Karry Corbett pleads guilty to assault in racist rant against Abbotsford lawyer Ravi Duhra

Karry Vernon Corbett          Photo: Police

KARRY Vernon Corbett, 47, of Hope, who was charged with two counts of assault, one count of uttering threats and one count of causing a disturbance in connection with an incident involving a racist rant against Abbotsford lawyer Ravi Duhra last year, pleaded guilty to one count of assault on Friday. He will make his next court appearance in October for sentencing, Global BC reported on the weekend.

It seems that the other charges will be dropped.

Duhra had observed a suspect yelling at a parking enforcement officer in the 33600-block of South Fraser Way on October 21, 2016, and used his cell phone to record some of the incident.  Corbett then focused his anger and attention on Duhra and went on a tirade that included many racist and disturbing remarks.

Ravi Duhra
Photo: Ravi Duhra website

Duhra contacted the Abbotsford Police Department after the suspect left the area.  APD investigators spoke with witnesses and obtained a copy of the video and identified the suspect involved.  A report to Crown Counsel was forwarded recommending charges against the suspect.

Eight days after the incident, Corbett was charged. Warrants were issued and police had been actively seeking to locate and arrest him.

A few days later, in November, 2016, Corbett attended the Abbotsford Courthouse and turned himself in.  He was taken into custody without incident.

 

 

OCTOBER 29, 2016 STORY

 

Brave South Asian lawyer stands up to white racist bully in Abbotsford parking lot

 

BY RATTAN MALL

 

“But I thought you know people need to know about this kind of racism because they don’t see it … so if you don’t see it, you just don’t think it exists”

 

(PHOTOS: Ravi Duhra / The suspect)

 

SOUTH Asian lawyer Ravi Duhra was busy thinking about some of the cases he was to handle as he pulled into the parking lot across from his office complex in Abbotsford near the intersection of Pauline Street and South Fraser Way after his lunch break last week on Friday.

While he was at lunch, someone at his office had apparently phoned the tow truck company about a truck that was quite often parked without authorization at the reserved lot.

The tow company usually sends somebody to ticket the driver before towing away their vehicle and that person’s minivan happened to be right in front of Duhra’s car. The tow truck employee suddenly parked right in the middle of the parking lot and indicated to Duhra to wait for a minute by raising his hand.

As Duhra waited in his car, he could see there was an argument going on between the elderly employee and the truck driver and he could hear some swearing.

Duhra suddenly remembered that one of the lawyers in his office was absent that day and he decided to turn around his car and park in his spot rather than wait any longer.

Duhra told me on Tuesday: “As I was getting out of the car, the guy in the truck started really swearing at the guy who was going to give him the ticket and he wasn’t a city bylaw officer, he was a just private tow truck ticketing agent – he was really timid and it looked like that the guy in the truck was going to kick him and beat him up.

“So I thought this doesn’t look good – he’s swearing at him, he’s going to try to beat him up – so I think I’d better do something and the easiest thing was to take a picture of him and his truck.

“So originally I went to do that. As soon as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started to get to the app where it’s the camera app … he saw that I was doing something like that and he looked at me and he started charging towards me. And then as he was charging towards me, I changed it to from photo to video and hit ‘record.’”

The white bully hurled every racial slur that he could think of at Duhra, telling him to “go back to India” and yelling: “White power, motherf*****!”

The video that Duhra shot was about two minutes and 17 seconds long.

Duhra also noted: “He was right up in my face. At some point though I think he realized that (1) I wasn’t going to be intimidated and (2) that he wanted to not cross the line of assault and that’s why he started saying ‘I am not threatening you.’”

He told me: “So I recorded it all and then I went to the police station that day on Friday and I reported it.” (One media report incorrectly stated that it was not reported to police).

Duhra said: “Around the same time I thought about whether or not I should post it on social media and one obvious (consideration) would be safety, if it’s a good thing for me to do that because I was pretty anonymous in the video. But I thought you know people need to know about this kind of racism because they don’t see it … so if you don’t see it, you just don’t think it exists. So I thought well I actually better post it. So then I posted it … and I guess now it’s going viral.”

 

[Duhra was interviewed by Global BC and CTV and told me: “I am glad that there is now awareness to it and some of the things that I am really happy to see is the overwhelming support I’ve got in emails.”

He was getting calls from the media from as far off as New York and even India for interviews.

BC Liberal MLAs Mike de Jong, Simon Gibson, and Darryl Plecas issued the following statement at the time:

“The recent racist statements recorded and circulating in Abbotsford are vile and disturbing.

“Such comments have no place in a strong and diverse province like British Columbia.

“We understand that the Abbotsford Police Department have referred this incident to the hate crimes unit and Crown counsel for the appropriate investigations to be conducted.”]