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The quick read: Brandon Kazakoff pleaded guilty in a Kelowna courtroom on Tuesday to dangerous driving causing death and assault in the 2023 killing of 15-year-old Tristan Seeger, Global News reports. Court heard Kazakoff went looking for a group of teenagers after his father was bear-sprayed, assaulted one of them, then drove his vehicle into Tristan and fled the scene. He changed his licence plates and torched the car on a forest service road in the days after. Sentencing is expected in early 2027. A guilty plea is accountability at last, but it doesn't restore what's been lost.

Three years after a Kelowna teenager was run down and killed, the man responsible finally admitted it.

Brandon Kazakoff pleaded guilty in a packed Kelowna courtroom on Tuesday to dangerous driving causing death and assault, Global News reports.

The pleas stem from the night of October 21, 2023.

Court heard that Tristan Seeger, 15, was with a group of teenagers involved in an incident in which Kazakoff's father was bear-sprayed. Kazakoff went looking for the group, found the teenagers, and assaulted one of them.

Then, while stopped at an intersection, Tristan deployed bear spray toward the passenger side of Kazakoff's car. Kazakoff turned the vehicle around and drove into the teenager.

What followed tells its own story about conscience.

He fled the scene. In the days after, he changed his licence plates and set his own vehicle on fire along a forest service road.

Kazakoff's defence lawyer, Glenn Verdurmen, called it "one horrendous, horrible mistake" and said his client thinks about the impact on the community every day.

Tristan's parents aren't moved by the remorse.

"I'm glad he admitted what he did to my son, whether or not it's remorseful or not, only he knows," Tristan's father, Jason Seeger, said.

His mother, Paule Moore, said Kazakoff refused to meet the family's eyes in court. "He killed my son with a car. He didn't even have the guts to look him in the eye, and he needed to look us in the eye."

Asked what justice would look like, Seeger was plain: "Bring my son back, but we know that's not going to happen."

The plea spares the family a trial, but sentencing doesn't come until early 2027, and no sentence restores a 15-year-old's life.

Vigilante violence followed by a torch job and a three-year wait for an admission: the system got there in the end, but the Seeger family deserved faster accountability and tougher consequences.