“Bizarre and random” is how provincial court Judge Lori Marshall described the incident that brought 26-year-old Dustin Etheridge to court Wednesday, earning him a three-month jail sentence.
“It was a completely random and inexplicable occurrence,” Marshall continued. “Clearly, I think the circumstances speak for themselves that something else was going on.”
Etheridge pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a dangerous weapon, mischief by damaging property and breaching court orders in connection with the incident, which happened in the Torbay Mall parking lot on Torbay Road in St. John’s last October 20.
The court heard that a woman was sitting in her vehicle in the parking lot when Etheridge, whom she didn’t know, tapped on her window with a knife and demanded she roll it down. She refused.
Growing angry, Etheridge used the knife to make deep scratches on the outside of the car.
The woman called police, who arrived to find Etheridge seeming to be searching for something. He appeared extremely paranoid, the officers noted, and was sweaty with enlarged pupils. He was wearing no shirt underneath his jacket.
Etheridge, a carpenter, told police he had been robbed of his cellphone and tools and believed the young woman in the car was responsible. He turned the knife over to the officers and later said he would pay for the damage to the woman’s vehicle.
Etheridge was taken into custody and appeared before a judge before being released later that day.
In a victim impact statement to the court, the woman said she was nervous about returning to her job at MUN after the incident, since she didn’t know whether or not Etheridge was a student and if she might bump into him.
It wasn’t until she was told he wasn’t a MUN student that she was able to lower her guard, she wrote. She said she had not yet sought an estimate for the cost of repairs to her vehicle.
In arguing for a sentence of between 45 and 60 days in jail followed by two years of probation, prosecutor Jessica Gallant tendered Etheridge’s criminal record, and said the incident at hand included inherent violence.
“It’s important to consider the impact this would have had on an individual going about their business,” she said.
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Etheridge’s lawyer, Stephen Orr, argued for a total sentence of 45 days and pointed out a period of probation would be unnecessary, since Etheridge is currently in custody on other more serious charges and it will likely be two years or so before those matters make their way through the courts.
Etheridge and John Squires, 34, were arrested in May by members of the RNC/RCMP Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and charged with conspiring to murder Bradley Summers — an alleged Hell’s Angels associate — as well as various offences related to the carrying of a loaded handgun and breaches of court orders. That case was called in provincial court earlier this week, and the prosecution indicated it was awaiting wiretap evidence to come from police.
Etheridge was convicted in a Corner Brook court last year of dangerous driving after he sped away from police in his Dodge Viper on the Trans-Canada Highway near Deer Lake in 2013. An RCMP officer who had pulled him over for speeding noticed a bulge in the front pocket of his hoodie and asked him to empty the pocket. Etheridge, who had a suspended license at the time, sped off. The officer later located Etheridge on the side of the highway about five kilometers away, and the bulge in his pocket was gone. Etheridge was sentenced to 60 days in jail, served on weekends.
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