 Stevenson Auguste. (Facebook photo)
|
PETERBOROUGH – The death of an Ottawa man is being treated as Peterborough's first homicide of 2010.
Stevenson Auguste, 41, died from injuries he received in a barroom brawl early Thursday morning at a Lansdowne St. strip club.
City police Staff Sgt. John Lyons said police are still waiting for a coroner’s report to rule out any underlying medical factors that could have contributed to Auguste’s death.
But, he said, police are proceeding and treating the case as a homicide.
Auguste received severe injuries to his head during the melee, which broke out shortly after 1 a.m.
A father of two young boys and a teenage girl, he died in Sunnybrook Hospital three days later.
Grant Gould, a Peterborough native living in Ottawa, said he met Auguste, known affectionately as “Scooby,” in June when he first moved to Ottawa.
He was a peaceful, quiet man, Gould said, and everyone is trying to figure out what happened to him that night. He’s heard that Auguste was hit in the back of the head several times with a pool ball.
“Everyone’s really upset right now,” Gould said. He described Auguste as reserved but not shy, and someone who loved his children passionately.
“He loved music, he loved life, he loved his kids,” Gould said.
Auguste wasn’t a violent person, Gould said, and it’s unlikely he played a role in starting the fight.
“It’s not in his nature to be like that, at all,” Gould said.
Auguste was in Peterborough working with a scaffolding construction company, and Gould said he believes his friend was working on a church.
As soon as the working day was done, Gould said, Auguste went to Thursday’s for a few beers and to relax. He wanted to leave shortly after arriving, Gould said, but the people he was with wanted to stay. Gould believes Auguste was in the bar for less than an hour when the fray began.
“None of us understand how it got so crazy so quickly,” he said.
Auguste came to Canada from St. Lucia about five years ago. “He wanted to become a Canadian citizen,” Gould said.
Sgt. Rob MacLean, in the criminal investigations branch, said police are still trying to figure out how many people were involved in the fight. They do know that there were at least a dozen people in the bar at the time, he said.
MacLean said there’s no indication that the fight was racially motivated.
“We don’t know exactly who was there,” he said.
Officers are trying to interview as many people as possible, he said, and as a result they’re getting many different versions of what happened that night.
Tom Malakos, owner of Thursday’s and Trentwinds Motel and Convention Centre, said he was vacationing in Mexico when the brawl happened. He returned to Canada as soon as he heard the news.
He’s been talking to his employees, he said, but has no clear idea as to what happened.
“To be honest, I’m trying to figure it out too,” he said. Malakos said he’s been operating at that location for 20 years, and it’s the first time something like this happened.
“I’m very, very upset about this,” he said. “It’s very sad.”
Malakos did not know Auguste. His thoughts, he said, are with Auguste’s family.
Police are asking anyone who saw anything or was at Thursday’s that night to call the criminal investigations branch at 876-1122 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-22-8477.
sdeeth@peterboroughexaminer.com
