String of criminal offences earn man prison timet

By Delon Shurtz on November 16, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

A 24-year-old southern Alberta man who racked up a slew of criminal offences over the past 19 months, including assaults and threats to cause death, has been sentenced to nearly five months in jail.
Brandon Jesse Marshall was sentenced Friday in Lethbridge provincial court, where he pleaded guilty to the charges, as well as to charges of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, failure to attend court, assaulting a peace officer, resisting a peace officer, mischief, and failure to comply with release conditions, 
Marshall’s string of offences began April 12, 2020 while he was at the Chinook Regional Hospital. He became upset and spit into a security guard’s eye and attempted to kick a peace officer while he was being escorted out of the hospital.
“He was generally rather combative, vulgar and threatening at the time,” Crown Prosecutor Clayton Giles told the judge.
The following month, while Marshall was living with his grandparents in Coaldale, his grandmother asked police to remove Marshall from their home because he was in medical distress after taking the drug Xanax. He calmed down, however, admitted to taking drugs, and police and emergency responders left. A couple of hours later, however, he became agitated again, began throwing items around the house, and police had to be called again.
They tried to calm him down but Marshall grew more upset and told police to shoot him. He also grabbed at an officers utility belt before officers got him under control and took him to the police station. At the station Marshall spit in a guard’s face.
During a third incident Aug. 18 of 2020, Marshall was at the hospital again and knocked over a cart. A physician confronted Marshall about his behaviour, and Marshall threatened her with a scalpel and said “he was going to cut her with it.”
Two months later Marshall was throwing items, including firewood, inside a 7-Eleven store, and knocking items off the shelves.
“He was beligerent, vulgar and, I’m going to suggest, vaguely threatening toward the clerk,” Giles said. He added there was no explanation for his “gratuitous” behaviour.
In February of this year police were again called to Marshall’s grandparents’ home in relation to an altercation with his grandfather. The two were “screaming” at each other and when an officer attempted to break them up, Marshall asked the officer to shoot him and said he wanted to die.
An officer attempted to arrest Marshall under the Mental Health Act, but Marshall resisted and kicked the officer in the head and tried to headbutt the officers even after he had been handcuffed. After he was placed in the police cruiser, he damaged the door by repeatedly kicking it, and officers ultimately had to spray him with pepper spray to make him stop.
Also in February, Marshall was taken to the hospital under the Mental Health Act, and eventually cleared by a physician. He asked police to take him to his grandparents’ home, but the officer told him he was not welcome at their home. Marshall said he would stay at the hospital, but he was under court-ordered release conditions he not be at the hospital unless he had a genuine medical issue, which no longer existed once he was medically cleared.
The police offered to take him to the shelter, but instead he asked to use a hospital phone and then headbutted an officer in the face after he was not allowed to use the phone.
Lethbridge lawyer Greg White explained Marshall is dealing with the death of his father earlier this year, and suffers from substance abuse, addiction, and mental health problems. But, White added, Marshall seems to have stabilized during his time in custody while he’s waited to deal with his charges.
“It’s been interesting…to see the changes in Mr. Marshall as he’s been in custody,” White said. “I would speak with him while he was out of custody initially when some of these charges were laid, and he’s just a totally different person right now.”
White also noted that Marshall suffered a workplace accident in April, from which he broke his leg and hip.
“I think all of these things together and his period of time in custody have assisted Mr. Marshall to stabilize, and it’s hopeful that with probation assisting him he’s going to move forward and never come back into the criminal justice system again.”
Marshall was sentenced to 142 days in jail, but given full credit for time he spent in pre-trial custody, effectively completing his jail sentence. He will be on probation for one year, however, during which he must live at an approved residence and be assessed and receive counseling and treatment for psychological issues, anger management and substance abuse.

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