Stanley Cup rioter who vandalized, taunted police and punched a man faces jail time
By SUSAN LAZARUK, The Province
For Cameron Brown, a Good Samaritan beaten by rioters while putting out trashcan fires the night of the Stanley Cup riots, the punch he took from an assailant was far more than a “cheap” cheapshot.
Brown, 27, who needed three stitches to close a cut on his head and suffered a concussion, puffy lip and scrapes on his legs and arms on June 15, 2011, is also out thousands of dollars for trying to contain some of the vandals’ damage that night. He plans to sue.
The Vancouver producer/photographer was in provincial court Thursday to watch criminal justice meted out to Alexander Peepre, a UBC political science student who admitted to hitting him.
The two met for the first time since Peepre leaned over Brown and punched him as Brown lay in the street after being suckerpunched by another rioter and robbed of his $2,000 camera by a third.
They sat metres away from each other, two court sheriffs between them, but Peepre never looked in Brown’s direction. The day-long hearing was to determine if Peepre will go to jail for his guilty plea to rioting and assault.
Peepre avoided Brown’s gaze when a short video played showing how Peepre raced over to a dazed medium-build Brown as he tried to get up off the pavement and then decked him. At the same time, Brown’s camera, which flew off his shoulder when he was hit, was stolen with the thief fleeing.
After Brown got up and was wiping the blood from his head, Peepre and others continued to yell and gesture at him and the audio is peppered with profanities.
Peepre, in a grey suit and tie, his hair newly cut short, stared down at the floor during the playing of that video and others, glancing up only occasionally at the screen.
During another scene where he taunts police with, “How can you hit me with that [shield] when it’s upside down?” Peepre turned bright red, puffed out his cheeks and glanced at his parents, girlfriend and family supporters in the gallery.
Brown said his wounds have healed and he wasn’t holding on to any anger from the assault because “I’m not really an angry kind of guy. But I thought it [the riot] was disgusting.”
What burns him the most is that he’s out $4,000 because his camera was damaged beyond repair -- he chased down the thief and got it back but the loss includes repairs to a separate damaged lens and the money he spent to rent camera equipment so he could shoot the weddings he had scheduled.
“I’ve tried leaving messages for him [Peepre] through Facebook but he hasn’t got back to me,” said Brown, who said he plans to sue him in civil court.
At Thursday’s hearing, Crown prosecutor Daniel Porte cited several cases to back up his recommendation that Peepre be jailed for nine months.
He is the sixth rioter of the more than 100 that have been charged to make it to the sentencing stage. So far, three have been jailed, one received house arrest and one is awaiting the judge’s ruling.
Porte said the primary principles of denunciation and deterrence won’t be served by house arrest.
He noted Peepre, who also helped flip a GMC truck near Canada Post -- among the first acts of vandalism to spark the riot -- and taunted and pelted the riot police line, was an active participant and instigator. And he attacked a “Good Samaritan.”
Peepre’s lawyer, Emmett Duncan, asked the judge not to jail his client, a “very young, very bright, talented, thoughtful, well-liked, deeply suppported but imperfect” man who “made the worst decision of his life” on riot night.
He said Peepre is committed to rehabilitation and taken steps toward it, volunteered to teach children in a developing country last summer, has an understanding of what he did was wrong, was “grossly intoxicated” and only hit Brown because he shoved his friend.
Duncan said if the judge can’t avoid sentencing Peepre to jail, it should be for no longer than 90 days.
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