Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Monday, June 25, 2007

INUVIK - An Inuvik man who shot a taxi driver while robbing him in March pleaded guilty in Territorial Supreme Court June 19 to using a firearm in the commission of a robbery.

Edward Snowshoe, 21, was sentenced to 5 years in prison June 20 for robbing an Inuvik taxi driver with a 22-calibre rifle on March 1.

Snowshoe's defense attorney, Michael Hansen, described Snowshoe's demeanor that day as "fatalistic."

"It was either that or kill myself," Snowshoe said of his actions when he was arrested, according to a statement of facts read aloud in court by Crown attorney Donna Keats.

Wearing a neckwarmer that partially obscured his face, Snowshoe requested a taxi ride at 9:11 that morning and asked the taxi driver, Kelly El Khatib, to take him to the airport. El Khatib informed Snowshoe that, as far as he knew, there were no flights going out for a while.

At this point, Snowshoe revealed his rifle and pointed it at El Khatib.

"The accused asked the driver if he thought the gun was real," said Keats.

Snowshoe then ordered El Khatib to drive towards the airport.

They eventually stopped at a highway turnoff near Shell Lake.

At one point, El Khatib tried to contact his dispatcher, but Snowshoe told him to keep his hands at the top of the wheel, later firing one bullet into the front dashboard as a warning.

El Khatib "continually pleaded" with Snowshoe to let him go, telling Snowshoe to take the car.

El Khatib later managed to run away from the scene and flag down a bystander. Snowshoe fired at El Khatib through a rear window, wounding El Khatib once below his ribcage.

Snowshoe stole $45 of fare money and drove the taxi a distance of 3.9 kilometres back in the direction of Inuvik.

"It was almost as if he wanted to get caught," said Hansen.

Fifteen minutes after El Khatib had picked him up, Snowshoe surrendered to police, telling them, "Once I got started on this, karma carried me through." Snowshoe also voluntarily told police that he had taped over the rifle to avoid leaving fingerprints.

He also told police at the time, "I was prepared to get caught. My life was going nowhere."

Snowshoe was neither intoxicated nor high at the time of the incident and had planned the robbery earlier that morning, said Keats.

"It may not have been sophisticated, but it was planned," said Keats. "Snowshoe said he felt sick about what he was going to do, but he continued on anyway."

Hansen could offer no reason for his client's actions, but did indicate that Snowshoe felt a great deal of "personal failure" when, one month before, two of his younger siblings had been taken from his home by social services. (Snowshoe, along with his mother, served as a parental figure to his siblings, Hansen said.)

Snowshoe told he court he was "regretful for the devastation caused to the victim and his family."

El Khatib was released from hospital a day after the robbery. The doctors left the bullet in his body because it was not deemed a threat to his vital organs, said Keats.

"It was pure luck that (Snowshoe) did not cause more damage to his victim," she told the judge.