A man who allegedly threatened to rape and kill a woman who had insulted his girlfriend with a racist slur in a Burnaby mall parking lot has entered into a one-year peace bond that bans him from contacting the woman and possessing weapons.
Burnaby RCMP were called to a parking lot at the Metroplis at Metrotown mall at about 6:50 p.m. on Dec. 17, 2020, according to facts presented by Crown prosecutor Louise Gauld in Vancouver provincial court Monday.
A woman told police another woman, a stranger, had “hit her arm and was throwing items at her location,” Gauld said.
While police were on route, mall security told them the boyfriend of the woman who had called in had arrived at the scene and threatened to find, rape and kill the woman who had thrown the items, according to Gauld.
Police tracked down the 33-year-old man, Chih-Shun (Derrick) Yang, and a search revealed he had a kitchen knife and a pair of carbon knuckles on him, Gauld said.
In court, Yang faced two weapons charges, but a joint submission from Gauld and Yang’s lawyer, Zack Myers, called for those charges to be stayed and for Yang to be ordered to enter into a one-year peace bond with conditions not to contact the woman or her family or go anywhere they might be.
Gauld also called for a weapons ban.
A judge can order a peace bond in cases where someone has reasonable grounds to fear another person will cause them personal injury or damage their property.
Entering into a peace bond is not an admission of guilt to a crime, but defendants have to obey the conditions of the peace bond or face possible criminal charges.
Myers said Yang and his girlfriend had been going through a stressful time when they went Christmas shopping at the mall on the day of the incident.
She had recently told Yang she had been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, according to Myers.
Yang said the other woman had then insulted his girlfriend with a racial slur at the mall, Myers said.
“He got really upset,” Myers said. “He said (the other woman) had already left the scene and he was essentially uttering words to himself because he was so angry and upset about the racial slur, but he doesn’t disagree that she has reasonable grounds to have fear of him by virtue of the incident. He said he didn’t intend to follow through with anything that he was saying. It was essentially a venting mechanism.”
Myers said his client “regrets the incident entirely.”
Yang has a previous criminal record with a number of drug-trafficking convictions, but Myers noted he didn’t have any convictions for violent crimes against women or men except for a dated conviction for willfully obstructing a police officer.
B.C. provincial court Judge Laura Bakan ordered Yang to enter into a one-year peace bond, during which he is banned from contacting the woman and possessing any weapons.
“I am satisfied that, in the circumstances, a peace bond protects the community,” Bakan said.
The weapons charges against Yang were stayed.
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