Student Swarmed And Stabbed In Apparent Mistaken Retaliation

[Dragon]

Thursday December 6, 2007
CityNews.ca Staff

It wasn't that long ago when kids with a score to settle would do it with flying fists in the field behind their school. But it appears those days are gone forever, sadly replaced with guns, knives and anything but a fair fight.

The latest evidence of those changing times took place Thursday at Scarlett Heights Academy near Royal York and Eglinton. Police were called to the campus in the early afternoon, after a Grade 10 student was swarmed and stabbed by what may have been as many as five other teens.

But this attack is far more than just an after school incident. The kids who roam the halls of the Academy claim it was a hangover from a similar event that occurred 24 hours earlier - and that a case of mistaken identity may have left one of their own in hospital.

"He was walking...to go to the convenience store and supposedly a car drove up and they just came out and started kicking him in the face, look there's blood," said the victim's classsmate Brittany Whiting, while pointing out a crimson patch in the snowy ground.

The swarming also has a disturbing racial overtone that's leaving everyone concerned. It started on Wednesday when a white student from a different school got into a scuffle with some black teens in the Scarlett Heights cafeteria and it spilled out onto the front lawn. The lone student involved was swarmed and beaten.

Then on Thursday came what seems to have been a retaliation attack. A group of white youngsters from the original victim's school reportedly came roaring up to the campus as a Grade 10 student was heading for a convenience store in a plaza next door. Their target: a black youth from the Academy.

But the victim's friends insist the attackers made a big mistake, going after an innocent kid who had nothing to do with the original incident. "The people that came today, I think they confused the person that they hurt for someone else, like someone that was involved with it yesterday," contends Whiting. "But the kid had, like, nothing to do with it."

"A random attack, identity mistaken," a Grade 10 student relates. "A normal kid."

"He's a good guy," adds another. "He had nothing to do with anything that happened yesterday or today."

Police admit they're looking at all angles, but haven't confirmed a motive.


School officials will only confirm that both fights took place, but won't get into specifics. It's still not clear what started the original battle.

There haven't been any arrests and there are no suspect descriptions. But cops believe some of the Scarlett Heights kids saw what happened - and they're asking those witnesses to call them.

Still, the clearly unsettling incident has those who attend the Academy worried about what may happen next. "It's actually really scary," Whiting concludes. "Because, like, if they could go after him, it just shows that they could go after anyone here that didn't do anything, you know?"

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[duckducklotr]

WOW.............. THE WORLD MUST BE COMMING TO AN END!