Teen accused of threats to Halifax high school now charged with promoting hatred
A 16-year old was arrested at his home in the early hours of April 23 after police received a tip from a suicide hotline operator alleging the teen said he was going shoot up Citadel High and then take his own life.
The teen was scheduled to appear in Halifax youth court on Wednesday for a bail hearing, but it was adjourned until May 12 because a series of new charges were laid. He is now facing a total of 33 charges.
"The Crown's case is still being formulated, but [there's] all the indications that this is a very serious matter," Crown prosecutor Terry Nickerson said after Wednesday's hearing.
Nickerson said the Crown has received a large volume of evidence related to the case, including material found on four laptops and a cellphone. The Crown continues to receive evidence from police and more charges could be laid, he said.
Threats against students
The teen, whose identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was initially charged with possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, unsafe storage of ammunition and one count of uttering threats.
Halifax Regional Police Chief Don MacLean said during a news conference last week that police didn't believe there was a threat against anyone specifically at the school.
But the teen is now charged with making threats against three specific students. He is also charged with willfully promoting hatred against Black and Jewish comminuties over the last year by creating online hate groups, according to court documents.
Halifax police arrest teen after threat against high school
7 days ago
Duration 1:54
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with multiple offences after Halifax police acted on information of a threat against Citadel High School. A Crown prosecutor alleges the teen told a suicide hotline he wanted to open fire at the school before killing himself.
Many of the new charges relate to rifles, shotguns and different airguns found at the teen's home. He faces 12 counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and six counts of unauthorized possession of a firearm.
He was also charged with possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose for both brass knuckles and a knife, the court documents said. Two other counts relate to the brass knuckles being a prohibited weapon.
The youth was ordered to remain in custody until the next hearing and is prohibited from having any contact with any students at Citadel High.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Villagers offer harrowing accounts of one of the deadliest attacks in Sudan's civil war
CAIRO (AP) — When Ahlam Saeed awoke last month to the sound of gunfire and roaring vehicle motors, the 43-year-old widow rushed outside her home in war-torn Sudan to find a line of at least two dozen vehicles, many of them motorcycles carrying armed fighters. 'They were firing at everything and in every direction,' the mother of four said. 'In an instant, all of us in the village were fleeing for safety.' Many people were gunned down in their houses or while trying to flee. At least 200 people were killed, including many women and children, in the community of straw homes, according to a rights group tracking Sudan's civil war. Saeed and her children — ages 9 to 15 — were among those who survived after rebel fighters rampaged through Shag al-Num, the small farming village of several thousand people in Sudan's Kordofan region. In interviews with The Associated Press, Saeed and four other villagers described the July 12 attack, one of the deadliest assaults since the war began more than two years ago over a power struggle between commanders of the military and the rival paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. The villagers' accounts add to the devastating toll of the conflict, which started in April 2023 and has wrecked the country in northeastern African. The fighting has killed more than 40,000 people, displaced as many as 14 million, caused disease outbreaks and pushed many places to the brink of famine. Atrocities, including mass killings of civilians and mass rape, have also been reported, particularly in Darfur, triggering an investigation by the International Criminal Court into potential war crimes and crimes against humanity. 'Hell's door was opened' The villagers from Shag al-Num said RSF fighters and their allied Janjaweed militias stormed into the community, looting houses and robbing residents, especially of women's gold. Some victims were held at gunpoint. Some young villagers attempted to fight back by taking up rifles to defend their homes. The RSF fighters knocked them down and continued their rampage, witnesses said. 'It was as if the hell's door was opened,' Saeed said, sobbing. Her straw house and neighboring homes were burned down, and one RSF fighter seized her necklace. 'We were dying of fear,' she said. The villagers said the fighters also sexually abused or raped many women. One of the women said she saw three fighters wearing RSF uniforms dragging a young woman into an abandoned house. She said she later met the woman, who said she was raped. Satellite imagery from July 13 and 14 showed 'intentional arson attacks' and 'a large smoke point' over the village as well as 'razed and smoldering' buildings, the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health reported. In the two-day RSF attack in Shaq al-Noum and surrounding areas, more than 450 civilians, including 35 children and two pregnant women, were killed, according to UNICEF. After the assault, many of the survivors fled, leaving behind a mostly deserted village. The RSF did not respond to questions about the attack from the AP. Both sides seek control of oil-rich Kordofan region Beyond the village, the oil-rich Kordofan region has emerged as a major front line following the military's recapture of Khartoum earlier this year. The warring parties have raced for control of the three-province region stretching across southern and central Sudan because it controls vital supply lines. 'Kordofan has become the most strategic area of the country,' said Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The fighting has exacerbated the already dire conditions in the region. In Kadugli, the provincial capital city of South Kordofan province, 'roads have been cut off, supply lines have collapsed and residents are walking miles just to search for salt or matches,' said Kadry Furany, country director for Sudan at Mercy Corps aid group. A mental health therapist in Obeid, the provincial capital of North Kordofan province, said the city received waves of displaced people in recent weeks, all from areas recently ambushed by the RSF. The therapist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about her safety, said she supported 10 women and girls who endured sexual abuse, including rape, in RSF-seized areas in July alone. Among the victims were two women from Shag al-Num village, she said. 'The conditions are tragic,' she said. Another epicenter of starvation and disease To the west of the Kordofan region is el-Fasher, the military's last stronghold in the five-province Darfur region. The city — which has been under constant RSF bombardment for over a year — is one of the hardest hit by hunger and disease outbreaks, according to the U.N. The World Food Program has been unable to deliver aid by land. It warned this month that 300,000 people, who are 'trapped, hungry and running out of time,' are at risk of starvation. 'Everyone in el-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,' said Eric Perdison, the food program's director for eastern and southern Africa. 'Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost.' The paramilitaries and their Janjaweed allies imposed a total blockade of el-Fasher, leaving no route out of the city that the RSF does not control, according to satellite imagery recently analyzed by the humanitarian lab at Yale. The blockade caused food prices to spike up to 460% higher than in the rest of Sudan, according to the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies. Most staples are scarce or no longer available. Civilians who want to leave the city are required to pass through a single RSF-controlled point, where they have been robbed, forced to pay bribes or killed, according to the Yale lab, aid workers and residents. On Aug. 2, a group of people, including women and children, attempted to flee the city. When they reached Garni, a village on a crucial supply route just northwest of the city, RSF fighters ambushed the area, residents said. 'They tell you to leave, then they kill you,' said al-Amin Ammar, a 63-year-old who said he escaped because he is old. 'It's a death trap.' At least 14 people were killed, and dozens of others were wounded in the village, said the Emergency Lawyers rights group said. Aside from fighting, the region has been ravaged by lack of food and a cholera outbreak, said Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local aid group known as General Coordination. Many people have nothing to eat and resorted to cattle fodder to survive, he said. Some have not found even fodder, he said. He shared images of emaciated children with their exhausted, malnourished mothers on the outskirts of el-Fasher or the nearby town of Tawila. 'People don't await food or medicine,' he said, 'rather they await death.' The 12-year-old son of Sabah Hego, a widow, was admitted with cholera to a makeshift hospital in Tweila, joining dozens of other patients there. 'He is sick, and dying,' Hego said of her youngest child. 'He is not alone. There are many like him.'
Edmonton Journal
4 hours ago
- Edmonton Journal
News organizations fight to publicize evidence presented at fitness hearing of suspect in Lapu Lapu attack
Article content A media consortium has challenged a publication ban on evidence at a hearing to determine if the man accused of killing 11 people at Vancouver's Lapu Lapu Day festival is fit to stand trial. Article content The ban, which is supported by both prosecutors and the defence, says evidence in the British Columbia provincial court hearing is not publishable until the ban is lifted or after the end of a criminal trial. Article content Article content Adam Kai-Ji Lo, who attended court by video on Tuesday wearing a blue sweatshirt, faces 11 second-degree murder charges over the ramming attack in April, when an SUV drove through a crowd at a Filipino community festival. Article content Article content Lawyer Daniel Coles, representing the consortium that includes The Canadian Press, argued that lifting the ban would be in the public interest while Crown lawyer Michaela Donnelly and Lo's defence lawyer Mark Swartz opposed lifting or altering the ban. Article content Coles told the court that Vancouver now 'wears the crown of the deadliest vehicle attack in Canadian history' and the attack has garnered significant public attention. He said it was essential to the public interest and the open-court principle to allow the media to report on the matter, as it was not often possible for members of the public to attend court and coverage 'fills that void.' Article content Article content He argued that the court must find a balance between Lo's right to a fair trial with court openness and freedom of expression. Article content 'A proper publication ban — one that can withstand Charter scrutiny — is done with a scalpel and not a hatchet,' he told the court Tuesday. 'It's minimally invasive.' Article content Coles argued that because a trial date has not yet been set, much of what is covered by the fitness hearing 'will be in the rear-view mirror of the public consciousness' by that time. Article content He also said several details are already known by the public, including that Lo had 'significant interactions with police in connection with mental health issues.' Article content 'Any potential juror would know that,' he told the judge, adding that public is also aware of his family history, including the murder of his brother and his mother's attempted suicide. Article content Swartz rebuffed that argument, saying publicly known information is 'very bare bones' and 'quite ambiguous.'
Ottawa Citizen
8 hours ago
- Ottawa Citizen
Randy Hillier's charge for COVID-19 lockdown protest in Cornwall withdrawn
The legal road for charges filed under the Reopening Ontario Act against former independent MPP Randy Hillier for an anti-lockdown protest in Cornwall came to an end Tuesday. Article content Hillier had contested the constitutionality of the charges filed against him for his involvement in a protest in Cornwall on May 1, 2021, and was vindicated by the Ontario Court of Appeal on April 7. It ruled in his favour in determining the restrictions on gatherings such as the protest in Cornwall violated the Charter right to peaceful assembly; the court said the Ontario Superior Court judge who'd heard Hillier's challenge erred in going too broadly on consideration of whether the restrictions were an acceptable limitation. Article content Article content Article content Given the appeal court's decision, the lingering matter of Hillier's provincial-offence charge filed in 2021 required a formal resolution. Article content Article content Assistant Crown attorney Claudette Breault told Ontario Court of Justice Justice of the Peace Linda Leblanc the Crown was withdrawing the charge. Breault referenced a provincial-offences court appearance scheduled for Brockville on Wednesday — Hillier faced the same charge under the Reopening Ontario Act for another protest in that region — and told the Cornwall court that charge was also being withdrawn. Article content While Crown attorneys rarely provide the rationale for why a charge is withdrawn, in this matter the Ontario Court of Appeal's ruling on the unconstitutionality of the restrictions against public gatherings under the Reopening Ontario Act essentially rendered this prosecution moot. Article content Article content Chris Fleury represented Hillier Tuesday, he has appeared on Hillier's behalf in Cornwall court several times through his association with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms to request adjournments as his colleagues were preparing and arguing the challenges before the Ontario Superior Court and Ontario Court of Appeal. Both parties appeared in court via video conference. Article content Article content The Tuesday withdrawal brings an end to the charges laid against seven people after the May 1, 2021, protest of pandemic restrictions that took place on the grounds of the Eastern Ontario Health Unit in Cornwall. Article content As to his co-defendants who were also charged, their cases reached a conclusion between 2022 and 2024. Article content Kristen Nagle's charge was withdrawn by Crown attorney Alan Findlay in March 2024. Caitlyn Richer's charge was withdrawn in November 2023. The charges filed against Jason Christoff, Sandra Maurais, Gary Jans, and Sarah Choujounian were withdrawn in December 2022. Article content 'They have either done community service work, or the fact of being charged and going through the court process was deemed sufficient,' Findlay said in a March 2023 email in response to inquiries on the status of some of the cases and withdrawals at that time. 'The significant age of their charge was a factor.' Article content
