Stating that a youth sentence would not be appropriate, a Saskatchewan provincial court judge has ruled that a young man who pleaded guilty to shooting and killing four people and wounding seven others will be sentenced as an adult.
Judge Janet McIvor handed down her decision Friday morning to a packed courtroom in La Loche.
WATCH ABOVE: Coverage of the La Loche school shooting and sentencing hearings
McIvor said while the shooter did appear to feel remorse for killing the two brothers, he did not show the same remorse for the victims at the school.
“For the most part he appeared unaffected” by the victim impact statements presented at his sentencing hearing last year, McIvor said.
She said the crime was heinous and has had a profound impact on the community, with an increase in substance abuse and suicides.
“He ambushed and murdered both (brothers),” McIvor stated, and the school shooting was “planned and deliberate.”
A publication ban on identifying the young man remains in place.
Court has been adjourned until March 16 when sentencing will take place in Meadow Lake.
He had pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder.
As an adult, he faces an automatic life sentence with no chance for parole for 10 years, although he can be credited for time served.
The young man was just shy of his 18th birthday when he went on a shooting spree on Jan. 22, 2016.
An agreed statement of facts read during the sentencing hearing detailed the shooter’s murderous path from a home in La Loche to the community’s high school.
The teen first killed Dayne Fontaine, 17, and then his brother Drayden, who was 13.
Dayne pleaded for his life before he was shot 11 times, including twice in the head. Drayden was shot twice.
The teen then drove to the high school, where surveillance footage captured his frightening walk through the halls, his shotgun raised, as students and staff ran in fear.
Teacher Adam Wood, 35, and teacher’s aide Marie Janvier, 21, were killed and seven others were hurt.
When police arrived, the shooter ran into a women’s washroom where he put his weapon down and gave himself up.
Although the sentencing hearing was held in Meadow Lake, McIvor said she wanted to deliver her decision on whether the young man would be sentenced as a youth or an adult in the community.
Reporters initially locked out of courtroom
Members of the media were initially locked out of the ruling.
A pool reporter was let in over an hour into McIvor’s decision.
With files from The Canadian Press