Ten-year manslaughter sentence for gang member who shot through door, killing stranger

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After hearing that members of a rival Saskatoon gang were partying in the duplex next door, Stephen Alexander Swiftwolfe-Lewis fired a sawed-off rifle through an open door into a room full of people.

Dartagnan Whitehead was at the Avenue K South duplex in Saskatoon’s Riversdale neighbourhood with friends for a birthday party when a bullet hit him in the chest on July 11, 2020.

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The 18-year-old died from blood loss. He did not know the man who shot him, and was not an intended target, a Saskatoon King’s Bench courtroom heard this month.

Swiftwolfe-Lewis, who was also 18 at the time, was charged with second-degree murder. He was scheduled for a jury trial, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Justice Naheed Bardai accepted a joint submission from the Crown and defence, sentencing Swiftwolfe-Lewis to 10 years in prison.

Court heard a birthday party was taking place in one half of the duplex unit. Some members of the Westside Outlaws street gang were there, Holm said.

“There’s no indication that Mr. Whitehead was a member of the Westside Outlaws. He was not wearing gang colours; he was simply spending time with some friends of his, and those friends happened to be associated with the Westside gang,” Crown prosecutor Oryn Holm said, presenting the agreed facts.

He said Terror Squad gang members were on the other side of the duplex. They included Swiftwolfe-Lewis and his siblings, Aidain Robert Lachance and Telaina Hannah Swiftwolfe-Lewis.

The group became aware that rival gang members had showed up at the birthday party next door. Holm said there’s differing narratives about what happened next.

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Lachance told police that someone from the party bear maced them, and Swiftwolfe-Lewis fired once in retaliation. Witnesses from the birthday party said they heard a gunshot come from the group outside and used bear spray to keep them away.

“While we cannot provide a definitive lead-up to the shooting, we can definitively say that Stephen Swiftwolfe-Lewis fired the bullet that killed Dartagnan Whitehead,” Holm concluded.

“I’ve been an emotional wreck since then and I don’t know how to get rid of the hurt I carry,” Whitehead’s mother, Lois Ahpay, said while reading her victim impact statement.

She said she can’t forgive the man who killed her son.

“A stranger I don’t know. How could you live with yourself?” Ahpay asked.

“Does that make you feel that you’re superior for taking a life? In my eyes, you’re all cowards hiding behind a gun.”

Holm said an aggravating factor in sentencing was that Swiftwolfe-Lewis had a prohibited weapon.

“If (this) wasn’t gang-affiliated, it’s doubtful he would have had the gun in the first place … there would be no reason for the conflict with the occupants next door … it would have been far more likely that he would have turned right when he left the duplex instead of left and this entire event would not have happened.”

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Holm said there were concerns with running a trial because witnesses either couldn’t identify the shooter, or wouldn’t co-operate because of gang affiliations. The Crown’s key witness was Lachance, who received an immunity agreement for helping the investigation, but issues remained when it came to provocation and intoxication, he said.

“The plea to manslaughter recognizes some of the issues with the evidence, but it also recognizes the cumulative strength of the evidence that had been gathered and did support resolution,” Holm told court.

Defence lawyer Greg Curtis said Swiftwolfe-Lewis went to live with his mother in Saskatoon when he was 16. She was selling drugs and gave some to her son to sell; some of his customers were gang members and he was soon recruited, Curtis said.

He told court his client was drunk and high when he fired the gun, and he knows it never should have happened.

With an enhanced remand credit, Swiftwolfe-Lewis has approximately four and a half years of his 10-year sentence left to serve.

The court determined there was no likelihood of a murder conviction after assessing the evidence against his sister Telaina, Holm said.

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