South Asian Jailed For Street Racing That Killed Friend

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Kareem Alli told his facebook friends that he was going on a little “vacation” starting April 30 but he learned Monday that his “vacation” is a sentence of 2 1/2 years in the penitentiary and a five-year driving ban for dangerous driving causing the death of his 18-year-old friend Christian “Sisco” Williams while street racing in Ottawa on June 22, 2010. “So as you guys may know, I’m going on a little ‘vacation’ starting April 30, so let’s do it big on one of my last nights to get crazy for a while!!” The 19-year-old wrote, inviting 347 friends to join him. Heartless!

OTTAWA – Four days before Kareem Alli’s sentencing hearing in his friend’s street-racing death, he was on Facebook organizing his going away “s—show.”

“So as you guys may know, I’m going on a little ‘vacation’ starting April 30, so let’s do it big on one of my last nights to get crazy for a while!!” The 19-year-old wrote, inviting 347 friends to join him.

Alli learned Monday that his “vacation” is a sentence of 2 1/2 years in the penitentiary and a five-year driving ban for dangerous driving causing the death of 18-year-old Christian “Sisco” Williams while street racing in Ottawa on June 22, 2010.

It was “ego and thrill-seeking” and the decision to drive “tons of metal” at highway speed on a suburban street that ended in the tragic, senseless loss of a young man’s life, Judge David Paciocco said.

Alli apologized for organizing the party online, which the judge called disrespectful of Williams’ memory.

But he didn’t say he was sorry about Williams’ death, despite a probation officer’s description of his “visible anguish” at the loss of a dear friend.

The Crown – who sought four years – argued Alli has deflected blame for what happened.

“It’s not like I was in his head, pushing the pedal,” he told a probation officer.

“It takes two to race,” Paciocco said. “Without your participation, Mr. Alli, the race would not have occurred. If the race had not occurred, Mr. Williams would still be alive.”

Williams crashed his souped-up Honda into a lamp post as the pair raced at speeds of up to 120 km/h for about half a kilometre in south Ottawa.

It was broad daylight. One of the witnesses to the race was walking with her baby. Kids played in a nearby driveway.

As Williams died at the scene, Alli – who didn’t have a driver’s licence – lied about who’d been driving his aunt’s Mustang convertible. He didn’t come clean until a friend was arrested.

Williams, an avid basketball player who was days away from high school graduation, was a popular student at Mother Teresa Catholic High School.

He’s memorialized by a Facebook page with 3,000 members, but no one in his family could be found to tell the court about the impact of his loss or attend Alli’s sentencing, the Crown said.

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