Jamie Navarro was told to leave a bachelor party at a home on a quiet North Kildonan street for being disruptive, but then returned to pick up a friend who had got into a fight and left the house.
Navarro drove back to the house on Bonner Avenue early on Aug. 7, 2022, to pick up his pal, who was waiting down the road. He’d decided to take a gun — his legally owned semi-automatic 9-mm pistol.
When he arrived, there were people standing outside the home and Navarro demanded to know who had fought his friend.
Residents of Bonner Avenue, a quiet River East street, were left on edge after stray gunfire left bullet holes in a vehicle parked nearby and the front window of a neighbour’s house (pictured) on Sunday morning.
He pointed his pistol at one partygoer, who brushed it away. Navarro then recklessly fired off nine shots from his car as people stood nearby, showering the bride and groom with broken glass when three bullets struck a parked vehicle beside them.
One of the other rounds hit the host’s house, while another went through the front window of a neighbour’s house. No one was struck by the bullets.
After a trial, Navarro, 36, was convicted in provincial court in January of pointing a firearm, being in a vehicle with a loaded handgun and discharging a gun while being reckless to the life or safety of another person.
Provincial court Judge Herbert Lawrence Allen sentenced Navarro to six years in prison last month.
“The gravity of recklessly firing a firearm in the circumstances of this matter is clear,” Allen wrote in his decision. “Gun violence is well documented as to the harm brought to communities. All concerned were very fortunate that none of the people on the street, in the yard, or in the two affected residences were injured or killed.
“The fact that this shooting took place in a quiet residential area and that multiple bullets struck residences in the middle of the night is aggravating. As to the bullet that hit the neighbour’s house, it not only struck the front window, but it penetrated an interior wall before embedding in the wall of an office next to the occupant’s bedroom.”
Navarro was arrested days after the shooting, following a Winnipeg police search of his home on the 2700 block of Main Street.
The judge said the homeowner who hosted the party, Jorge Torres, provided a victim impact statement to the court, describing the events as “one of the worst nights of my life.”
“People trusted me, people trusted my home as a safe place and I in turn allowed the wrong people in my home,” his statement said, in part.
Crown prosecutors Amy Wood and Bryton Moen had sought nine years in prison for Navarro, while defence lawyer Kristen Jones asked for three years.
The judge noted that Navarro did not appear to be aware of the harm he caused to others present at the party.
Navarro had no record prior to the Bonner Avenue shooting. His brother told a probation officer who prepared a pre-sentence report that they had grown up in a happy home without violence.
Navarro left school in Grade 12 after a girlfriend got pregnant. He’s currently a father to two children.
He had worked in the construction industry in various roles throughout his adult life until a motorcycle accident in 2015 left him injured, causing post-traumatic stress disorder.
Navarro also said he had been assaulted in 2020, which left him in hospital for six months, resulting in “chronic and severe stress reactions,” according to a letter from a psychotherapist who treated him.
The defence argued Navarro’s PTSD caused an overreaction, but the judge didn’t buy it. Allen said the shooting was not a spur-of-the-moment reaction to stress.
“Mr. Navarro deliberately chose to return to the street in front of the party rather than up the street where his friend had told him he would be waiting — apparently looking to escalate rather than de-escalate the situation,” said Allen.
Navarro will also be barred from owning weapons for 10 years and was ordered to hand over his DNA to police.
Erik Pindera
Reporter
Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Erik.
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