Redd Alert member who fatally shot Edmonton man sentenced to 13 years in prison
Shortneck's sentencing hearing pulled back the curtain on Redd Alert, one of Edmonton's best-known street gangs.
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A low-level member of Edmonton’s Redd Alert street gang has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for manslaughter after a hearing that delved into the group’s history and influence.
Kody Shortneck, 30, pleaded guilty last year to shooting Thomas Richard Russell on orders from gang higher-ups, admitting he fired a shotgun blast at Russell’s legs in the basement of a central Edmonton home.
While the gang intended only to maim Russell, he quickly died of blood loss. The house was burned down to destroy evidence.
Shortneck’s sentencing hearing pulled back the curtain on Redd Alert, one of Edmonton’s best-known street gangs. Shortneck argued he should receive a shorter sentence because he was coerced into shooting Russell — both by a superior who held him at gunpoint and by the code of violence that governs Redd Alert, which court heard recruits among vulnerable Indigenous people.
Court of King’s Bench Justice John Henderson agreed Shortneck was coerced by a direct threat of violence, and that his “moral blameworthiness” is also reduced somewhat by the context of his gang involvement.
He nonetheless condemned Shortneck’s actions.
“Mr. Shortneck cannot avoid responsibility for the calculated brutal and vicious actions that resulted in the death of Mr. Russell,” Henderson said in a decision released last week. “However, Mr. Shortneck was not responsible for the unfortunate circumstances that resulted in him being in the position he was in at the time of the shooting.”
‘Leg warmer’
Russell, 32, was a beloved father who fell into addiction and street life. He suffered delusions, including that he was the leader of Redd Alert, despite having no affiliation with the gang. This irked Redd Alert’s actual leaders, who branded him a snitch. They ordered Shortneck to give Russell a “leg warmer” — a gunshot to the leg.
Russell was lured to a home in Edmonton’s Eastwood neighbourhood on Jan. 22, 2022. Once inside, a group emerged including a senior Redd Alert member with a 12-gauge shotgun. He ordered Russell into the basement and told Shortneck to “take care of it.” When Shortneck said “no,” he was held at gunpoint and threatened. Feeling he had no choice, Shortneck took the shotgun and went downstairs.
Once in the basement, a youth armed with his own shotgun shot Russell in the left leg. Shortneck fired a blast at his right. Russell collapsed and bled out within minutes. Fearing the body would be discovered, the senior Redd Alert member ordered the house burned down. Russell’s badly burned body was pulled from the rubble the next morning.
At the time of the shooting, Shortneck had been out of jail for two weeks on probation and was under a firearms prohibition.
‘Extreme turbulence’
Shortneck was charged in July 2022 with kidnapping with a firearm, manslaughter with a firearm, interference with a body and arson — after a lengthy investigation that included a “Mr. Big” sting. He pleaded guilty last June to manslaughter with a firearm and committing an offence at the direction of a criminal organization.
Crown prosecutor Marissa Tordoff asked Shortneck be sentenced to 14 years in prison — 13 years for manslaughter and one year for the criminal organization offence. Evan McIntyre, Shortneck’s lawyer, sought a range of seven to nine years.
A Gladue report found Shortneck grew up in an environment of “extreme turbulence” caused in part by his family’s history of residential school attendance and children’s services involvement. He grew up on Louis Bull First Nation, one of four nations at Maskwacis, 96 kilometres south of Edmonton, and was the victim of gang violence on three occasions as a youth.
As part of its case, the defence called Dan Jones, an incoming Edmonton police commissioner and former Edmonton police officer. The chair of NorQuest College’s justice studies program, Jones was part of a group that studied Indigenous gangs in Western Canada, interviewing 587 prisoners and 136 correctional officers across the provincial corrections system.
Jones said Indigenous people with backgrounds like Shortneck’s are especially susceptible to gang involvement.
“Many members joined these gangs in prison for protection,” Jones wrote. “Alternatively, the gang provided a sense of belonging that was only thinly connected to Indigenous culture or history. The gang can be a substitute for family and other forms of brotherhood.”
Members of Redd Alert — which was founded in Edmonton and maintains ties with the Hells Angels — know that violence will follow if anyone refuses to carry out orders from senior members, Jones added.
‘Moral blameworthiness’
Henderson found Shortneck’s background does merit some reduction in sentence, but stressed his “moral blameworthiness is not reduced simply because he was a member of the Redd Alert gang.”
“I conclude that it would violate the intention of Parliament, and it would be contrary to public policy to recognize any generalized reduction in moral blameworthiness for those who commit offences for the benefit of organized crime.”
However, the “path” that led to Shortneck’s gang involvement is “an Indigenous sentencing factor that reduces his moral blameworthiness,” the judge said.
With credit for pretrial custody, Shortneck has nine years and two months left to serve.
Another man charged in the case, Jordan Suchodolski, faces trial later this year. A youth was acquitted last year — a decision the Crown is appealing — while a man who admitted to helping start the fire pleaded guilty to arson charges and was sentenced to 15 months in jail.
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