Man to receive addictions treatment following sentencing in disturbances

By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on July 18, 2024.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

Threatening people at a restaurant and the Lethbridge Soup kitchen has earned a 63-year-old man a jail sentence.

On April 21 of this year police were called to a Tim Horton’s restaurant where Kennedy Fitzgerald Waldron had been causing a disturbance while armed with a knife. A little earlier Waldron had asked to use the bathroom, but was denied.

He responded by running around the restaurant laughing and talking to customers, but when he began stabbing the walls with a knife, an employee called 911. One of the servers also heard Waldron threaten to kill someone, and another employee and customers said they saw Waldron stabbing or poking the walls with the knife.

Police also spoke to a couple of customers who know Waldron, and when Waldron started causing a disturbance the men intervened. They backed off, however, after he threatened to kill one of them.

Waldron was subsequently released from custody on an undertaking that he not go to the soup kitchen on 2A Avenue North, where the man he threatened at the restaurant worked. Two days later, however, he went to the soup kitchen and began yelling at staff and inviting them to step outside to fight.

“He seemed to be attempting to get a certain person to come outside, although nobody could make out a name,” Crown Prosecutor Robert Morrison said Wednesday in Lethbridge court of justice.

A soup kitchen supervisor approached Waldron, but Waldron, who was holding a large wooden pole or two-by-four, threatened him, as well.

“Mr. Waldron began to threaten (the supervisor), saying he was going to get him, he was going to end him,” Morrison said.

Waldron pleaded guilty to two charges of uttering threats to kill or cause bodily harm, and single counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and failure to comply with an undertaking. He was sentenced to 68 days in jail, but given full credit for the equivalent amount of time he has already served in remand custody. He was also placed on probation for 12 months.

Waldron was released from custody, but sent to an addictions treatment centre in Calgary where he had been waiting for a bed to become available.

Lethbridge lawyer Tracy Hembroff explained Waldron, who has significant mental health issues, will spend time at the Calgary Dream Centre before being transferred to a facility in Ponoka for a mental health assessment. He will return to the Dream Centre for 90 days of intensive care and counselling, then be placed in supportive housing.

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