‘Did not have a chance’: youth killer failed by child welfare system

A Winnipeg teen arrested following a pair of street gang shootings that left one woman dead and sent five others to hospital was doomed by a child welfare system that robbed him of any chance to succeed, his former foster mother told a judge last week.

The now 19-year-old man “was failed by a system that is supposed to protect vulnerable children,” the woman said. “(He) is a victim of a broken system and did not have a chance.”

The Free Press is not naming the woman as it might identify the offender, who was 17 years old at the time of the March 2023 shootings.

The man pleaded guilty last December to one count each of second-degree murder, attempted murder and discharging a firearm with intent.

Last week, King’s Bench Justice Brian Bowman sentenced the man to seven years custody and conditional supervision, the maximum youth sentence for second-degree murder.

The man will serve his sentence — jointly recommended by the Crown and defence — 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 in the rehab program 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.

Police found 49-year-old Lori Gordon shot dead and another woman identified in court as her longtime partner gravely injured in a laneway behind the 400 block of Beverley Street on March 7 at about 6 a.m.

Hours earlier, six masked and armed males — including the then-17-year-old accused and then-18-year-old co-accused Martin Faruq Luther — forced their way into a Wellington Avenue apartment suite and threatened three female occupants, including Gordon, over their “ties” to rival drug dealers.

“In order to redeem themselves in the eyes of the group, (the three women) were ordered to participate in two separate ‘missions’ to ‘get blood’ from the rival drug dealers,” said an agreed statement of facts previously provided to court.

Sometime later, the accused, Luther and an unidentified male, all armed with handguns, took one of the women to a Spence street apartment occupied by a rival drug dealer and had her knock on the door. The three males followed her inside and immediately opened fire on four males.

The victims — one of whom was shot in the face — were taken to hospital in unstable condition, police said at the time.

“Although (the accused) did discharge the firearm in his possession with the intention to wound the occupants of the suite… it is unknown whether he caused any injury to those occupants,” said the agreed statement of facts.

The attackers and the women returned to the Wellington Avenue apartment suite. A few hours later the males left with Gordon and her partner, bound for a Toronto Street drug house.

“The purpose of this second mission was to meet up with (a gang rival) or his dealer and to shoot and kill them,” the agreed statement of facts said.

The group was in the laneway between Beverley Street and Toronto Street when the three males “inexplicably and collectively” opened fire on Gordon and the second woman.

Gordon was found dead with gunshot wounds to her face and chest. The second woman was shot in the head and hand and spent two months in hospital.

“It is unknown whether (the accused) caused the death of Gordon and/or the injuries to (the second woman),” the agreed statement of facts read.

Court was told the offender lives with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and spent his childhood in foster care. Gangs gave him the family connection he craved.

“He’s not a mastermind criminal, but he has been entrenched in violence and gang idolization,” said defence lawyer Stacey Soldier.

The man’s former foster mother said a social worker brought him to her home when he was just days old, wrapped in a blanket, with a note reading: “Cries a lot, withdrawing from substances.”

The woman said the boy’s intellectual challenges and needs required “extensive supports” and meetings with school administrators.

When the then-seven-year-old boy’s Awasis Agency social worker failed to show up for several scheduled meetings with school administrators, the foster mother reported her to her supervisor.

Sometime later, the social worker “with no explanation… walked into my house and took him,” the woman said. “He was literally pulled from our arms… He was ripped from a family that loved him fully.”

The social worker was fired a short time later, “but nothing was done to rectify” the boy’s wrongful seizure and he went on to live in a series of abusive foster homes, the woman alleged.

Care packages and toys for the boy went undelivered. At one home, his new foster mother “told him we didn’t want him, and he believed that,” the woman said.

She described the man as “clever, charismatic and full of life.”

“I remember telling him as a kid he had the personality to change the world, and I believe that to this day,” the woman said.

In a victim impact statement, Gordon’s family implored her killers to “reflect, seek God’s guidance and transform their lives for the better.”

Bowman urged the man to take their words to heart.

“Gang idealization has led you here today and into custody… but it doesn’t have to define who you are for the rest of your life,” Bowman said.

Dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca