An Argument Over Who Should Pay For Nightclub Tickets Ended In Someone Getting Killed In BC
A man in B.C. bought tickets for a group of friends to go to a nightclub and when they decided not to come or to pay for the $80 debt, it ended in a deadly public shooting in 2006. The shooting happened in a parking lot in Burnaby, the day after the tickets were bought.
The man who was convicted of killing someone in the incident and wounding another recently appealed the case, and the appeal was allowed in part.
Court documents said that Lee Chia Weng appealed both of his convictions, of murder and attempted murder, arguing that the judge for his trial failed to apply the "mens rea requirements," which account for a person's state of mind and intention to commit a crime.
In the appeal trial, the judge said that the trial judge "did not err in his findings or analysis on the murder charge," but did fail to "make a critical finding on the appellant’s intent in relation to the attempted murder charge and applied the mens rea requirement on that charge incorrectly."
Due to this, Weng's appeal was allowed in part. The appeal judge said that "the conviction for attempted murder is quashed and replaced with a conviction for aggravated assault, and the appeal from the conviction for murder is dismissed."
In other words, the murder conviction remains as is, and the conviction for attempted murder is replaced by one for aggravated assault.
The deadly shooting that happened over an $80 debt
The fatal shooting happened in a parking lot in Burnaby, on January 22, 2006, in the early morning. Court documents said that the day before the shooting is when the nightclub tickets were bought by Weng’s friend, named Leo Tang.
Tang bought the tickets for Te "Ralph" Wu and his friends, who decided that they did not want to go. Tang called Wu from the nightclub and Wu said that he would not pay for the tickets.
They argued over the situation and then both agreed to meet in a parking lot to talk about the $80 that the tickets cost.
Tang then asked Weng — who was later convicted of the murder and attempted murder — to come to the meeting with him. Before the meeting, Weng spoke to Wu over the phone and exchanged insults, and Weng told him to get ready "to swallow some bullets."
After that conversation, Weng said that the whole situation was then also his "matter," and he got a gun from his house. Weng and Tang then took another friend with them, to go and meet Wu and his group of friends (which included Shaoxin Zhang.)
A fight broke out and Weng fired multiple shots, injuring Wu and killing Shaoxin Zhang.
Court documents added that Weng left for Taiwan the day after the shooting, and in 2018 "was extradited to Canada and interviewed by the police."
"In his statement, Mr. Weng admitted that he was at the parking lot on the night in question and that he went there with Mr. Tang to get Mr. Tang’s money back. However, he denied shooting anyone and stated he did not know Mr. Wu or Mr. Zhang," it added.
The defence counsel argued that Weng "fired the shots wildly in the heat of the moment in circumstances of fear and anger," and that Zhang "was simply an innocent bystander."
On October 4, 2019, the trial judge sentenced Weng to "life imprisonment with parole ineligibility of 12 years on the murder conviction and nine years imprisonment concurrent on the attempted murder conviction."
This article's right-hand cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
