Christmas shooting witness cries on stand witness, shooting, stand, Christmas, cries

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Christmas shooting witness cries on stand

accountant whose boss was shot to death before a 2008 office Christmas party wept as she relived the experience Monday in B.C. Supreme Court.

Tracy Iu, 26, who has worked at TallGrass Distribution Ltd. for four years, broke down as she recalled getting ready for a Secret Santa party, to which an uninvited angry former employee brought a shotgun.

Iu and her twin sister Olivia Iu, also a TallGrass accountant, were both emotional as they recalled on the stand the fatal shooting of their much-loved boss Ben Banky on Dec. 12, 2008.

Eric Kirkpatrick, 63, who had been fired the day before for his “negative” attitude toward his warehouse job at TallGrass, is charged with first-degree murder in connection with Banky’s death.

“I saw Eric walking toward us with a gun in his hand . . . he was holding it up ready at any time to shoot,” testified Tracy Iu, who said that Banky pushed her into an office where she tried to hide, and then lifted up a folding chair as a shield.

“He [Kirkpatrick] was telling Ben to come out and Ben was saying, ‘Don’t shoot us, don’t hurt us, just leave!’” recalled Iu.

But Iu said she saw and heard two gunshots, one of which hit the wall and the other a bookcase. She ran to the window and screamed for help.

Then she heard another shot, said Iu.

“I saw Ben grab the side of his face and fall to the ground. I was too scared to look at him, but I saw blood on his hands.”

Breaking down in tears, Iu said she cried out, “Ben, are you alright?” but there was no answer, as Banky moaned and Kirkpatrick turned toward her.

“He [Kirkpatrick] aimed the gun downwards toward me and told me to get out,” testified Iu.

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“I told him to stop shooting Ben,” said Iu, but she testified that as she ran out, Kirkpatrick was aiming the gun at Banky, still moaning on the floor.

Iu said she heard two more gunshots before fleeing the building.

According to the opening statement by Crown counsel Sandra Cunningham, Banky was fatally shot in the face, arms and torso.

Earlier Monday Olivia Iu, also a TallGrass accountant, testified that she was helping with party preparations when she heard her sister shout, “Oh my God, Eric.”

Olivia Iu said she was shocked because “Eric wasn’t supposed to be in the office,” then saw Kirkpatrick, in a raincoat drenched with water, “holding a gun . . . across his body.”

Olivia ran downstairs, shouting “Eric’s got a gun,” to warn her coworkers, but heard a gunshot before she reached the street.

The Iu sisters are the last of several TallGrass employees to take the stand at Kirkpatrick’s jury trial before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Josephson, which is slated to continue until Dec. 17.

Cunningham is expected to call witnesses who worked in the area, as well as police and forensic experts.

Defence lawyer Richard Fowler has asked TallGrass employees, all of whom are much younger than Kirkpatrick, if they knew the older man was on strong medication for epilepsy and had lost his wife to cancer.

Both Iu sisters testified they knew Kirkpatrick had a lot of warehouse experience, and wanted to make changes at TallGrass, but was rebuffed.

Banky, 40, was a friend of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and a fluent Mandarin speaker who began his business in China with associate Matthew Breech.

Breech, who attends the trial every day, has provided counselling as needed to employees, many of whom have wept while listening in court.

All of the approximately 25 TallGrass employees stayed on after Banky’s death.


Friends and relatives line up in the snow waiting to enter the Richards on Richards on Dec. 21, 2008, for a memorial for Ben Banky.