The night he squeezed the trigger of his handgun, he never meant the stray bullet to hit and kill an unlucky pedestrian who happened to pass by, Edward Paredes says.
Which left Mr. Paredes facing hard questions yesterday about what he was doing on a busy downtown Toronto sidewalk, pointing a 9 mm semi-automatic with its safety off and a round in the chamber.
Testifying in his defence at the Brass Rail murder trial, Mr. Paredes said he only fired a shot to scare the bouncer who ejected him from the Yonge Street strip club on Jan. 12, 2008.
"I blame myself… I did it myself, I did it," Mr. Paredes said.
A department-store salesman who lives in Scarborough, he said he carried a pistol in downtown Toronto after he was mugged at gunpoint and lost his iPod near the Eaton Centre the previous summer.
Mr. Paredes, 24, and his best friend, Awet Zekarias, 25, had gone to the Brass Rail to celebrate Mr. Zekarias's birthday.
They were charged with second-degree murder after Mr. Paredes fired his handgun outside the club and killed a passerby, John O'Keefe.
Crown attorney Hank Goody portrayed Mr. Paredes as a brash, careless man who got a thrill out from sneaking a gun into the strip club.
"You were quite the gangster weren't you? You were a Mack Daddy. You had a gun with you. You were feeling good about it," Mr. Goody said.
Right after Mr. Knox put a headlock on him and tossed him out, Mr. Paredes took out his gun and pulled back the slide, loading a bullet into the chamber.
"I just wanted to scare him. I racked it to show them who you are messing with," Mr. Paredes said.
Instead of holstering the pistol, he tucked it under his coat as he began walking away with Mr. Zekarias.
That was when Mr. Knox, called at them, waiving the cellphone Mr. Zekarias had left behind. The two accused said the bouncer teased them by shouting: "Come get your phone, you pussy."
Mr. Knox previously testified he had a baton with him. "I saw he had something in his hand. I thought it was a knife," Mr. Paredes said yesterday.
Mr. Paredes said he fired a shot in the air to scare Mr. Knox.
He said he only found out the next day that he had killed Mr. O'Keefe.
Three months before the incident, Mr. Paredes had purchased his legally registered Baby Desert Eagle pistol after taking courses at a shooting range.
He conceded he broke several gun-handling rules: He transported his gun loaded with the safety off. He took it downtown. He had a holster even though he wasn't licensed to use one.
The night of Jan. 12, 2008, he loaded six rounds into his gun's magazine and drove to Mr. Zekarias's apartment.
An earlier plan to rent a limo and go to the Guvernment Nightclub had fallen through. Mr. Paredes suggested the Brass Rail.
He kept the gun in the holster on his hip, under his coat, Mr. Paredes said.
After parking the car, Mr. Paredes said he didn't realized immediately he still had the gun. Since he knew that the Brass Rail didn't search patrons, he decided not to return to the car.
"I just got lazy and I didn't put it back in the car and I have to live with that now."
Mirroring the testimony Mr. Zekarias gave Monday, Mr. Paredes said he felt angry and humiliated when the staff expelled them.
He denied previous testimonies suggesting he had been rude and unwilling to move to another table or to order drinks.
He said he had gone upstairs to check out the VIP section but left when told there was a $20 cover charge. He denied that he said that "Gangsters don't pay."
Tu Thanh Ha