Bus drivers across the valley wore black ribbons and took a moment of silence yesterday to commemorate Caesar Rosales, a Kelowna man who was killed Oct. 30, 2014 while commuting home.
Rosales was a regular transit user, and the random killing had a lingering effect on the men and women who often shuttled him around the city, Scott Lovell, president of local 1722 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said at the time of the first black ribbon event.
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“We’re not Vancouver, or some big city where this is something you would expect to happen,” he said.
Rosales’ murder spurred the union and BC Transit into change, albeit slowly. Driver barriers and cameras were installed in the years that followed.
As for Rosales’ killer, the 55-year-old’s killing was Tyler Jack Newton.
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He was arrested a day after Rosales died from a slash wound to the neck and charged with second-degree murder. In 2016 the then 25-year-old learned that he will serve 4.5 more years behind bars, bringing his total sentence to seven years.
It was cold comfort to Rosales’ family.
“I came here, halfway across the world, to seek justice and restitution for the murder of my brother and I will go back holding the bag,” said Darwin Rosales, Caesar’s brother, who travelled to Canada from the Philippines for the hearing.
“Adding insult to injury, the killer walks away a free man in such a short period of time.”
Rosales had worked at Flight Craft, or what is now KF Aerospace, as a business systems analyst for two years.
His co-workers described him as an upstanding citizen, polite, well-spoken and intelligent.
The moment of silence is scheduled for noon.
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