Parent bloodied during alleged high school brawl
Videos of the supposed fight circulated on social media
The parent of a Cardinal Carter Catholic High School student was severely beaten Friday afternoon and four students have now been “asked to stay home” while police investigate.
The York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) confirmed the incident Tuesday after two videos surfaced online.
Both the board and York Regional Police are searching for witnesses to the Dec. 2 fight between a student from Cardinal Carter and another from St. Theresa of Lisieux Catholic High School, which police believe occurred around 3 p.m. at Briar Nine Park in Oak Ridges.
A video posted on Twitter shows two students throwing rapid punches in an open, grassy area. An older man enters the shot but does not stop the fighting. He then punches another person who is watching the fight.
A person narrating the video suggests that the man is a parent of one of two students fighting.
Asecond video shows what appears to be the same man, with blood dripping from the side of his head and on his shirt, arguing with students by his car in a neighbourhood just outside of Briar Nine Park.
“I thought they were jumping in on him — what would you do if it was your kid?” the man says in the video.
The argument escalates and the man is shoved, then punched and falls to the ground. As he is on the ground, several people kick him. Other people can be heard shouting “stop” and asking the man if he’s okay.
Several people eventually intervene and surround the man before he is helped up by a young man and returns to his car.
Neighbours, who did not want to be identified due to concerns of retaliation, said students spilled from the park onto the quiet, residential street around 3 p.m. Friday.
There were about 30 students on the street, swelling to around 50 with more students arriving by car. One neighbour said she had phoned the police.
York Regional Police Staff Sgt. Rob Bentham confirmed that police received at least one call about the fight, but, when units arrived, “everyone scattered.”
“No one wanted to talk to us,” Ben- tham said, adding that officers couldn’t find a complainant or the reporting party and eventually cleared the scene.
Police weren’t aware the fight had been filmed until it began publicly circulating Monday.
As of Tuesday evening no arrests had been made.
The video circulated privately via text message and Snapchat among the high school community in York Region for three days before becoming public when a teen posted it to Twitter on Monday.
The Star is not revealing the teen’s name to protect the identity.
The teen said they had posted the video to draw attention to something that never should have happened.
“I was on the bus after school, and honestly I saw a whole bunch of people tweeting their opinions about it and saying, ‘Oh, the dad deserved it,’ and I said that too, before I had seen the videos.
“But then I saw the extent that these kids took it, and I was brought to tears, it was so disgusting. I just want everyone to see how wrong it is. The cops should have been called the second anyone laid a hand on anybody,” the teen said.
The YCDSB is conducting its own investigation, board spokesperson Sonia Gallo said, and four students from Cardinal Carter have been “asked to stay at home” until the investigation is complete.
The man seen in the videos is the parent of one of those students, Gallo confirmed, but declined to provide what grade any of the students were in or reveal how many other students are potentially under investigation.
She described the fight, and the fact that it was filmed and shared online, as an “isolated incident.”