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It’s a shame Colten Boushie is dead. He seemed like a decent kid. He’d trained as a wilderness firefighter and as a short-order cook. He was trying to better himself.

He didn’t deserve to die that day in August 2016 when he and a group of friends drove onto Gerald Stanley’s farm near Biggar, Sask.

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But Stanley’s acquittal on second-degree murder charges in a Sask. courtroom on Friday is not a travesty of justice.

Boushie and four friends had been drinking and swimming at a lake near the Stanley place all day on Aug. 9, 2016. After leaving the lake (and before they reached the Stanley farm), the quintet tried to steal a truck from another farm by using a rifle they had with them as a crowbar.

They never managed to boost the truck, but they did break the stock off their rifle.

However, it is unlikely Gerald Stanley knew the SUV-load of kids from the Red Pheasant First Nation who pulled onto his property that day had already tried to boost a pickup from one of his neighbours. So it’s equally unlikely any of his actions that day were based on specific knowledge these kids had just committed a crime nearby or were likely to do so again.