attacking 27-year-old Peter Filip outside the Lipstixx strip club on Arlington Street on Nov. 11, 2023.

“Mr. Filip lost his life for no reason other than he was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” provincial court Judge Victoria Cornick said in a written ruling issued last month.

“The offence was senseless and cowardly,” Cornick said. “It amounts to every law-abiding citizen’s worst nightmare — to be minding your own business only to be set upon by individuals with nothing better to do other than to inflict fear and injury. Mr. Filip never had any sort of interaction with any of the young persons involved. He was never the aggressor. He was not even given occasion to defend himself.”

The teen pleaded guilty to manslaughter last spring. At a sentencing hearing in November, Crown and defence lawyers agreed he should receive the maximum youth sentence of three years in custody and conditional supervision.

The teen is to serve his sentence under an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order. The program allows participants access to one-on-one counselling, occupational therapy, tutoring and other specialized services at a cost of $100,000 a year.

Participants must be guilty of a serious violent offence, suffer from a mental illness or disorder, and have a treatment program that case workers believe will reduce their risk to the public.

Cornick rejected a request by the defence that the youth receive credit for nearly 11 months of pre-sentence custody, meaning he will serve the full three years.

The youth “continues to present a high risk to public safety,” Cornick said. “The IRCS order will provide him with a slow and steady dose of multiple rehabilitative interventions… Given the level of deliberate, gratuitous and random violence (he) exhibited in the commission of this offence, only a three-year sentence on a go-forward basis will be sufficient to hold him accountable and impose a meaningful consequence.”

The offender and six other youths — four of whom he had not met in the past — gathered at the CanadInns hotel on William Avenue before making their way to the 800 block of Logan Avenue. A security camera captured them across the lane from Lipstixx bar shortly before 2 a.m.

Filip arrived outside the bar on his bicycle as the security camera captured one of the teens in the group asking: “Who we robbing?”

‘Relentless in their attack’

The offender walked up to Filip with a co-accused who knocked Filip to the ground and struck him with a sawed-off rifle.

When Filip tried to run away, he was set upon and beaten by five of the youths. The offender pulled out a knife and stabbed Filip once in the chest.

“The young males were relentless in their attack on Mr. Filip, who can be heard screaming and pleading throughout,” Cornick said.

The youths ran off as Filip fell to the ground, struggled to regain his footing and fell to the ground once more.

A passerby called 911 and Filip was rushed to hospital, where he died.

Security video captured some of the youths high-fiving one another and verbal exchanges between some in the group “appeared excited and almost celebratory in nature,” Cornick said.

A short time later, two of the attackers turned on the offender and a co-accused. They kicked and punched them and forced them to remove their clothing.

Court heard the offender is a permanent ward of Child and Family Services whose long history of behavioural concerns and addictions issues had resulted in his referral to a program for at-risk teens just prior to the killing.

The Indigenous teen’s early childhood was marred by family substance abuse, domestic violence and neglect. He has been diagnosed with substance abuse disorder, major depressive disorder and intermittent explosive disorder. A psychological assessment put his IQ in the “extremely low range.”

A pre-sentence report said the teen claimed he only took part in the attack because he feared he was “being set up” by the other youths and wanted to be on their good side.

“It appeared that from the beginning he took on a leadership position in the attack, contrary to his claim,” Cornick said. “He was continually active in the attack throughout… His claims that he was scared he was being set up by other members of the group are inconsistent with the pre- and post- offence behaviour captured on surveillance.”

Filip’s mother and sister, who live in the U.S., attended court for sentencing submissions in November and provided victim impact statements in which they shared how his death has devastated their family.

“The brutal and tragic way in which he died at the hands of young teenagers… shocked and frustrated Mr. Filip’s family,” Cornick said. “They will carry this loss and sadness for the rest of their lives.”

In November, a second 15-year-old accused who admitted to kicking Filip when he was defenceless on the ground pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to three years in custody and conditional supervision in the community.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca