Jail time ordered for machete-swinging incident
By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on January 25, 2023.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com
A drunken Lethbridge man who swung a machete at a group of people last spring has been sentenced to three months in jail.
Bart Louis Young will, however, be able to serve his sentence on weekends, a judge told him recently in Lethbridge provincial court. Young will also be on probation for a year, during which he must take counselling for alcohol addiction and grief management, and not have any contact with any witnesses or the individuals he threatened with the machete.
Young, who previously pleaded guilty to charges of assault with a weapon, uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm and resisting a peace officer, walked past four people who were standing outside a northside business on March 2, 2022.
“He wrongly perceived that this group of people was using drugs, and in his exceptionally compromised state of intoxication, he took issue with that,” Judge Kristin Ailsby said during Young’s sentencing. “He passed them and said if they were there when he returned, he’d kill ’em.”
Young walked home, got a machete, then returned and swung the machete at the group of people. Fortunately he didn’t strike anyone.
“It was only a function of luck, not design, that no one was hurt,” Ailsby said.
An employee of a nearby business witnessed the interaction and called police, who ordered Young to drop the weapon. He refused, and officers drew their guns before taking him to the ground and arresting him.
Ailsby said the seriousness of the offence cannot be underestimated. Young, she said, told the strangers he was going to kill them, grabbed a weapon from home, and returned with the intention to do just that.
“This kind of behaviour is scary, and it’s absolutely unacceptable.”
Although defence had recommended Young receive a conditional sentence that would allow him to serve custody in the community, likely under house arrest, Ailsby said his offences warrant actual jail time.
Ailsby noted the victims are Indigenous, a group of people which faces racism, extreme marginalization, poverty and violence.
“It is aggravating that Mr. Young chose to exploit the vulnerability of a group that requires protection.”
Ailsby said Young’s actions were that of a vigilante, and although he was exhausted by the presence of what he called “junkies” in his community, he wrongly perceived the group he encountered was part of the problem.
Ailsby acknowledged some mitigating factors, however, and pointed out Young is remorseful for what he did, and cried when he previously explained the reasons for his conduct.
“Mr. Young treated this offence like a life-altering event. It was his wakeup call, and since then he has become well. His life is radically different today, because of his efforts to become sober.”
“I can guarantee you this’ll never again happen in my lifetime,” Young said.
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19-18
hard to write this stuff, just as it is hard to digest the bitter irony of the event – drunken idiot tries to kill people because he felt they were drug users.