A man who mowed down two police dog handlers with his car in Burnaby in 2019 listened to the catastrophic effect the crash has had on their lives but offered no apology at a sentencing hearing this month.
Jason Kirupakaran, 35, was in Vancouver provincial court on Oct. 17.
He was convicted in January of two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and two counts of failing to stop at an accident causing bodily harm.
The charges relate to a horrific crash in Burnaby’s Big Bend area on March 4, 2019.
Abbotsford Police Department Cpl. Aaron Courtney and RCMP Cpl. Matteo Perizzolo, both members of the Lower Mainland Integrated Police Dog Service, were outside their vehicles in the 5000 block of North Fraser Way just before noon getting ready to unload their dogs for some training exercises in the area, according to information presented in court.
Their lives changed forever when Kirupakaran, fleeing from police in a Toyota Camry, plowed into them while passing a semi truck on the right in the busy industrial area.
As the two officers lay on the road with life-altering injuries, he kept driving, abandoning his car about 10 minutes away on Byrne Road and later saying it had been stolen, according to findings at his trial.
Kirupakaran "adamantly" denied he was the driver, but there was video evidence of a man leaving the Camry where it was abandoned, and Kirupakaran's sister identified that man to police as her brother.
She testified she later got a text message from her brother telling her "bitches will get stiches."
Kirupakaran denied the message was from him, but B.C. provincial court Judge Andrea Brownstone said she was satisfied, based on his sister's testimony, the content of the messages and the fact the phone number was associated with him, that he had sent it.
At his sentencing hearing this month, Crown prosecutor Mark Myhre said Kirupakaran should get a seven-year prison sentence and a 10-year driving ban for his crimes.
"He robbed those men of happy lives; he robbed their families of active fathers and husbands; he robbed our community of people who were making significant contributions and were set to continue to do so for many years to come," Myrhe said of the officers. "And how did he respond when he hit those two men? He kept driving. His instinct was to save his own skin."
'Dream job'
In a victim impact statement read out by Myrhe, Courtney, a father of a newborn baby and two other young children at the time of the crash, told the court he was in the prime of his life and career in March 2019.
He was working at his dream job after 11 years as a police dog handler and was ready to graduate with his fourth police dog, Kato, which he had raised from a puppy.
"I was experienced, confident, established as a senior handler, athletically fit and ready to take on even more," he said.
What happened on March 4, 2019 was a "complete nightmare," he said, and memories of lying on the road after being hit and hearing his friend Perizzolo "groaning and gurgling in agony" next to him haunt him still.
Courtney said brain trauma, PTSD and other injuries from the crash have rendered him a "liability to public safety," limited him to desk work and ended his career as a K9 officer.
"I lost my childhood dream career, I lost my dogs, which were my best friends, I lost my physical being ... I lost my ability to financially support my family," he said.
After the crash, Courtney said he couldn't be the husband and father he wanted to be.
"I lost the ability to get down on the ground and play Lego or carpet hockey with my kids, teach them how to ride a bike, carry my children or even bathe my infant daughter when she needed her head held and supported during bath time," he said.
Not a day goes by that Courtney doesn't think about March 4, 2019, and many days are still a "dark struggle," he said.
'My dogs, my dreams and aspirations were all taken from me'
Perizzolo, whose victim impact statement was read out in court by his sister-in-law, said the crash left him with a back broken in four places, seven broken ribs, a collapsed lung, two broken ankles, a shattered shoulder blade, a ruptured knee, soft tissue damage and brain trauma.
"Every day is made up of different levels of pain and discomfort," he said.
After 12 days in the hospital and five surgeries, Perizzolo said he still has at least two more to go.
He was still in the hospital when he was informed his police dog, Kola, would be taken from him.
Like Courtney, his injuries have rendered him unable to work as a K9 officer after working in the role for eight years.
Since the crash, he said he has done some light duty RCMP work but has recently been told there is no more work for him with the force.
"The day I was run over, my dogs, my dreams and aspirations were all taken from me," he said.
A 47-year-old father of five, Perizzolo said he has been physically incapable of playing with kids since the accident.
"I can't skate, ski, ride bikes, hike, fish, hunt together," he said. "Now I'm just a spectator to all of these things."
Perizzolo said his anxiety, PTSD and depression "have spun out of control," and writing his victim impact statement was a step backward for his mental health.
"The events of March 4, 2019 are ones I wish to not remember," he said.
'Just the beginning of our nightmare'
Bernadette Perizzolo, Perizzolo's wife, told the court she was pregnant with the couple's fifth child when her husband was hit.
She arrived at Royal Columbian Hospital to find him confused and moaning in pain.
"That was just the beginning of our nightmare," she said.
After her husband's release from the hospital, she said she had to become "the family’s everything."
"I had to make up to the kids for what Matteo couldn't give them and also de-escalate the situations when Matteo would lose his temper for a minor stress in our house," she said.
Eventually she also had to upgrade her nursing qualifications and return to work to help support the family financially.
Former RCMP colleagues launched a GoFundMe campaign to help the family out.
"This isn't the life we imagined," Bernadette Perizzolo said.
'Extremely dangerous'
Myrhe said Kirupakaran's blameworthiness was "very high" because of what he did before and after the crash, and a "stern" sentence was necessary.
He noted Kirupakaran was fleeing from police before he ran over the officers.
An officer had approached his Camry on foot after a 911 call about a dangerous driver, and Kirupakaran had sped off.
Video evidence showed him driving "extremely dangerously" away from the scene.
Over at least three kilometres, which included a construction zone, witnesses reported seeing the Camry speed and swerve and finally run into the two officers while travelling at up to 63 km/h and passing a semi truck on the right.
His dangerous driving continued after the crash, according to witnesses.
"He doesn't even slow down," Myhre said after playing a video of the incident in court.
Other aggravating factors in the case, according to Myhre, were Kirupakaran's threats to his sister, his criminal record and his driving record, with 51 violations over a 13-year period, including five violations within the first year of him getting his licence.
"Mr. Kirupakaran has a long history of indifference to the rules of the road," Myhre said.
Kirupakaran had an abusive father, according to a pre-sentencing report, and has taken steps to turn his life around since the crash, but Myhre said those mitigating factors were "greatly tempered" by Kirupakaran's lack of insight into his actions and his lack of demonstrated remorse.
Myhre said a seven-year prison sentence was necessary to "adequately condemn" Kirupakaran's actions.
'I'm forever grateful for what's happened so far'
Defence lawyer Dale Melville, however, argued Kirupakaran should serve a two-year sentence in the community with house arrest followed by three years of probation.
He said such a sentence would actually keep his client under court supervision longer than the federal sentence proposed by the Crown.
Melville said Kirupakaran has kicked his fentanyl and cocaine addictions after one relapse last August that got him kicked out of the Luke 15 recovery centre.
Luke 15 invited him back, and he is now "thriving," Melville said.
He noted Kirupakaran has had no problems on bail for five-and-a-half years, except his relapse last year, and has strong family support.
Luke 15 executive director Nigel Vincent told the court Kirupakaran experienced a genuine conversion at the recovery centre and has turned his life around.
Vincent said he was concerned it would be detrimental to Kirupakaran if the support provided by Luke 15 was cut off.
In his own comments to the court, Kirupakaran said he had been living a life of addiction and hopelessness at the time of the crash.
"I'm forever grateful for what's happened so far that I was sent to Luke 15 and I was able to turn my life around," he said, "and that would have never happened if this whole court process never happened."
Kirupakaran made no mention of the officers in his remarks.
Judge Brownstone is scheduled to deliver her sentence on Nov. 7.
(No police dogs were injured during the crash.)
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