The mayor of Toronto (Canada), John Tory, was “deeply affected” after 8 adolescent girls between the ages of 13 and 16 were arrested and accused of stabbing a man to death59-year-old “homeless” Saturday night.
“I am very sad to learn that a man has lost his life in this way,” said the mayor of the Canadian city, John Tory, on Tuesday, who was especially “affected” by the age of the accused and the nature of the attack in cluster.
The girls were charged with murder for the stabbing of the 59-year-old man in the center of that Canadian city, authorities said.
It is very rare for young girls to commit these acts of armed violence, more typical of boys. It is even more rare that they are accused of murder.
Police said the girls, between the ages of 13 and 16, appear to have met online before meeting in person on the night of the attack, possibly for the first time.
The girls were detained near the crime scene shortly after midnight on Sunday.
The victim was a man, whose name was not released, who was living in a homeless shelter at the time of the attack.
“There’s a family helping him in the area, so I wouldn’t necessarily call him a bum, maybe (he was) recently, through bad luck,” Toronto Police Detective Sgt. Terry Browne told reporters.
Police said the girls are believed to have attacked and stabbed the victim in downtown Toronto, an area lined with hotels and high-end condominium towers, following an altercation.
A group of bystanders called emergency services after finding the man with stab wounds, Browne described.
The victim was taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries and died shortly thereafter.
Police seized several weapons, but did not say exactly what kind.
An “anomalous” attack
According to the details revealed by the police, the 8 teenagers surrounded the man as if he were a “swarm” and it was a prolonged attack on the victim.
“The actual incident, itself, lasted almost three minutes,” Browne said. “So, they moved away, they moved closer to him, they moved away, they moved closer.”
The police did not classify the group of teenagers as a gang.
For Detective Browne, this attack was an “anomaly.”
The girls all came from different parts of the city and did not appear to have met in person before the assault.
Three of them had had previous confrontations with the police.
“We don’t know how or why they met that night,” said the police officer.
A resident of a nearby homeless shelter told CBC television that the victim was stabbed in the stomach after trying to protect her when the teens approached her asking for alcohol.
“I didn’t know if they had a knife or what. I was just scared,” the woman said, explaining how she got away from the attackers and sought cover.
The defendants will now spend Christmas in jail while they wait to testify in court on December 29.
None of the suspects can be identified because they are under Canada’s Juvenile Justice Act, but police said three of the suspects are 13, three are 14 and two are 16.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-64058452, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-12-21 18:20:06
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