The man who fatally stabbed another person who stepped in to defend a woman should be jailed for five years, a Crown prosecutor and defence lawyer told a Vancouver judge June 6.
On June 23, 2018, a fight unfolded on West Hastings Street near the intersection with Abbott Street, according to the Vancouver Police Department.
Abeal Negussie Abera, 26, was stabbed and died of his injuries a week after he was rushed to hospital in critical condition.
Prosecutor Patrick Fullerton told Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Reginald Harris June 6 that Abera had stepped between Benny Rae Armstrong and his common-law wife as they were having a dispute in a Downtown Eastside alley.
According to Fullerton, Abera had said: “Yo, bro, she’s just a girl. You don’t have to treat her like that calm down.”
Armstrong then plunged a sharp object into Abera’s chest, piercing his heart.
Fullerton said Abera was heard to respond, “Are you serious? You stabbed me in the chest.”
Fullerton said self-defence were clearly issues that were not in play in the incident.
It was some time later that Armstrong told police in a statement he had stabbed Abera.
While Armstrong said he did not know Abera, the girlfriend said she did.
She had initially told police she did not know who had stabbed Abera but later admitted to misleading investigators.
The series of events was caught on CCTV. This included Armstrong leaning toward a storm drain near Carroll and Abbott streets. A knife was later found in the drain but could not be forensically connected to the case.
The courtroom was full of Abera’s family and friends, some sobbing, using tissues that Harris had asked a sheriff to pass out.
“I sympathize with their loss and their pain,” Harris said.
Armstrong is represented by lawyer Lionel Farmer, who told the judge that Armstrong is very remorseful about what happened.
A five-year sentence will be reduced by time Armstrong has been in custody. That period is 442 days, credited at 663 days. That would leave a sentence of 1,162 days—about three years and three months—left for Armstrong to serve.
July 28 has been set for the passing of sentence.
Assault case
The lawyers told Harris that Armstrong should be sentenced to a concurrent jail term of 180 days after he pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm.
There, the court heard, Armstrong had woken up in the street on Dec. 30, 2023, to find a man going through his pockets.
He retaliated against the man using a “homemade, sword-like object,” Fullerton said.
The weapon was, in fact, window flashing with tape on one end to serve as a handle.
At the time of Abera’s death, police said they didn’t believe the attack was random and there was no risk to the general public.
It was on March 26, 2024, that police announced Armstrong had been arrested in connection with the stabbing.
The death was Vancouver’s 10th homicide of 2018.
