Graffiti artist's attacker gets three-year sentence

MONTREAL — To his sister, mother and father, he was Brian Kachur, a 19 year-old dearly attached to his family. To most of his friends he was Razor, a graffiti artist whose passion cost him his life.

On November 15, 2009, two teenagers aged 14 and 15 bludgeoned Kachur to death while he was working on another piece of his unique brand of art.

The reason for the brutal attack? The pair was angry he was covering their own graffiti.

On Monday, nearly 14 months after the fact, the youngest of the two attackers pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to the maximum of three years in jail in youth court.

For Kachur's mother, Theresa Brochet, the punishment did not fit the crime that took her son from her.

"Three years for having brutally beaten someone..,how do I feel about the law?" she asked. "I don't think it's enough."

A surveillance tape is what led police to the killers.

They befriended their victim, then attacked him from behind using bricks. The attackers then dumped him in the St-Lawrence River, where he drowned.

Yet it wasn't enough to secure a murder conviction.

"I considered all the evidence we had at our disposal and came to the conclusion that we could not prove specific intent to kill," said prosecutor Karen Ohayon.

The defence convinced the court that the boy was too intoxicated to know what he was doing.

"The fact he was not sober was a very important factor," said defence lawyer Marie-Helene Giroux.

Brochet fails to see the reasoning behind using intoxication as an excuse for killing her son.

"Did you hear him say he was sorry? No!" she said,

The second teenager involved in the case has already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and the prosecution has already announced that it plans to seek a much higher sentence for him than the one imposed Monday.

The older boy is viewed as the leader in the killing of Kachur. He has a lengthy criminal record and he's currently undergoing a psychological evaluation to see if he deserves to be sentenced as an adult.

Taken from: Montreal CTV