Man gets custodial sentence for firearm matter

By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on July 15, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

“Go ahead, make my day!”

That statement was made famous by Clint Eastwood’s movie character Dirty Harry, who utters those menacing words just moments before he shoots a bad guy with his Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum handgun.

Just looking down the barrel of the firearm can be terrifying, and that’s the effect it had on two women who had an almost identical looking gun pointed at them earlier this year in Lethbridge.

An intoxicated Kobe Ty Twigg was in his apartment on Feb. 18 when he learned his vehicle parked outside the building may have been damaged. He retrieved a gun from his closet, went to the parking lot and pointed it at two people he believed were responsible.

“He came out in a significant state of upset, and was essentially waving around this firearm, and in fact pointed it at those two young ladies in an effort to try to intimidate them into some sort of accountability for the damage to his vehicle,” Crown Prosecutor Clayton Giles said Thursday in Lethbridge court of justice, where Twigg, 22, pleaded guilty to one charge of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and two charges of pointing a firearm.

“This frightens them, this scared them, they thought it was a gun.”

The gun, Giles pointed out earlier, looked exactly like a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum, which is only slightly smaller, but just as menacing, than the gun wielded by Eastwood in his movies. However, it was actually a .177 calibre, gas propelled pellet pistol.

Although only a pellet gun, Giles said it fires a pellet with enough velocity to injure a person and to qualify it as a firearm.

“It has a muzzle velocity from the testing of over 300 feet per second, which ultimately fails, or passes depending on how someone looks at it, the pig’s eye test. In short, when it shoots at a pig’s eye, which essentially determines specifically to have a very similar structure to a human eye, it bursts it…therefore capable of providing serious bodily injury, and hence becomes a firearm.”

Giles noted that because the pellet gun is less dangerous and does not fire actual bullets, it is less morally blameworthy to point it at someone. However, he added pointing it at someone can still result in significant jail sentences.

Giles and Calgary lawyer John Oman recommended Twigg receive a custodial sentence, but one he can serve in the community under a 12-month conditional sentence order.

“I’m going to suggest incarceration is really necessary, although he can have the key, as it were,” Giles said.

During the first six months of his sentence, Twigg will be under house arrest, followed by a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day for the remaining six months.

Oman told court Twigg, who does not have any previous criminal convictions, was addicted to drugs and alcohol at the time of the offences, and he “welcomes” any counselling and assistance ordered by the judge. Oman said Twigg has already been receiving some counselling from a psychologist, and he just completed a full year at Red Crow Community College in Lethbridge, and will continue to upgrade his education.

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