On Monday, January 31st, the trial of the Calgary youth who is charged with the first-degree murder of Calgary Police officer Sgt. Andrew Harnett, began at the Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary.
 
 
During opening arguments, Crown Prosecutor, Mike Ewenson told Justice Anne Loparco that while some cases concern themselves with issues of identification, while others concern themselves with the issue of what really happened, in the case of the accused, (whose name is under a publication ban as he was not yet 18 when the crime occurred), the crown posited that there are no doubts when it comes to these issues.
 
"It is perhaps easier to articulate what the counter was instead of what it wasn't," Ewenson said. "A respected Sargeant with the Calgary police service working alone on New Year's Eve, keeping our streets safe... This should have simply been a routine traffic stop because the young person was driving a vehicle without the headlights activated. The young person was only going to be given a couple of traffic tickets."
 
Ewenson argued that the accused was so determined to flee the lawful traffic stop that he dragged the police officer almost half a kilometre.
 
"The young person engaged in these actions with Sgt. Harnett hanging on to his vehicle on the driver's side door, yelling for the person to stop but the young person did not stop. He did the opposite," he said. "He accelerated down the street in northeast Calgary reaching speeds fastly in excess of the speed limit. When that failed, you will see him turn the steering wheel. And this is the last thing you would see on the body-worn camera because a young person through that action was ultimately successful."
 
However, while the defence counsel, Bob Aloneiss, agreed with the prosecution insofar as there is no mystery as to who killed the Calgary police officer on New Year's Eve in 2021, he did however underline that he does not agree with the first-degree murder charge, as his client plead guilty plea to a reduced charge of manslaughter in December.  
 
"Reasonable people can look at an incident and see things differently, and agree to disagree. We agree that the facts, in this case, are not going to be very much in dispute," he said. "Legally, and as evidenced by the guilty plea, that was tendered earlier, the dispute really is going to be in terms of characterization of this in law."
 
The prosecution called several witnesses on Monday, including lead detective, Robert Scott Guterson, investigating the death of Sgt. Andrew Harnett.
 
"The first thing we did was to look for witnesses from the scene, the officers that were backing up Sgt. Harnett. Our primary concern was with body-worn cameras. We believe that those were activated at the time as well as the dash cameras."
 
"I will just pause as maybe some individuals are related to the deceased who may wish to leave the courtroom prior to playing the videos," the prosecution told the court.
 
The courtroom was shown video footage of the body-worn cameras worn by Sgt. Harnett and the other officers later arrived on the scene. 
 
The prosecution will continue their case until the middle of this week before the defence seeks an adjournment to a later date.
The other passenger that was in the vehicle at the time, Amir Abdulrahman, was sentenced last Friday to five years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter.