A 31-year-old man with a history of violence and weapons offences will serve another seven and a half months in jail after being nabbed with a prohibited Glock handgun during a routine West Vancouver traffic stop.
Judge John Milne handed a 15-month sentence to Robert James Patrick Kinnear in North Vancouver provincial court July 2, but gave Kinnear credit for time already spent in custody.
Kinnear came to the attention of police on Jan. 27 this year when a West Vancouver patrol officer noticed him driving aggressively and running a stop sign near the 200-block of Capilano Road shortly before 9 a.m.
The police officer pulled Kinnear over and told him to stand outside his vehicle. Shortly after, Kinnear attempted to bolt, leading to a foot chase. Two police officers and a police dog eventually caught up to Kinnear.
Police later searched nearby bushes and found the automatic handgun with a large magazine in it that Kinnear had apparently tossed there.
Kinnear told officers at the time he was carrying the gun for protection.
He also had a banned device that jams police radio signals.
Kinnear was sentenced after pleading guilty to a charge of possessing a firearm without a licence. Other weapons charges were dropped.
Kinnear already has a serious criminal record.
In 2007 he was sentenced to eight years in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter in North Vancouver. Then 23, Kinnear admitted to stabbing another man to death outside a Lower Lonsdale apartment building in 2006 during a drug trafficking turf battle.
Prior to that, on Jan. 1, 2006 he shot himself while playing with a loaded, restricted nine-millimetre handgun while sitting on the toilet.
He was sentenced to eight months in jail and issued a lifetime ban on owning guns for that, after pleading guilty to weapons charges. In that case, police also found a 12-gauge Winchester shotgun with a cartridge in the chamber and a Ruger semi-automatic .22-calibre rifle stashed under Kinnear’s couch. Kinnear said those guns weren’t his.
At the time, he was under a 2003 Ontario court order banning him from owning guns for 10 years.
In 2004, Kinnear was also charged with aggravated assault in connection with a stabbing of a 20-year-old man at Esplanade 6 Theatre On Sept. 2. That charge was later dropped.
