A North Vancouver man arrested last year after writing several angry rants on Facebook threatening to repeat the violence of a Colorado movie theatre shooting has escaped without a criminal record.
Ryan Lewis, 34, was ordered to abide by conditions of a one-year peace bond Tuesday by a North Vancouver provincial court judge.
As long as Lewis doesn't break those conditions, he won't have a criminal record, despite what Judge Doug Moss described as Lewis's "disgusting messages" and his "bizarre, threatening and angry conduct."
On July 23 last year, Lewis alarmed several acquaintances when he wrote on his Facebook page, "We need more radical terrorists in the world. There's an infestation of ignorance in North America which can only be treated with a little murder."
A day later, Lewis wrote another post on his Facebook page, saying: "That Colorado shit is gonna happen here soon."
Police believed Lewis was referring to the July 20, 2012 Colorado shooting that left a dozen people dead after a man opened fire in a movie theatre during a screening of the Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.
Lewis was arrested for threatening by North Vancouver RCMP a week later as he left his apartment building in the 500-block of Lonsdale Avenue.
But in the year since Lewis's arrest, authorities have come to the conclusion he was just "venting," with no intention of carrying out his threats.
Crown counsel Kristin Bryson said psychiatrists determined Lewis has no mental health problems.
Lewis seems to have just been frustrated with his life and with the world and was experiencing chronic physical pain due to health problems when he wrote the posts, Bryson said outside the court. She added he has complied with all his bail conditions and has no criminal record.
Lewis's defence lawyer Glen Paruk told the judge his client never intended to carry out his threats. He added Lewis has "learned an important lesson" and will not repeat his behaviour.
For the next year, Lewis must obey conditions that include continuing to live with his mother, attending anger management counselling, not accessing the Internet, not drinking, and not possessing either real or fake weapons.
Lewis first came to police attention on July 25 last year, when the North Vancouver RCMP received an anonymous CrimeStoppers tip saying Lewis's Facebook page should be checked.
The anonymous source told police "Lewis is quite disturbed and has threatened many times to kill and hatch plans to harm many in Vancouver," according to information filed in a police search warrant application.
The alarm was raised again a week later, when the Vancouver Police Department forwarded a message to the North Vancouver detachment that had been sent to them by one of Lewis's Facebook friends in the United Kingdom.
That message contained detailed, profanity-ridden and disturbing messages that the friend said Lewis had posted.
Just days after the Colorado shooting, on July 25, Lewis wrote a rant about how Vancouver is filled with "blind idiots" and "bleeding heart morons" who ignore the problems of the city. "You'll be surprised when I go through with my plan, Vancouver," he wrote.
