8 teen girls met online then killed 59-year-old man in a ‘swarming,’ Canada cops say
A man was fatally assaulted and stabbed in Toronto. A group of eight teenage girls is charged with second-degree murder, Canadian police say.
Toronto police said the 59-year-old was attacked in a “swarming” just after midnight on Sunday, Dec. 18. He was transported to a nearby hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
Shortly after the man was found, eight teenage girls — three 13-year-olds, three 14-year-olds and two 16-year-olds — were arrested in connection with the incident, the police department said in a Dec. 20 news release. The girls are each charged with second-degree murder.
Officials believe the girls met on social media, but they don’t know how long they knew each other, Detective Sergeant Terry Browne of the department’s Homicide and Missing Persons Unit said in a Dec. 20 news conference. Three of the teenagers have had previous contact with the police department.
Browne said that, before killing the man, the group had been involved in a separate “altercation” on Dec. 20.
The department is asking that anyone with information contact police at 416-808-7400.
The Urban Dictionary defines “swarming” as when a group of “people all attack a single individual at once.”
