No racial bias in high-school arrests, police say

Joe Friesen:

A school riven with conflict over the arrest of 16 black students for alleged sexual assaults and harassment of a white teenage girl made a bid for peace last night with an emergency meeting of parents, school officials and police.

Most parents expressed hope the meeting would bring calm to James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School, which was shattered this week by the charges and divided by allegations that race was a factor in police handling of the case.

Their children are baffled, scared, and in some cases want to change schools.

About 150 parents attended the meeting, according to Toronto Catholic District School Board spokeswoman Mary Jo Deighan. She described it as an emotional discussion of "a very painful situation" that has made "a deep impact on the school."

Many parents expressed frustration with school officials as they left last night, saying the meeting at times was nothing more than a shouting match.

"They just sat there, made excuses and did nothing," said one parent, who did not give her name. "It was just disgraceful."

Detective Jon Ling, an investigator from 31 Division youth bureau, rejected accusations made by a number of the accused and their parents that race played a role for police.

"It's easy for them to say that, but as far as I'm concerned, whether they're black, green, yellow or white, they would have been held," Det. Ling said in an interview before the meeting. "There's no indication there's anything racially motivated about this. This is a girl trying to fit in at a school where there's a lot of students of colour. It's just unfortunate."

Four teens are charged with sexual assault and 10 with criminal harassment. The allegations stretch back to September, 2004, and include two incidents in which the girl is said to have been assaulted in a washroom.

Det. Ling said police examined video evidence from school security cameras and interviewed witnesses before making arrests. It wasn't done without proper consideration, he said, and officers made an effort not to embarrass the accused. The boys were asked to leave class by the principal, and then were handcuffed in the hallway.

"They're saying we shouldn't have gone to the school [to make the arrests], that we should've called the parents. If we would've called the parents and told them that we'd be arresting their kids on Monday, I can tell you half of them wouldn't have been there."

The accused have all been released on bail, with the condition that they remain in their homes at all times except to attend school. But since they are also suspended by their school, some spent the day watching television.

In an interview earlier yesterday, one of the accused, who cannot be identified because of his age, said he is innocent of the charges of sexual assault. His mother also said the allegations are unfounded.

"I know my son," she said. "Yes, he's troublesome. Disrupts class and that kind of thing. But sexual assault? No way."

Another woman and her son, an accused who also cannot be named, maintained that racism is to blame.

"This is garbage," she said, calling the charges "trumped up."

She suggested that the school is using the allegations to rid itself of a few disruptive students. She said she wondered how a school that has called her about uniform infractions didn't know about a serious crime alleged to have taken place over more than a year.

She said she has warned her son in the past not to talk to white girls.

"[I] tell him not to talk to those white girls, because they are bait," she said.

Principal accused of being racist

Parent says race played role in school arrests

Accused teens released on bail