"I HAVE CHOSEN TO PAINT THE LIFE OF MY PEOPLE AS I KNOW AND FEEL IT--PASSIONATELY AND DISPASSIONATELY. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THE ARTIST IDENTIFY WITH THE SELF-RELIANCE,HOPE AND COURAGE OF THE PEOPLE ABOUT HIM,FOR ART MUST ALWAYS GO WHERE ENERGY IS."
--ROMARE BEARDON

School locked down after 16-year-old boy stabbed

People are seen leaving the front door of Eastern Commerce Collegiate Institute after a student was stabbed Friday. The school was locked down for five hours.

RICHARD LAUTENS

Michael Woods 

 

Eastern Commerce Collegiate Institute was locked down for about five hours after a 16-year-old male student was stabbed in a fight on the school’s second floor.
No suspects were found.
Police said the boy was knifed in the stomach around 2:30 p.m. Friday at the high school near Danforth and Donlands Aves.
He was taken to hospital and underwent surgery. Police said he was in serious but stable condition.
The school was locked down as the Emergency Task Force searched classrooms for suspects and witnesses. The mood outside was tense as streets were cordoned off and parents gathered to wait for their children.
Police were seeking four to six male suspects, one armed with a knife and another with a handgun, said Const. Victor Kwong. The victim was not cooperating with police, he added.
The building also houses a daycare with 44 children and eight staff. They were released around 5:50 p.m. under police escort to a nearby church, where parents retrieved them.
The school, which has about 500 students, is equipped with 39 security cameras.
“The cameras will be essential to our investigation,” Kwong said.
Toronto District School Board spokeswoman Shari Schwartz-Maltz said students were not able to access their lockers Friday evening because of the police investigation. The school will be open from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday so students can retrieve their belongings.

Charges pending against male, 16, after body discovered

Charges are pending against a 16-year-old male after a 17-year female was discovered dead in a Mississauga park Friday.

According to Peel police, officers responded to a call in the Highway 401 and Mavis Road area Friday morning at around 10:20 a.m.

A 16-year-old male was discovered in the highway suffering serious injuries.

The male was transported to hospital where he is currently being treated for his injuries.

Subsequent investigations led police to a nearby park where the body of a 17-year-old female was discovered.

Kiranjit Nijjar, 17, of Mississauga, was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy is pending.

Charges against the 16-year-old male are pending, police said. 

Police find teen girl’s body after boy falls onto Highway 401

Police continue their investigation on Spinnaker Circle after the body of a female was found.

Niamh Scallan

Chantaie Allick and Niamh Scallan

 

A Mississauga teenager updated his Facebook status early Friday morning with a short missive that began by listing the three things he’d learned in his 16 years: “What goes around comes around. Karma is the biggest bitch. You should never change on people who love and care for you.”
“I’m leaving this sad world today,” he wrote, adding it wasn’t worth living any more. Life had let him down too much.
In another update, he listed the 10 people in the world he would miss, their names bracketed by hearts. He ended with his best friend, a girl in his grade who called him her “BFFL” or “best friend for life.”
By 10:30 a.m., he had fallen onto Highway 401 from the Mavis Rd. overpass near his school, Mississauga Secondary.
Police don’t know whether he fell or jumped. He was taken to Sunnybrook hospital with serious injuries.
Two hours later, the body of a teenage girl — identified by nearby students as his best friend — was discovered while police investigated the area near the young man’s fall.
She was found in a wooded ravine in a small park down the street from the school and highway. Police said they would not identify the young woman until they had notified family members. But friends in the area were quick to identify her.
According to a Formspring message board online, the teen’s favourite colour was green and she still watched cartoons on television. Her long hair and smiling face accompanied each message she wrote.
Dozens of police spent Friday afternoon in the park and ravine just off Spinnaker Circle, described by one shocked resident as a quiet family neighbourhood where kids play on the street.
Peel police have yet to determine whether the two incidents, about a kilometre apart, were connected, said Const. Thomas Ruttan.
But rumours flew about the neighbourhood as Mississauga Secondary students trickled out of class Friday afternoon.
Two Grade 11 students said the boy and girl were in Grade 12.
They also said an announcement was made over the public address system at Mississauga Secondary Friday morning, alerting students of an “incident” and cautioning them against speaking with reporters.
Const. George Tudos did not disclose details surrounding the young woman’s death, but called it a homicide.
Coroners and members of the Peel Region homicide team arrived at the crime scene late Friday afternoon to collect evidence.
Teams of officers also went door to door along Spinnaker Circle to question residents.
Groups of Mississauga Secondary students huddled near the taped-off park Friday afternoon.
One group of girls, claiming to know both students, sobbed as others looked on.
Some of them had seen the young man’s message on Facebook.
“IM SO SORRY WORLDD,” was how he ended it.

Boy plunges from overpass, girl's body found in Mississauga parkette 

By Terry Davidson

Friends and classmates gather at the scene after a body of a teenage girl was found in a wooded area on Spinnaker Circle, in the Courtneypark Dr. W. and Mavis Rd. area Friday. (DAVE ABEL/Toronto Sun)

TORONTO - A teenaged girl is dead and a teen boy is clinging to life in hospital after falling onto Hwy. 401 Friday, leaving Peel Regional Police to establish the link between the two.
Peel Regional Police and paramedics were called around 10:30 a.m. after a 17-year-old male fell onto the westbound lanes of the highway from the Mavis Rd. overpass, Const. George Tudos said.
A short time later police found the girl’s body in a wooded area of a parkette about a kilometre away on Spinnaker Circle, in the Courtneypark Dr. W. and Mavis Rd. area, while looking for clues into the boy’s plunge from the bridge.
Police are investigating the link between the two incidents but the link between the two teens involved was confirmed by their friends.
Several young people on scene who went to school with both of them said it may have been a tragedy based on unrequited love.
The teens at the scene identified the girl as Kiran Nijjer, a Grade 12 student at Mississauga Secondary School on Courneypark Dr., a short distance away from the parkette. The boy is also a student at the school.
They also said Nijjar and the boy were quite close but that he had been depressed lately.
“She didn’t want to (have a romantic relationship) with him and he had some depression issues,” said schoolmate Alex Marinez, who said the young man had written about suicide on his Facebbook page as early as a week ago.
“It was an ongoing thing,” Marinez said.
Yellow police tape surrounded the tennis court’s bathroom across the street from the parkette, and a cruiser stood guard outside.
“They always hung out, they were like best friends,” said Mandeep Singh, also a student at Mississauga Secondary School.
Singh said she had also seen the ominous message the boy had left on his Facebook page in recent weeks.
“He wrote RIP then his name, and then RIP Then her name.”
Down the street, a police car sat in front of the main doors at Mississauga Secondary.
Navjot Mann, 15, knew the victim through a cousin. Like Singh, she said he was known for having dark moods.
“They had been friends for quite a while,” said Mann. “But he was pretty depressed.”
The boy, who was struck by at least one car after falling from the overpass, is in serious condition in a Toronto-area trauma centre, Tudos said.

 

Mounties who used Taser on boy face no charges

CBC News

 No charges in Taser case2:11

RCMP officers in Prince George, B.C., will not be disciplined or charged after the use of a stun gun, commonly known as a Taser, on an 11-year-old boy at a group home earlier this year.
On Thursday, West Vancouver Chief Const. Peter Lepine told reporters that his department's investigation found that the RCMP officer's use of force was lawful.
 
 Prince George RCMP Supt. Eric Stubbs, left, and West Vancouver Chief Const. Peter Lepine speak to reporters at the Prince George RCMP detachment Thursday. Betsy Trumpener/CBC
"We found their actions did not violate the Criminal Code of Canada and we are not recommending any charges," he said at a press conference in Prince George.
An open letter posted soon after on the West Vancouver Police Department's web site offered little more information.
"The scope of our investigation was whether the actions taken by the police officers involved in the file exceeded the powers granted to police under the Criminal Code of Canada," Lepine said the letter.
"My team spent much of this spring and summer interviewing witnesses, collecting and analyzing evidence and consulting with those in the legal profession as well as subject matter experts in topics like police use of force."
The RCMP said at the time of the incident on April 7 that the boy was shocked after he allegedly stabbed a 37-year-old caregiver at his government-run group home.
When Prince George RCMP officers arrived at the scene, they found the boy had barricaded himself in a nearby home. When he came out, an officer stunned him with a conductive energy weapon.
The boy's mother said her son has a heart condition — as well as bipolar disorder — and she believes the stun gun, intended to incapacitate people with an electric shock, could have killed him.
The RCMP officers involved had been assigned administrative duties since the incident.
Officials have now said those officers will be returned to regular duties.

More probes ongoing

The RCMP are releasing few details of what happened.
Officials said they can't give more information because several other investigations — including one by B.C.'s youth and child advocate and another by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP — are underway into the incident.
Mary Turpel-Lafond, the B.C. Representative for Children and Youth, issued a statement following the announcement in Prince George, in which she expressed ongoing concern with the role of police officers in and around group homes.
"In reviewing this particular Prince George incident, I became concerned about a wider issue of police being called by group home staff to attend and act as a disciplinarian of sorts," Turpel-Lafond said.
Some group homes in the province appear to be repeatedly using police to help manage or discipline children with complex needs and behaviours, she said.
Her office will continue to work with the Ministry of Children and Family Development in ensuring that the needs of the boy involved in this incident are being met.
Turpel-Lafond has given no date for the release of her special report into group homes and the Prince George Taser incident.
She noted that legislation allows her office's investigations to proceed only when police investigations and criminal justice matters have concluded.