The Calgary Police Service has charged three men and a youth after a series of attacks after men were lured for meetups on LGBTQ dating app Grindr.
Alexander Roddick, 18, Reyad Said Abunada, 18, and Devon William Hickey, 19, along with one youth have been charged with counts of aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.
The police allege that the men, along with the youth, lured victims to a private location before assaulting them by pretending to be underaged teens.
One victim, on March 14, was beaten with a baseball bat, threatened with a replica firearm, and had his car interior and tires slashed by the alleged vigilantes.
“It’s hard to go into the mind to guess exactly what it was, but I would say that it would appear on its surface that they thought they were being righteous in looking at potential people who were trying to lure young people, specifically young males, and and target them,” said CPS District 2 Inspector Keith Hurley.
An additional two assaults occurred on March 9, and CPS are seeking to see if there have been other victims of the accused vigilantes.
“It doesn’t seem like it would be a first time offence. They seemed quite skilled at how they lured, the planning, the execution of what they wanted to do. It would lead me to believe that there may have been a couple of trial runs and something like this,” said Insp. Hurley.
“That being said at this point in time, we only have the three victims. So we do encourage any other victims that have been a victim of an assault of this nature to come forward, because that’s a crime.”
The March 9 assaults occured in the 0 to 100 block of Covemeadow Crescent NE, and the March 14 assault occurred in the 0-100 block of Panamount Boulevard NE.
He said that the Calgary Police Service Hate Crimes Unit did interview the accused, but that the service did not believe the vigilante attacks against the victims were hate motivated.
“During the course of the interviews with the accused and subsequent investigation, there’s nothing for us, nothing that’s led us to believe that this is a hate motivated crime or that there’s any hate bias in this whatsoever,” Hurley said.
Victims also charged by police after evidence presented
The three victims of the assaults have also been charged by police with one count each of child luring and invitation to touching. Under the Criminal Code of Canada, those charges are laid against individuals where a person, for sexual purposes, incites or invites a person under the age of 16.
Insp. Hurley said that it was not normal that CPS would charge the victim of a crime, but that there was compelling evidence to suggest that additional offences had been committed.
“We can’t ignore that,” he said.
“Our job as the police is to assess the evidence that’s in front of us and the information that came in front of us. That wasn’t the initial goal of the investigation, but subsequent information came to light that we would be remiss to ignore, when there’s potentially other offences occurring from this one. It is disappointing that’s we’ve had to go down that route as well.
“But again, there was some targeted behaviour here that led to some of this. That’s not victim blaming. It’s saying that is exactly the evidence it was in front of us.”
Insp. Hurley said the vigilantes deciding to use violence instead of bringing evidence to the Calgary Police Service is where they crossed the line.
“The legal system is based upon every person is innocent until proven guilty, but as a course of that too, people have the right to counsel. Have the right to seek counsel, seek counsel advice, and none of that was provided in the course of a vigilante action,” he said.
He said that the proper legal steps to ensure that the enshrined Charter rights that all Canadians have were not protected, and that the vigilantes themselves may not have had all of the facts or evidence before meting out violence as punishment.
“It’s almost like the show, Hang Them High—we’re gonna hang someone from from a noose before we even know… and the facts may not be just as they maybe appear. What if this had just been an innocent person in a driven in that parking lot at that particular time to make a phone call and they were targeted? I mean, any one of a number of scenarios could have played out here,” he said.
Insp. Hurley said that CPS investigated whether the accused were connected to similar cases where charges have been laid in other jurisdictions, or whether the accused were operating alongside others online, but said that no ties had been established at this time.
