Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
One Man Wrecking Crew Thomas Kruger-Allen, 23, Pleads Guilty Awaits Sentencing.
63 views
Skip to first unread message
Greg Carr
Feb 21, 2021, 5:49:36 PM2/21/21
to
‘We are hoping for justice’: Sentencing for Penticton beach attacker begins Tuesday
By Shelby Thom Global News
Posted February 21, 2021 12:10 pm
More than one year after a Good Samaritan intervening in a dispute was brutally assaulted on a Penticton beach, his attacker has pleaded guilty. Shelby Thom reports. – Jun 8, 2020
Chelsea Townend said the brutal and vicious assault of her husband on a Penticton, B.C., beach in May 2019 not only ruined his life but hers as well.
In June, Thomas Kruger-Allen, 23, pleaded guilty to the aggravated assault of Brad Eliason, as well as the assault of two other people, on Okanagan Lake beach.
A fourth count of sexual assault was dropped in exchange for the pleas.
Chelsea Townend said her husband, Eliason, suffered a traumatic brain injury in the one-punch attack.
He continues to suffer from short-term memory loss, grand mal seizures and will be on seizure medication for the rest of his life. He has not returned to work since the attack.
Townend said the assault also destroyed their marriage and the pair are now separated.
“This is just the aftermath of the trauma and everything we have been through, it either makes you or breaks you,” she told Global News on Sunday.
Accused Penticton beach attacker appears in court for bail hearing – Jun 3, 2019
Kruger-Allen is scheduled for sentencing on Tuesday in the Supreme Court at Penticton.
“We are definitely hoping for some justice. I am very much friends with Brad and supportive, and we support each other and this has just been horrible trauma that has happened to both of us,” she said.
Then 28-year-old Brad Eliason of Penticton was brutally assaulted while intervening in an altercation near the Okanagan Lake waterfront in 2019.
GoFundMe
The maximum sentence for aggravated assault is 14 years in prison.
Townend said Eliason was enjoying a bonfire with a friend when at around 11:30 p.m., two intoxicated and unknown men approached.
The young men harassed a group of nearby youth and that’s when things began to escalate, she said.
Eliason, a Good Samaritan, intervened in the dispute when he was assaulted.
He fell back and smashed his head on a concrete walkway, she said.
Eliason was rushed to Kelowna General Hospital and underwent emergency brain surgery, according to Townend.
He required 56 stitches to his skull and he was placed in a medically induced coma because of the swelling on his brain.
Townend said her husband was in a coma for three weeks and returned to the hospital for a craniotomy, which is a surgical operation in which a bone flap is temporarily removed from the skull to access the brain.
Penticton beach assault victim awakes from coma – May 27, 2019
“It’s drastically changed him, he is not the same person.”
Eliason declined to comment on Sunday but said he will be at the courthouse in person for Kruger-Allen’s sentencing hearing this week.
Following the attacker’s guilty plea in June, Eliason told Global News he may never be able to work again.
“I can’t do anything so, and it basically ruined it,” he said. “It’s like hell freezing over, that’s all I can say.”
Kruger-Allen was serving 18 months’ probation for his role in a 2017 swarming attack outside the now-shuttered Mule nightclub at the time of the beach attack.
While out on bail for assaulting Eliason, Kruger-Allen is accused of committing another violent crime in October 2019.
Police told Global News that Kruger-Allen was arrested on Oct. 19 for a break-in and assaulting two people, both of whom were known to him.
Police say the victims suffered serious, non-life-threatening injuries.
Kruger-Allen was charged with two counts of assault causing bodily harm, break and enter, mischief, uttering threats, and two counts of breach of recognizance.
He goes to trial in May.
His bail was revoked in the wake of the new, unrelated charges, and Kruger-Allen has been in custody ever since.
Townend is concerned Kruger-Allen may get out of prison on credit for time served as he has been in custody for more than one year.
“I don’t want this to happen to anybody else. I don’t want anyone to ever go through what we did and it’s a very scary thought to think they could say, ‘time served.'”
She plans to read a victim impact statement on Tuesday, so the sentencing judge knows how the beach attack affected her life, even though she wasn’t present during the assault.
“It’s only fair that I get to say what I need to say and how this has affected and ruined my life.”
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
‘We are hoping for justice’: Sentencing for Penticton beach attacker begins Tuesday
By Shelby Thom Global News
Posted February 21, 2021 12:10 pm
https://globalnews.ca/news/7653765/we-are-hoping-for-justice-sentencing-for-penticton-beach-attacker-begins-tuesday/
Feb.24 is anti-bullying day.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/318562/Penticton-man-who-pleaded-guilty-to-a-vicious-assault-on-a-stranger-in-2019-gets-sentencing-hearing-pushed has a picture of Thomas Kruger-Allen. He is wearing a Champion hat how did that clothing line which has been around for decades get so popular. I now see it on a regular basis. I worked as temp at their Burnaby warehouse at lunch you could see beavers gnawing trees. There were two HA ppl there one a fat, young guy and the warehouse manager who also was HA but knew his stuff in regards to warehousing. Only place I worked at that had HA graffiti BWHAHAHAHAHAHA. One guy there was quite tall and sold GHB and talked about beating up his roommate on a regular basis he also spoke Latin. Jack a older guy every payday got a hooker for anal sex. Another guy a temp like me was a ex-security guard from Ont. who sold ammunition and said in Maple Ridge everyone is a biker or cop.
Penticton
'Chronically angry,' 'Violent'
Chelsea Powrie - Jul 12, 2019 / 5:16 pm | Story: 261113
Photo: Facebook
A Penticton courtroom heard conflicting details about alleged violent assailant Thomas Kruger-Allen on Friday, including his history of combative, uncontrollable, violent behaviour, as well as another portrayal of the young man as a hard worker trying to do better.
Kruger-Allen, 21, was seated in the gallery for a sentencing hearing regarding his guilty plea in an assault charge connected to a beating outside The Mule nightclub in Penticton in August 2017.
The victim was attacked by a group of youth near the club, which has since closed, and suffered a shattered nose and orbital bone. Kruger-Allen acknowledged through his plea that he kicked the man while he was down, and left the scene. He was later found with the victim's blood on his shoe.
Crown prosecutor Nashina Devji painted a picture of a troubled young man prone to rage and violence, especially when drinking alcohol, which he is known to frequently do. She spoke about his troubled childhood in a home prone to "chaos and violence," with parents in the throes of substance abuse.
She quoted from a psychologist who had worked with Kruger-Allen and expressed concerns about an "intermittent explosive disorder."
"Mr. Kruger-Allen is chronically angry and has the high potential to express anger and hostility, through verbal means physical means or both, and he's likely to be impulsive, sensation-seeking and reckless, and have disregard for convention and authority," Devji told the judge, reading from the psychologist's findings.
She also pointed to Kruger-Allen's various transgressions over the nearly two years he has been out on bail for this offence as evidence of his inability to control his impulses.
"While being on bail for this offence, Mr. Kruger-Allen was charged with an aggravated assault, a sex assault and two additional assaults, was in custody for a period of time and then was released on bail," Devji said. "While he was in custody he had difficulty managing his behaviour. He sometimes engaged in physical altercations with other inmates and being disrespectful to corrections staff."
She added that Kruger-Allen's bail supervisor noted his tendency to go from "zero to 100" in anger, and that he has the potential to be incredibly dangerous in the community. His bail supervisor has not had any luck getting him into a residential treatment program due to the nature of his pending charges.
Devji finished her statements by requesting that the judge give Kruger-Allen a sentence of six to eight months in jail followed by two years of probation with strict requirements.
Kruger-Allen's lawyer Norman Yates had a different take. He was displeased with Devji's mention of other pending charges against his client, pointing out that the incident at The Mule was Kruger-Allen's first offence and sentencing should take that into consideration.
"He is being sentenced for this issue and not for matters he may have been investigated for since," Yates told the judge.
Yates also explained Kruger-Allen's troublesome behaviour while in custody in May and June of this year as provoked or defensive.
"The general population at the local remand facility seemed to be aware that one of the things he was charged with was sexual assault, and within that custodial community, the corrections community, there seems to be a code that anybody charged with sexual assault gets treated in an aggressive way," Yates said.
He went on to describe Kruger-Allen as a young man who "wants desperately" to leave appearances in court behind him and move forward. He submitted four letters to the judge in support of Kruger-Allen's character from his grandmother, two neighbours and boss.
Kruger-Allen's mother, who the court heard has been working on her relationship with her son despite a troubled past and an issue in March during which she called police on her son when he was in a destructive, alcohol-fueled rage, was also in attendance in support.
Judge Andrew Tam decided to adjourn the sentencing in order to take more time to go over the case before passing his sentence.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/261113/Chronically-angry-Violent
A young Penticton man has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for a pair of serious assaults, one of them a savage “ambush” outside the Mule nightclub.
Damien Keddie, 21, pleaded guilty to two counts of assault causing bodily harm stemming from two attacks last year.
Crown prosecutor John Swanson told the courtroom police were called to the Mule nightclub on Martin Street on Aug. 12, 2017 at 3:15 a.m. for a report of a man being attacked by a group.
The victim told police he exited the nightclub and saw a person who motioned that he wanted to talk to him in a nearby alleyway. The victim followed, and was met by three men who promptly attacked him.
“This was basically an ambush of a drunk coming out of a bar, an ambush by a group of people,” Swanson said.
Defence lawyer Nelson Selamaj took some exception to the Crown calling the assault an “ambush” — noting there was previous confrontation in the club involving Keddie’s friend and the victim — but admitted it was not a consensual fight the victim was attacked three on one, and never fought back.
The victim suffered facial fractures and required stitches, but no lasting injuries.
Keddie was also sentenced for an assault just two months prior on June 12. One of his friends had been involved in a consensual fight at Princess Margaret Secondary, and arrangements were made to continue the fight at another location later in the day.
When the complainants arrived at the agreed upon location in their car, they spotted a much larger (both in number and stature) group people and turned the car around and tried to drive away.
As they were leaving, the car stalled, and Keddie and one of his friends began punching the victims through the car windows. Keddie threw between five and eight punches.
The two incidents make up the fifth and sixth assault convictions for Keddie, who last served 94 days for an assault causing bodily harm.
The Crown sought a 18 month total sentence, while the defence asked for 10-13 months.
During his lengthy closing arguments, Selamaj painted a picture of his client that has owned up to his actions, is remorseful, and has turned a corner on his life for the first time.
“Mr. Keddie does not want me to say, on his behalf, that he’s been unlucky, that you should feel sorry for him,” Selamaj said. “He knows that for a period of his life that he did not appreciate the breaks he was given.”
He explained that Keddie has since moved to White Rock with his mother and has offers of employment from family.
In handing down her sentence, Judge Michelle Daneliuk said she could not ignore Keddie's violent past and chastised him for violently inserting himself into incidents that had nothing to do with him, but spoke optimistically about support from his family.
He was sentenced to eight months for the nightclub attack and 60 days for the after-school fight for a total of 300 days behind bars.
Daneliuk allowed Keddie to hug his family goodbye before being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, which he did so in tears.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/234238/jailed-for-nightclub-ambush
By Shelby Thom Global News
Posted February 21, 2021 12:10 pm
More than one year after a Good Samaritan intervening in a dispute was brutally assaulted on a Penticton beach, his attacker has pleaded guilty. Shelby Thom reports. – Jun 8, 2020
Chelsea Townend said the brutal and vicious assault of her husband on a Penticton, B.C., beach in May 2019 not only ruined his life but hers as well.
In June, Thomas Kruger-Allen, 23, pleaded guilty to the aggravated assault of Brad Eliason, as well as the assault of two other people, on Okanagan Lake beach.
A fourth count of sexual assault was dropped in exchange for the pleas.
Chelsea Townend said her husband, Eliason, suffered a traumatic brain injury in the one-punch attack.
He continues to suffer from short-term memory loss, grand mal seizures and will be on seizure medication for the rest of his life. He has not returned to work since the attack.
Townend said the assault also destroyed their marriage and the pair are now separated.
“This is just the aftermath of the trauma and everything we have been through, it either makes you or breaks you,” she told Global News on Sunday.
Accused Penticton beach attacker appears in court for bail hearing – Jun 3, 2019
Kruger-Allen is scheduled for sentencing on Tuesday in the Supreme Court at Penticton.
“We are definitely hoping for some justice. I am very much friends with Brad and supportive, and we support each other and this has just been horrible trauma that has happened to both of us,” she said.
Then 28-year-old Brad Eliason of Penticton was brutally assaulted while intervening in an altercation near the Okanagan Lake waterfront in 2019.
GoFundMe
The maximum sentence for aggravated assault is 14 years in prison.
Townend said Eliason was enjoying a bonfire with a friend when at around 11:30 p.m., two intoxicated and unknown men approached.
The young men harassed a group of nearby youth and that’s when things began to escalate, she said.
Eliason, a Good Samaritan, intervened in the dispute when he was assaulted.
He fell back and smashed his head on a concrete walkway, she said.
Eliason was rushed to Kelowna General Hospital and underwent emergency brain surgery, according to Townend.
He required 56 stitches to his skull and he was placed in a medically induced coma because of the swelling on his brain.
Townend said her husband was in a coma for three weeks and returned to the hospital for a craniotomy, which is a surgical operation in which a bone flap is temporarily removed from the skull to access the brain.
Penticton beach assault victim awakes from coma – May 27, 2019
“It’s drastically changed him, he is not the same person.”
Eliason declined to comment on Sunday but said he will be at the courthouse in person for Kruger-Allen’s sentencing hearing this week.
Following the attacker’s guilty plea in June, Eliason told Global News he may never be able to work again.
“I can’t do anything so, and it basically ruined it,” he said. “It’s like hell freezing over, that’s all I can say.”
Kruger-Allen was serving 18 months’ probation for his role in a 2017 swarming attack outside the now-shuttered Mule nightclub at the time of the beach attack.
While out on bail for assaulting Eliason, Kruger-Allen is accused of committing another violent crime in October 2019.
Police told Global News that Kruger-Allen was arrested on Oct. 19 for a break-in and assaulting two people, both of whom were known to him.
Police say the victims suffered serious, non-life-threatening injuries.
Kruger-Allen was charged with two counts of assault causing bodily harm, break and enter, mischief, uttering threats, and two counts of breach of recognizance.
He goes to trial in May.
His bail was revoked in the wake of the new, unrelated charges, and Kruger-Allen has been in custody ever since.
Townend is concerned Kruger-Allen may get out of prison on credit for time served as he has been in custody for more than one year.
“I don’t want this to happen to anybody else. I don’t want anyone to ever go through what we did and it’s a very scary thought to think they could say, ‘time served.'”
She plans to read a victim impact statement on Tuesday, so the sentencing judge knows how the beach attack affected her life, even though she wasn’t present during the assault.
“It’s only fair that I get to say what I need to say and how this has affected and ruined my life.”
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
‘We are hoping for justice’: Sentencing for Penticton beach attacker begins Tuesday
By Shelby Thom Global News
Posted February 21, 2021 12:10 pm
https://globalnews.ca/news/7653765/we-are-hoping-for-justice-sentencing-for-penticton-beach-attacker-begins-tuesday/
Feb.24 is anti-bullying day.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/318562/Penticton-man-who-pleaded-guilty-to-a-vicious-assault-on-a-stranger-in-2019-gets-sentencing-hearing-pushed has a picture of Thomas Kruger-Allen. He is wearing a Champion hat how did that clothing line which has been around for decades get so popular. I now see it on a regular basis. I worked as temp at their Burnaby warehouse at lunch you could see beavers gnawing trees. There were two HA ppl there one a fat, young guy and the warehouse manager who also was HA but knew his stuff in regards to warehousing. Only place I worked at that had HA graffiti BWHAHAHAHAHAHA. One guy there was quite tall and sold GHB and talked about beating up his roommate on a regular basis he also spoke Latin. Jack a older guy every payday got a hooker for anal sex. Another guy a temp like me was a ex-security guard from Ont. who sold ammunition and said in Maple Ridge everyone is a biker or cop.
Penticton
'Chronically angry,' 'Violent'
Chelsea Powrie - Jul 12, 2019 / 5:16 pm | Story: 261113
Photo: Facebook
A Penticton courtroom heard conflicting details about alleged violent assailant Thomas Kruger-Allen on Friday, including his history of combative, uncontrollable, violent behaviour, as well as another portrayal of the young man as a hard worker trying to do better.
Kruger-Allen, 21, was seated in the gallery for a sentencing hearing regarding his guilty plea in an assault charge connected to a beating outside The Mule nightclub in Penticton in August 2017.
The victim was attacked by a group of youth near the club, which has since closed, and suffered a shattered nose and orbital bone. Kruger-Allen acknowledged through his plea that he kicked the man while he was down, and left the scene. He was later found with the victim's blood on his shoe.
Crown prosecutor Nashina Devji painted a picture of a troubled young man prone to rage and violence, especially when drinking alcohol, which he is known to frequently do. She spoke about his troubled childhood in a home prone to "chaos and violence," with parents in the throes of substance abuse.
She quoted from a psychologist who had worked with Kruger-Allen and expressed concerns about an "intermittent explosive disorder."
"Mr. Kruger-Allen is chronically angry and has the high potential to express anger and hostility, through verbal means physical means or both, and he's likely to be impulsive, sensation-seeking and reckless, and have disregard for convention and authority," Devji told the judge, reading from the psychologist's findings.
She also pointed to Kruger-Allen's various transgressions over the nearly two years he has been out on bail for this offence as evidence of his inability to control his impulses.
"While being on bail for this offence, Mr. Kruger-Allen was charged with an aggravated assault, a sex assault and two additional assaults, was in custody for a period of time and then was released on bail," Devji said. "While he was in custody he had difficulty managing his behaviour. He sometimes engaged in physical altercations with other inmates and being disrespectful to corrections staff."
She added that Kruger-Allen's bail supervisor noted his tendency to go from "zero to 100" in anger, and that he has the potential to be incredibly dangerous in the community. His bail supervisor has not had any luck getting him into a residential treatment program due to the nature of his pending charges.
Devji finished her statements by requesting that the judge give Kruger-Allen a sentence of six to eight months in jail followed by two years of probation with strict requirements.
Kruger-Allen's lawyer Norman Yates had a different take. He was displeased with Devji's mention of other pending charges against his client, pointing out that the incident at The Mule was Kruger-Allen's first offence and sentencing should take that into consideration.
"He is being sentenced for this issue and not for matters he may have been investigated for since," Yates told the judge.
Yates also explained Kruger-Allen's troublesome behaviour while in custody in May and June of this year as provoked or defensive.
"The general population at the local remand facility seemed to be aware that one of the things he was charged with was sexual assault, and within that custodial community, the corrections community, there seems to be a code that anybody charged with sexual assault gets treated in an aggressive way," Yates said.
He went on to describe Kruger-Allen as a young man who "wants desperately" to leave appearances in court behind him and move forward. He submitted four letters to the judge in support of Kruger-Allen's character from his grandmother, two neighbours and boss.
Kruger-Allen's mother, who the court heard has been working on her relationship with her son despite a troubled past and an issue in March during which she called police on her son when he was in a destructive, alcohol-fueled rage, was also in attendance in support.
Judge Andrew Tam decided to adjourn the sentencing in order to take more time to go over the case before passing his sentence.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/261113/Chronically-angry-Violent
A young Penticton man has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for a pair of serious assaults, one of them a savage “ambush” outside the Mule nightclub.
Damien Keddie, 21, pleaded guilty to two counts of assault causing bodily harm stemming from two attacks last year.
Crown prosecutor John Swanson told the courtroom police were called to the Mule nightclub on Martin Street on Aug. 12, 2017 at 3:15 a.m. for a report of a man being attacked by a group.
The victim told police he exited the nightclub and saw a person who motioned that he wanted to talk to him in a nearby alleyway. The victim followed, and was met by three men who promptly attacked him.
“This was basically an ambush of a drunk coming out of a bar, an ambush by a group of people,” Swanson said.
Defence lawyer Nelson Selamaj took some exception to the Crown calling the assault an “ambush” — noting there was previous confrontation in the club involving Keddie’s friend and the victim — but admitted it was not a consensual fight the victim was attacked three on one, and never fought back.
The victim suffered facial fractures and required stitches, but no lasting injuries.
Keddie was also sentenced for an assault just two months prior on June 12. One of his friends had been involved in a consensual fight at Princess Margaret Secondary, and arrangements were made to continue the fight at another location later in the day.
When the complainants arrived at the agreed upon location in their car, they spotted a much larger (both in number and stature) group people and turned the car around and tried to drive away.
As they were leaving, the car stalled, and Keddie and one of his friends began punching the victims through the car windows. Keddie threw between five and eight punches.
The two incidents make up the fifth and sixth assault convictions for Keddie, who last served 94 days for an assault causing bodily harm.
The Crown sought a 18 month total sentence, while the defence asked for 10-13 months.
During his lengthy closing arguments, Selamaj painted a picture of his client that has owned up to his actions, is remorseful, and has turned a corner on his life for the first time.
“Mr. Keddie does not want me to say, on his behalf, that he’s been unlucky, that you should feel sorry for him,” Selamaj said. “He knows that for a period of his life that he did not appreciate the breaks he was given.”
He explained that Keddie has since moved to White Rock with his mother and has offers of employment from family.
In handing down her sentence, Judge Michelle Daneliuk said she could not ignore Keddie's violent past and chastised him for violently inserting himself into incidents that had nothing to do with him, but spoke optimistically about support from his family.
He was sentenced to eight months for the nightclub attack and 60 days for the after-school fight for a total of 300 days behind bars.
Daneliuk allowed Keddie to hug his family goodbye before being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, which he did so in tears.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/234238/jailed-for-nightclub-ambush
0 new messages