The convicted killer accused of shooting Transit Police Constable Josh Harms at the Scott Road SkyTrain Station got a break from the Court of Appeal in April 2015 when his nine-year sentence for the 2010 shooting death of a man at a Surrey McDonald’s restaurant was reduced.
Daon Gordon Glasgow is the prime suspect in last Wednesday’s shooting, in which the constable was hit twice in the arm. Police are not saying much about what led to it, but Glasgow was wanted on an alleged parole violation at the time the trigger was pulled.
“I have no information from investigators as to what was going on during the time of the shooting, or leading up to the shooting,” Surrey RCMP Sergeant Chad Grieg told the Now-Leader Friday, when asked if Harms had been trying to arrest Gordon for the alleged breach of parole.
“The unlawfully at large warrant is in respect to violating parole,” Grieg said. “The warrant for unlawfully at large was issued prior to this occurrence, and it is not linked, I guess you can say, to this investigation.”
Glasgow was arrested at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday, at a house in the 7500-block of Boundary Road in Burnaby, ending a three-day manhunt. He is being held in custody but at press time no charge had been laid against him for the SkyTrain shooting.
In April 2011 Glasgow, who had originally been charged with second-degree murder, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter for shooting Terry Blake Scott in the chest inside the men’s washroom of the McDonald’s restaurant at 11011 Scott Road, during dinner hour when families were present.
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Scott’s mom and dad told Justice Geoffrey Gaul, during the 2011 sentencing hearing at B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster, that the loss of their son was “devastatingly painful.”
“However, to their enormous credit they appear to be a forgiving family and one that will not allow bitterness or hatred to enter into their lives on account of the tragic loss of their son,” Gaul noted. “I was particularly impressed by the portion of the victim impact statement where Mr. and Mrs. Scott urge and encourage Mr. Glasgow to become a better person.”
Witness interviews and video surveillance footage revealed that after the single gunshot rang out Scott emerged from the washroom clutching at his chest, and collapsed on the restaurant floor while Glasgow ran towards a nearby Subway restaurant, past some railway tracks and into an industrial area where he disappeared from sight.
“Based on police and forensic investigation including cell phone text analysis and security video at McDonald’s Glasgow was identified as the suspect,” Gaul noted.
Security surveillance video footage once again come back to haunt Glasgow in this Scott Road SkyTrain Station shooting, nearly nine years later, as on the night of the shooting police released to the public images of him from a transit security camera at the station as they hunted for him.
“Video surveillance is quite helpful in police investigations and that’s why we have our officers out there conducting neighbourhood inquiries, looking for video surveillance in the area that this occurred, as well as we’re lucky to have the video surveillance from TransLink that was provided to us,” Grieg said prior to Glasgow’s capture.
“We have released the video Canada-wide, it’s on the RCMP website, we did release it to the media and as far as we know the media has been up in other parts of the country, yes.”
Please share: video released of the suspect who shot a @TransitPolice officer earlier today. We are actively searching for him. Call 911 if you see him. pic.twitter.com/xZxM7g9zdD
— Surrey RCMP (@SurreyRCMP) January 31, 2019
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Meantime, the court in 2011 heard Scott was shot over five ounces of hashish worth about $1,000, and Glasgow dropped some of the drug during his escape.
“The firearm was never recovered but the bullet removed from the deceased was consistent with being fired from a .38 special or .357 magnum handgun,” the judge noted. “The deceased died from a gunshot that entered his chest travelled through a valve in his heart, travelled down the body grazing a kidney, through the liver and coming to rest just under the surface of the skin on Scott’s back.”
The Crown and defence jointly called for a prison sentence of 10 years, with the range generally being seven to 13.
The judge found Glasgow “not beyond rehabilitation.”
“He has also expressed a genuine remorse for the pain and loss he has caused to the Scott family.”
Gaul said Glasgow should be sentenced to 10 years in prison but deducted a year because he had been in custody since his arrest in April 2010.
He also prohibited Glasgow from possessing any firearm or ammunition for life.
On April 14, 2015 the appeal court in Vancouver reduced Glasgow’s sentence to eight years and six months with a pre-sentence custody credit of one year and six months, after he applied for the adjustment.
Appeal Court Justice Edward Chiasson noted that Gaul had given Glasgow one-for-one credit for time served. Glasgow’s lawyer appealed this, based on a Supreme Court of Canada ruling, seeking a credit of 1.5 years for one year pre-sentence custody served.
“The Crown does not oppose the time being extended or enhanced credit being given,” Chiasson noted. “It agrees the appellant is not disqualified from receiving such credit for any statutory reason.”
Appeal Court Justices David Tysoe and Richard Goepel concurred.
The Now-Leader has learned that at the time of the SkyTrain shooting, Glasgow had been on statutory release from prison, with conditions.
Statutory release, which occurs two-thirds into an offender’s sentence, is legislated and not based on a parole board decision. The idea is to ease an offender into society, under suspervision, instead of putting he or she back on the street the day their sentence expires, with no supervision.
Karen Reid Sidhu asks Scheer if he’s going to be tough on crime, referencing Wednesday’s shooting. The suspect in the SkyTrain station shooting was jailed previously for killing a man in #SurreyBC. Scheer’s response: pic.twitter.com/DFYs1wCde7
— Lauren Collins (@laurenpcollins1) February 1, 2019
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