By Trevor Greenway
Local Journalism Initiative

Tommy Townsend will have to wait a couple more months to find out if a judge will throw out his fines for carrying a knife in public. 

The arborist from Low was arrested at gunpoint in front of his two children by MRC des Collines officers on Aug. 18, 2023, after a witness called police and reported that a man wielding a knife was wandering around the village. 

“I am an arborist, I work in the bush, and it was a pruning blade, not a machete,” Townsend told a judge at trial on Feb. 19 in Chelsea. “I was not wandering around – I was in my truck when the police pulled me out at gunpoint with my children in the truck watching.”

Townsend submitted a copy of the Aug. 23, 2023, Low Down newspaper as an exhibit, which shows a photo of two police officers drawing their guns while Townsend is on the ground behind his truck. 

In August 2023, Townsend told the Low Down that he was in Wakefield searching for missing Low man Simeon Wapachee and was dressed in a safety vest as he showed passersby Wapachee’s photo. He had several knives that were sheathed on his belt. This was not mentioned in court. 

Police told the Low Down in 2023 that they got a call from a concerned citizen reporting that a suspicious man wielding a knife was wandering the village. Police later apprehended Townsend while he was in his work truck. 

In court, Townsend told Judge Joanne Cousineau that he was in Wakefield on the morning of Aug. 18 with his daughters to get them new shoes at Giant Tiger. Townsend testified he had just finished pruning an apple tree near Chemin Mahon and was going shopping when he was pulled over. 

Crown prosecutor Olivier Gosselin questioned why Townsend had his kids with him and if he was working on the day of Aug. 18. “Explain to me, if you said you were working, how come you were working when your children are in your car?” asked Gosselin. 

“It’s my own private business,” Townsend responded. “A lot of my clients are friends or people that I know, and they don’t have a problem with it. I also knew that it was an hour job, and then we were going to Giant Tiger to buy the shoes.”

Gosselin pressed Townsend further, asking him for the specific address of the job and whether Townsend’s client was okay with his children being present. The single dad said he often brings his kids to small jobs, and it’s not been a problem.

When Townsend was pulled over, he explained that he had several knives on his belt, which he uses in his arborist work, but added that they were all sheathed in protective covers when cops detained him. When asked why the knives were still on his belt, he told the prosecutor that he leaves them in the belt while driving but puts them away in a locked compartment when he leaves his truck. He said he had planned to do the same when he got to Giant Tiger but was pulled over after police received reports of a suspicious man wandering the village with a knife. 

“The equipment is with me only for relative work,” he said. “As mentioned, I take it all out before I get out of the vehicle. I hadn’t at that time, so here we are today.”

In his closing arguments, Gosselin told the judge that he has “doubt that Mr. Townsend was really working on that day.”

“My problem is more in regards to why we are pruning apple trees in August,” said Gosselin. “We all love apples; you collect them in the fall, not August. Then, from his own testimony, the defendant said it’s not the best time of the year to do so, but for some reason, he did.”

Townsend agreed that spring is the best time to prune fruit trees but added that the client wanted it done then, and he wouldn’t say no to a job. Gosselin asserted that Townsend should have removed and stored the knives properly before getting into his truck. “Anything could have happened. He could have went to buy something else, and if he did, he has his knife on him.”

Justice Cousineau quoted the La Pêche bylaw that bans residents from carrying weapons in public “without a reasonable excuse.”

“That is the question I need to answer,” she said. “Did he have a reasonable excuse? He had it in his possession, he’s admitted to it, and he explains his reasonable excuse. The wandering around part, I need to look into that.”

Cousineau told the court that she needed to take the case “under advisory,” meaning that she needed more time to study the law and look at potential precedent cases before deciding on Townsend’s case. 

“I will tell you that many, many files regarding knives, it was basically kids who have no business having a knife,” she said.

Cousineau will render her decision on April 10.