The case of a group of teenage girls accused of the swarm death of a man is ‘atypical’, say an expert and the police

TORONTO – The case of a group of teenage girls accused of the “swarm” death of a homeless man is extremely rare, police and an expert said Wednesday as investigators worked to piece together how an alleged fight over a bottle of liquor turned violent. fatal.

Toronto police said eight teenage girls have been charged with second-degree murder after a 59-year-old man was stabbed to death Saturday night. Three of the girls were 13, three 14 and two 16.

“It’s not that women have never been involved in homicide before, but to this point, with this age group, I’ve never seen this personally before,” said Det. Sergeant Terry Browne told The Canadian Press in an interview.

Browne said the girls met on social media and congregated downtown Saturday night, where they were involved for the first time in another criminal but “non-aggressive” incident.

The girls then allegedly attacked and stabbed the homeless man, sending him to the hospital early Sunday morning, where he was later pronounced dead, police said.

“We believe that his purpose was to take property from him and a partner he was with. We think it was a liquor bottle,” Browne said. “During that altercation, they used some sort of group meeting to attack the victim.”

All the teens face the same charges, Browne said.

“What we are alleging is that all eight individuals participated in the attack on this victim, and because of that participation, he has now passed away,” he said.

Browne said the girls live in houses in the Greater Toronto area, leading police to infer that social media played a role in connecting them. Whether or not the girls exhibited patterns of behavior such as bullying or victimization that led to the man’s death also remains a major focus of the investigation, she said.

Browne has said that three of the girls had had prior interactions with police, while the other five had not. Their identities cannot be revealed under the provisions of the Juvenile Criminal Justice Act.

One parent of each of the girls was notified of the charges filed and what allegedly happened.

“Everyone was collectively shocked and in awe of what had happened, obviously dejected,” Browne said.

Tracy Vaillancourt, a professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in Child Mental Health and Violence Prevention, said it is “unusual” to see adolescent girls engage in assaults that could lead to a murder charge.

She said the case highlights how groups can have a “deindividuation effect,” where people’s individual actions and responsibilities are outweighed and obfuscated by the actions of a group, which can lead to impulsiveness and violence.

“What that means is that the way you behave in a group gone bad, like here, is not the way you would normally behave if you were on your own,” Vaillancourt said. “In a sense, it dulls you, numbs you to the anguish and plight of the person you’re hurting.”

The victim in this case may also have been easier to target allegedly because she belonged to a vulnerable group, Vaillancourt said.

“Moral disengagement is a cognitive mechanism that people use to make their heinous acts more acceptable,” he said. “One of them is dehumanization, so they probably viewed this individual as less.”

The Toronto Youth Cabinet, the city’s official youth advisory body, said it was “disheartened” to learn of the attack.

“We must also recognize that violence against the homeless and substandard housing is on the rise and those who are the most vulnerable in our communities will be the targets of these violent acts,” read a statement from Cabinet Chief Executive Stephen Mensah.

“As a society, we should not feel comfortable and complacent with the increase in violence, nor should we be with the deterioration of the socioeconomic conditions in which our youth find themselves.”

The group also called for more investment in youth services, employment and community support from all levels of government.

Browne recalled a “swarm” phenomenon in the 1990s and early 2000s, where most adolescent males in groups preyed on and attacked individual victims and robbed or intimidated them.

British Columbia teenager Reena Virk was 14 years old in 1997 when a group of teenagers invaded and beat her, and at her trial it was heard that a 15-year-old girl continued to beat her and drowned her in a canal.

In the Toronto case, Browne said police were asking anyone who may have been in contact with the teens Saturday night to come forward. Police were also still trying to notify the family of the man who died.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on December 21, 2022.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of Meta and the Canadian Press News Fellowship.