‘Suck my toes’ killing nets Ruggles 10 years in prison

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This article was published 21/06/2017 (2498 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police were investigating a fatal shooting in an apartment on Bannerman Avenue last July when Erskine Ruggles walked over to the officers, put down a bag containing a .357 Magnum handgun, and turned himself in.

He told police he shot 20-year-old Kingston Paul during a struggle in order to keep Paul and two other alleged crack dealers from selling drugs out of his Winnipeg home.

That wasn’t quite true, police learned after speaking to the two others who witnessed the shooting — men who, court heard, were entrenched in the city’s drug trade and criminal activity.

They claimed they were hanging out together in Ruggles’ suite July 28, 2016, and would regularly sell crack cocaine there.

They’d taken a handgun along, and all of them were intoxicated. Paul stood up and insulted Ruggles, telling him something to the effect of “suck my toes.” Those were his last words.

Ruggles grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet caused massive injuries to Paul’s heart and liver and he was pronounced dead on arrival at Health Sciences Centre.

Nearly a year later, Ruggles, 62, stood in a Winnipeg courtroom this week and pleaded guilty to manslaughter with a firearm, as his family and friends watched.

Provincial Court Judge Murray Thompson accepted a plea bargain by Crown and defence lawyers and sentenced Ruggles to 10 years in prison, saying the Crown could have pursued a murder charge if not for the guilty plea.

“If I could take back the night, I would. If I could take back the year leading up to the night, I would,” Ruggles told the judge. “I lost control.”

Ruggles has spent much of his life behind bars. He has a lengthy criminal record and serving three separate prison sentences, the most recent of which was in 2006 for aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. After he was released from prison that time, he got clean appeared to be on the right track, defence lawyer Evan Roitenberg told court during sentencing.

A car accident five or six years ago led to Ruggles being prescribed a highly addictive painkiller, and eventually he got involved with drug dealers who encouraged him to use crack cocaine so they could sell the drug from his apartment.

“He bought in, to a degree,” but he didn’t want his home used for drug deals and was trying to leave that lifestyle, Roitenberg said.

While Crown attorney Geoffrey Bayly suggested Ruggles had reacted “in a fit of anger over a childish comment” made by Paul, Roitenberg said his client perceived the comment as a threat and believed he was acting in self-defence.

The comment was meant to express the men “owned” Ruggles, his defence lawyer said. “Mr. Ruggles was being treated like he had no rights in his home.”

“His reaction obviously went beyond what was reasonable in the circumstances,” Judge Thompson concluded.

The charge of manslaughter with a firearm carries a mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay