A Red Deer man declared a dangerous offender by a judge last month had been convicted of nearly a dozen violent crimes over 15 years.
Chad Alexander Kulba, 38, was given a 10-year-supervision order on top of his three-year sentence for aggravated assault for attacking a fellow Red Deer Remand Centre inmate and chewing off a portion of his ear in a bloody brawl in August 2017, captured on surveillance video.
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth 10 times that,” wrote Red Deer provincial court Judge Bruce Fraser in his decision on the dangerous offender application.
“It was a brutal and vicious beating of a victim prone on the floor, with the offender on top of him wailing away. In addition, he bit off a large portion of his ear.
“In my view, this qualifies as objectively serious violence and endangerment where serious injury was inflicted. Any reasonable person who were to watch the video would without a doubt agree.”
Fraser also points out that besides the remand centre fight, Kulba was convicted of 10 other violent crimes from 2003 to 2018, including the stabbing death of Thomas Branconnier, 46, on Christmas Day 2015.
Kulba, who was drunk and on crystal meth, stabbed his victim more than 30 times and shoved a broken golf club shaft up his rectum.
Kulba was sentenced to seven years in prison for that crime.
Numerous other people fell victim to Kulba’s brutality over the years.
In 2003, the threw his ex-common-law wife to the ground and punched and kicked her repeatedly.
Three years later, he attacked a man who was visiting Kulba’s mother at her home, and in 2008, he broke down a woman’s apartment door and attacked her, striking her 15 times and leaving her battered and bruised.
In July 2011, he attacked an ex-girlfriend and her mother, knocking her out cold.
The girlfriend’s nose and orbital bones were broken and she required corrective surgery. When police arrived at the apartment, Kulba had barricaded himself in a room. He violently resisted arrest and spat at the police officers.
In November 2012, he robbed a convenience store in Edmonton at knifepoint in a crime captured by camera surveillance.
“These violent offences clearly indicate a pattern, of which the predicate offence forms a part of repetitive behaviour,” says Fraser.
”The pattern indicates the offender has been unable to restrain his violent behaviour in the past, and as the brutality of his behaviour increases, particularly over the last five years of his criminal activity, causing death and severe injury, there is a likelihood and it is very likely he will fail to restrain this violent behaviour in the future.”
The judge noted that a psychologist and psychiatrist who examined Kulba both determined he was a psychopath and that his “treatment prospects were dim.”
Fraser said while he is satisfied that Kulba has psychotic tendencies, he is not convinced he is a “full-blown psychopath.”
However, the judge says that he believes that Kulba can be treated for the alcohol and drug abuse that contributed to his crimes and he “does not fall within that very small group of dangerous offenders that require confinement for an indefinite period.”
However, Kulba should be supervised for 10 years so his alcohol consumption can be monitored, and he would face sanctions if he relapses.
“I find 10 years is appropriate given the substantial risk he will re-offend and the necessity to control his violent behaviour. If he does that on his own, he will not need controls or supervision.”