Many park benches in the City of Burnaby have plaques that pay tribute to loved ones.
But there’s one that has angered some parks users because it lionizes a murdered man who was also a convicted killer.
Several South Burnaby residents contacted the NOW about a plaque that was recently added to a city bench in Ron McLean Park to remember the life of Chris Kenworthy, 32, who was shot to death at his home near the park in February in what police called a targeted hit connected with the ongoing Metro Vancouver gang war.
In 2008, Kenworthy pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Kee Woo in Surrey in 2006, according to B.C. provincial court documents.
A letter was sent to the City of Burnaby saying how “disgusted we all are of the allowance of a new park bench and newly planted tree to honour the life of a convicted murderer,” adding that Kenworthy was part of the drug trade that is “responsible for countless overdose deaths.”
The NOW was also contacted via phone by park users and we are keeping their names anonymous because they fear retaliation for speaking out.
“It’s offensive to think that this kind of person will have their name remembered and we have to walk by and know it,” said one park user. “It just isn’t right. Our entire neighbourhood is still reeling from this murder. We’re trying to forget it and this doesn’t help.”
Such bench plaques are paid for by friends and family of those they honour.
Kenworthy was found dead inside his car after shots rang out in the 6500 block of Portland Street. Although he was only 17 years old at the time, Kenworthy’s case was raised to adult court and he was sentenced to nine years in prison. He told the court he had only meant to rob Woo – a cocaine trafficker – and had stabbed and then fatally shot him “in a scare.”
But provincial court Judge William Stewart concluded Kenworthy’s moral culpability in the case had been “high” and the circumstances of the offence were “close to a near-murder.”
Stewart noted Kenworthy had already been engaged in a criminal lifestyle for about five years and was “not a good candidate for rehabilitation."
According to a Vancouver Sun report, Kenworthy was most recently linked to the Wolfpack gang, one of several gangs involved in an ongoing Lower Mainland conflict that has left several people dead and injured over the past month.
In response to the NOW’s questions about how plaques are approved for park benches, the City of Burnaby said in a statement that it doesn’t conduct background checks on the names of people who appear on the plaques and offers the service to people so they can honour the memory of loves ones.
- With additional reporting by Cornelia Naylor
