MANDEL: Three years for manslaughter in death of retired CBC producer

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He got a deal because of his Indigenous heritage — now we can only hope the long-term criminal who caused the death of a beloved retired CBC producer uses it to finally turn his life around.

That would make it the kind of ending, his cousin says, that storyteller Michael Finlay would have loved to tell.

In a downtown courtroom, Robert Cropearedwolf , 45, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the “push or shove” on Danforth Ave. that caused the death of the elderly and frail Finlay in January 2023. With credit for pre-sentence custody, he has 20 months left to serve.

Crown prosecutors had asked for more than double that term: six to eight years in a federal penitentiary.

Following the Supreme Court’s R v Gladue decision in 1999, which found the over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system is rooted in systemic racism, the judge is required by law to consider an Aboriginal offender’s background in sentencing.

Justice David Porter outlined Cropearedwolf’s sad upbringing — seized by child welfare from a neglectful, alcoholic mother, he was shifted from foster home to foster home and severed from his Indigenous culture. The judge also detailed how the young man “sought refuge” in alcohol, heroin and cocaine and fell into a life of crime that spans 29 years and includes convictions in both Canada and the United States.

Most are for property crimes — including an eight-year sentence in Illinois for burglary — but also include assault with a weapon and domestic assault.

Cropearedwolf, on bail for his latest burglary charges, was wearing a “Spitfire” mask, impeding his vision as he walked eastbound on Danforth, near Jones Ave. Finlay, 73, was walking westbound toward the grocery store.

They were strangers to each other that day — and their split-second encounter would have tragic consequences.

Cropearedwolf insisted he didn’t see the man was elderly or infirm when he “pushed or shoved” him to get by. When he realized that he’d knocked him to the ground, he told the court, he panicked and fled. “I have no greater regret,” he said.

Finlay’s rib cage struck a planter on his fall, fracturing two ribs. A few hours after his release from Michael Garron hospital, he called 911 because he was having trouble breathing. He suffered a cardiac arrest in the ambulance and was removed from life support several days later.

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The blow and fall would have been unlikely to kill a healthy man, the judge said. But it would prove a fatal blow for someone with heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

“This was not a deliberate attack on an elderly man,” Porter said. But Finlay’s age and infirmity were unknown “due to Mr. Cropearedwolf’s recklessness in walking down a busy sidewalk with a mask over his face that obscured his view.”

In 2010, Finlay retired from the CBC, where he was well-known on the radio network for more than three decades. His shocking death was one of several recent random acts of violence in Toronto that left many on edge.

At Cropearedwolf’s sentencing hearing in July, Paul Knox, a friend of Finlay’s for 50 years, gave a victim impact statement describing how the attack on someone elderly and disabled like himself has left him afraid.

His wife, author Lesley Krueger, has attended all of Cropearedwolf’s court dates and said the offender’s background is important — “he’s had a rough time, there’s no doubt about that “– but so is community safety.

“There are large numbers of Aboriginal people, Black people and people of all sorts of backgrounds who have had very dreadful times and most of them don’t hurt people,” she told reporters outside the courthouse.

Finlay’s cousin, Lesley Murray, said she agreed with the judge’s decision to only give Cropearedwolf a three-year sentence after hearing his history and believing that he never intended to hurt anyone. “I do hope rehabilitation helps him in the long run so that he has a better life for himself.”

Some of us may remain skeptical, but Murray believes her witty, raconteur of a cousin would have approved of this ending to his final, life-ending story.

“He always wanted the best for people,” she said, “and I think he would want the best for Mr. Cropearedwolf.”

mmandel@postmedia.com