Why Did a Group of Teenage Girls Kill a Man in a Downtown Toronto Parkette? | The Walrus

"U NDER THE GAZE of a security camera in the northeastern corner of Yorkdale Shopping Centre, a woman and a teenage girl are caught in a confrontation. It is the evening of December 17, 2022, just a week before Christmas-the first holiday season in two years with no pandemic lockdown restrictions-and in the soundless CCTV footage, shoppers at the sprawling mall in a northern Toronto neighbourhood are in constant motion."

"On its own, the brief flash of anger would have been unremarkable. Against the backdrop of everything that followed that night-drunken belligerence, assault, death-it suggested that even early in the evening, the girl, one of a handful loitering in the mall concourse, had been in a fighting mood. In a group chat that would later be reported to have included as many as thirty people, several teenagers had agreed to meet at Yorkdale before going to a party in Markham, deeper north into the suburbs."

"They were unsupervised and strikingly young, between the ages of thirteen and sixteen; they were also all Black, a detail that would rarely be mentioned in subsequent coverage of the night's events. Tucked into her jacket, one of them carried a bubblegum-pink pepper spray and taser set and a wrench-like tool called Vise-Grip. The girls also had a small blue-handled knife."

CCTV footage captured a confrontation between a woman and a teenage girl at Yorkdale Shopping Centre on the evening of December 17, 2022. The mall was busy during the first holiday season after pandemic lockdowns. Several teenagers coordinated in a group chat to meet at Yorkdale before attending a party in Markham. The teens ranged from thirteen to sixteen years old and were all Black. One teen carried a bubblegum-pink pepper spray and taser set, a Vise-Grip wrench-like tool, and the group also had a small blue-handled knife. The teens roamed the mall for over an hour, drank, smoked weed, and recorded videos mentioning a fight. Mall security later approached the group, and the teens gathered in a tucked-away staircase.

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