Teen girls viciously swarm, beat man
Andrea Woo
The Province
July 17, 2005
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A 19-year-old Coquitlam man was savagely beaten by a group of teenaged girls Friday night, making it the ninth swarming by teenagers in Vancouver in the last month.
Wesley Tommy Jack was drinking in Strathcona Park with about 12 other people -- one friend whom he had met through work, and the rest friends of his friend.
Between 2:30 and 3 a.m., a group of three or more girls, between the ages of 16 and 18, attacked him.
"I just remember some girl started to punch me," said Jack, who did not know any of the girls.
"I told her I wasn't going to hit her back. I remember I got hit hard by a few people and blacked out. When I woke up, I had nothing left."
Jack was punched and kicked repeatedly.
His face was severely swollen, his shirt ripped and back scratched.
He was also missing $180 in cash and all of his jewelery.
He says the other youths witnessed the attack but did not do anything to help.
When he regained consciousness at around 4 a.m., Jack went to his mother's house in Vancouver, where she called an ambulance for him.
"His face was just swollen," said his mother, Viriginia. "His whole cheekbone was almost up to his eye and both his lips were just swollen, swollen. Like double in size."
Jack moved to Vancouver from Vancouver Island last December. In March, he moved again, this time to a rooming house in Coquitlam.
"I told him, 'If you're going to drink here in Vancouver, you're new, stick to one or two,'" said Viriginia. "That's it. Make it your limit, until you get to know the people that you're with, and what they're like when they're drunk."
In a news release issued last Thursday, Vancouver police said they were "concerned about the alarming increase in swarming incidents in recent months."
Sgt. Mario Giardini of the Youth Services Unit said that parents need to be vigilant and talk to their kids about such incidents.
"Know what your kids are doing. Know their friends," said Giardini. "Tell them if they see a group of kids that are acting out, being violent or using drugs and alcohol, to get away to a place of safety and call 911."
Last week, a 12-year-old and two 13-year-old girls were arrested and charged in connection with an assault on a 13-year-old girl earlier this month near a park at Pandora and Nanaimo streets.
Three Grade 7 students were also recently arrested for luring a boy into a ravine last month, beating him with a garden hoe and shooting him with a pellet gun.
Police could not be reached for comment about this incident by press time.