14-year-old boy charged with first-degree murder in random Pickering stabbing
The 14-year-old suspect in Thursday's fatal stabbing in Pickering has been charged with first-degree murder, a court heard Friday morning. The incident spurred a massive local manhunt and a shelter-in-place warning for residents.
Around 3 p.m. on Lynn Heights Drive, the elderly victim was in front of her home when a male approached and stabbed her repeatedly, police said. A passerby found her and she was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead. The suspect was arrested 'without incident' after what investigators called an 'extensive search' around 8:30 p.m., officials said in a news release late Friday morning.
Acting staff Sgt. Joanne McCabe told media at the scene on Friday morning that police are looking into reports from residents that the suspect was prowling homes in the area in the weeks leading up to the incident.
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'This is something that I think ... is going to impact this community for a very long time,' McCabe told reporters at the scene.
The attack appears to be random, noting that the boy and the victim had brief chat before she was fatally stabbed, McCabe said.
'What that conversation was will also be part of the investigation,' she said.
Gta
Pickering stabbing: Mayor shocked by 'so much hate' after 13-year-old boy is arrested in Durham homicide
Arrest of boy Thursday evening ends an intense police search following the death of a Pickering
On Thursday evening at the scene, Durham police Chief Peter Moreira called the incident a 'sadistic and cowardly, unprovoked attack that was captured on video.'
'I worked in homicide for a long time, and I can tell you that an unprovoked attack like this is just unimaginable.'
Moreira declined to comment further on the details of the arrest, saying the investigation is still in its early stages. Police have not publicly stated whether there was a relationship between the victim and suspect, adding the victim's name is being withheld at her family's request.
The suspect's identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
The apparently random nature of the fatal stabbing pushed Durham officers to take 'unusual steps,' Moreira added, including deploying the OPP Alert Ready service. Although the shelter-in-place was only intended for the people in the immediate area, the alert was received on cellphones elsewhere in the GTA.
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McCabe said on Friday investigative work is done before emergency alerts are deployed, and police 'understand the fear that they may cause.'
'We don't release them lightly,' she added.
Durham Regional Police investigate a murder near the intersection of Fairport and Lynn Heights in Pickering.
Steve Russell/ Toronto Star
The city of Pickering cancelled all evening activities and classes in the wake of the attack, but after the suspect was arrested, locals were told they could go back to their activities.
'I'm shocked that a person so young has so much hate in them,' Pickering Mayor Kevin Ashe told reporters at the scene Thursday.
Ashe added the boy was affected by the 'burden of mental health.'
Police previously reported the suspect was 13 years old.
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Toronto Star
a day ago
- Toronto Star
‘Somebody was stabbed and he's dead': Unheard testimony and video footage from the girl swarm case
'I put my arm up, the knife went in.' Everyone had waited for this, to hear what the 16-year-old boy would say on the witness stand. This wasn't the trial for the girl accused of stabbing and killing Kenneth Lee, but instead the preliminary hearing, a kind of dress rehearsal involving all eight of the girls and their lawyers a year earlier. This is where legal issues — including whether the girls should stand trial — got ironed out. The boy had never agreed to speak to police. So, his testimony, seven days into the hearing, was a discovery of what he knew and what he would say at trial. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW He would never be called to testify at the Superior Court of Justice at the only trial that would go ahead — not once the Crown prosecutors and defence lawyers learned what he had to say. The girls had been drinking and smoking weed that night and were not acting like themselves, he said, which could have hurt the Crown's case that the girl intentionally harmed Lee. And, the boy said — unhelpfully for her defence — the girl who was accused of stabbing Lee, had a knife that injured him during a play fight, after the swarming attack. 'Your daughter's been arrested for murder': How a mother learned about her teen's role in Kenneth Lee's killing That testimony has, until now, been under a publication ban. On Friday, Justice Philip Campbell found the girl prosecutors tried to pin Lee's stabbing on not-guilty of murder, saying there was reasonable doubt she fatally wounded him. The decision brings to a close the prosecution against eight teen girls, ages 13 to 16 at the time, who were part of the swarming attack. But with none of them guilty of murder, the question remains: Who stabbed Kenneth Lee? 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First, he was captured on the Yorkdale station subway platform where he and several girls could be seen chasing each other, playfully, up and down the tunnel. He was asked to identify what two of the girls could be seen holding: 'A knife,' he said. The court heard earlier this month, when one of the girls pleaded guilty to manslaughter, that she threw that knife onto the subway tracks 'because she didn't want anything dangerous to happen.' That fact was entered as part of an agreed statement that the Crown said they could neither prove nor disprove. Following the attack on Lee, video footage shown at the preliminary hearing showed the group of teens continued to loiter downtown, in an office lobby on Bay Street and outside, taking videos of themselves laughing and dancing. The girl accused of stabbing Lee, in one video, mimics stomping motions towards the cellphone camera, with what looks to be red blood stains visible on her grey sweatpants. 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The body-worn footage was played as part of a hearing about the admissibility of evidence at trial, but not at the trial itself. It wasn't until one of the girls asked an officer if she could talk to someone in the hospital lobby when the girls began to realize something was wrong. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'None of you are going to be leaving anytime soon,' the officer said. 'We can't leave?' one of them asked. There is an ongoing investigation about an incident at York and University, an officer replied. 'Somebody was stabbed and he's dead.' Crime scene photos show where Toronto Police marked blood from Kenneth Lee in the parkette where he was fatally stabbed. Court exhibit 'He's not dead,' one of the girls responded, possibly referring to their injured friend, as several of the girls approached where the officers had gathered. 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The girl the Crown would eventually accuse of stabbing Lee was seated next to her, jacket hood up over her face. She was not speaking. In his decision, the judge found he could not exclude the possibility that the girl being accused in the SickKids lobby was responsible for the fatal stab wound. That girl, he wrote, can be seen on video with 'something that is shiny and shaped like a blade' protruding from her hand as she runs towards Lee during the final wave of the attack. At the same time, he wrote he could not conclude she was holding a knife. 'Is it a Chinese man?' one of the girls asked, still confused about why they were being investigated. 'It's a very serious matter,' one of the officers said. Officers searched the pockets of the girl being arrested, finding them full of candy and gum. 'I'm gonna read you your rights in the car, OK?' She was the first to be arrested. The 14-year-old is brought into a small, windowless interview room wearing an orange police-issued jumpsuit, her pink hoodie visible underneath. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The police detective followed behind her and sat across from her at a small white table that looked bolted to the floor. There's no lawyer, no parent present — the reason why this video footage, also discussed at the hearing about evidence admissibility, is never entered at her trial. 'My job here is to find out exactly what happened,' the officer told the girl, saying some of the other girls were choosing to tell police exactly what they did to Lee. 'Do I have to answer?' the girl asked. He told her she didn't. Gta A secret confession, chartered flights and strip searches: Behind the scenes of the girls-swarming saga after the killing of Kenneth Lee Here are some of the details that can now be reported for the first time. He led her through questions of where she was that night. She complained of losing her voice from talking too much. He asked why she wasn't making eye contact. 'I can't look at people when I talk to them . . . It makes me uncomfortable,' she said. Eventually the detective turned his laptop around to play the surveillance video from the parkette for her. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The girl leaned forward, tucking her chin into her hoodie as she watched. She pointed herself out in the video. 'Do you want to just tell me what happened?' the detective asked. 'I want to see what happened,' she responded. She couldn't remember, she said, telling the officer she hadn't been sober. 'I remember, but just don't remember,' she said. The detective continued playing the video from the parkette. 'He dies after this, from what happened to him,' the detective said. 'He suffered stab wounds . . . Did you stab him?' There is a long silence. She doesn't answer.
Calgary Herald
a day ago
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Five youths charged after deploying bear spray at bus near Chinook station
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CTV News
a day ago
- CTV News
Two teens facing weapons charges following incident in Norwich
An Ontario Provincial Police cruiser conducts a traffic stop in this file image. (Supplied/Ontario Provincial Police) A weapons complaint has resulted in charges for a 17-year-old youth in Norwich. OPP say that a call on Friday afternoon around 5:30 they received a call about a weapons complaint on Stover Street. An investigation resulted in the conclusion that a projectile was discharged from a vehicle and struck a pedestrian, resulting in minor injuries. The vehicle fled the scene. The vehicle was shortly located by officers, and the youth was charged with assault with a weapon, as well as possession of a weapon for dangerous purpose. A second youth, also 17 years old, was charged with assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon for dangerous purpose, and dangerous operation. Their identities are protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
