Travis Twinn heard a car stop. He turned around and saw the driver pointing a black, semi-automatic pistol directly at him.
“Instantly I got shot in the chest,” Twinn told court Thursday, as he testified about a drive-by shooting on Ella Road in Sooke on June 14, 2016.
“I believe I got shot twice. I felt it in my chest and I felt it impact my lower back.
“At that moment, it was so surreal, I didn’t want to believe I had been shot. I couldn’t imagine why I had been shot. So in my mind, I wanted to be positive and think it wasn’t a real gun.”
Twinn was testifying at Josh Lafleur’s trial in B.C. Supreme Court.
Lafleur, who was arrested after a five-day manhunt, is charged with aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm, discharging a restricted firearm with intent to endanger the lives of Twinn and Gordon Thomas, and being in a car with a restricted firearm.
He is also charged with possessing a restricted Glock semi-automatic pistol and a prohibited .380 automatic Colt pistol without a licence or registration, and possession of cocaine, MDMA, marijuana and psilocybin for the purpose of trafficking.
As Twinn took cover, he lifted up his shirt and saw blood oozing out of his chest and back.
The burly 27-year-old, who works as a driller in the mining industry, testified that he did not know Lafleur and had never heard of him.
That day, he simply wanted to hang out with Gordon Thomas, a friend he had known since high school and bought marijuana from.
He said they were on their way to Thomas’s house with Cade Fox, a mutual friend, and Sam Caster, whom he didn’t know.
Twinn said Caster, a 17-year-old Edward Milne student, had been in a fight at school that day, and was sending a lot of text messages.
Caster suddenly noticed a car was following them, Twinn testified, and when the group stopped to pick up Brent Brown, another friend, the other car stopped, too.
“Sam and Cade mentioned to Gordon that they recognized a person. They mentioned the name Josh,” Twinn testified.
Thomas didn’t want to drive to his home with the car following them, so he drove down Ella Road, a cul de sac that ends in a roundabout, and everyone got out of the car.
Twinn said the other car pulled up beside them and Thomas and Caster started talking to one of the passengers. He said he didn’t recognize anyone in the car and wasn’t paying attention to what was being said.
“At that point, I thought everything was solved and they were going to carry on and we were going to leave,” he testified.
Twinn was heading toward the passenger door of Thomas’s car when the other vehicle, which had just turned around, stopped behind him.
The gunshots were very quick and all over the place, he testified. “It sounded like two firearms were being discharged.”
The other car took off.
Thomas was shot in the arm, while Twinn was hit in the chest. The bullet went through a lung, a kidney, his liver and his intestines. He woke up on life support.
Earlier this week, Caster described his fight with Jason Dixon, a former friend.
Caster told the court that he had heard that Dixon had vandalized his girlfriend’s car. Dixon denied it. Caster said he punched Dixon 10 times in the head. Dixon then pulled out a pocket knife, Caster said, so he picked up a log and hit him on his side.
Later that day, he said, Dixon phoned him 30 times.
Caster said he expected to see Dixon in the car that followed them down Ella Road, but he wasn’t there.
“I asked where Jason was. Someone asked me if we all jumped Jason. I said: ‘No. Just me.’ ”
Fox has testified that he knew LaFleur and saw him in the car that day. Fox had gone off to look for a rock when the gunshots went off.
“I looked up and I saw the car driving up the road … I could see Josh hanging out the back window. He was sitting on the window. I could see his right arm. It was holding a gun and pointing in the direction of [Thomas’s] car. … I think he pulled the trigger at least one more time.”
