Police say death of St. Lucian living in Ottawa was a homicide

The death of Stevenson Auguste is being treated as the city’s first homicide of 2010.

Auguste, a 41-year-old Ottawa resident, 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 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 at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto 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. 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 and had recently acquired his first health care card. “He wanted to become a Canadian citizen,” Gould said.

City police Sgt. Rob MacLean, in the criminal investigations branch, said police are still trying to figure out what happened and 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 the 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 has 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 has 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 said he doesn’t think he knew Auguste. Thursday’s was supposed to be open, but right now Malakos said he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Malakos said he just arrived at his office and hasn’t talked to the police yet.

His thoughts, he said, are with Auguste’s family.

source: www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com