Winnipeg has reached its 30th homicide today. The young boy who was stabbed early Saturday morning is not expected to survive his injuries, according to reports in the media today. He hasn't had a chance to really live, cutting his life short, before it has really started. But that seems to be an all too familiar story in Winnipeg these days.
One has to wonder what a 15 year old boy was doing at 2:40am on a Saturday morning bicycling down a neighbourhood street. The sad thing is, I have seen youths out late at night on bicycles. This is how drugs get delivered. The runners are youths, and they travel by bicycle. Was this a confrontation between rival groups? Who knows. Was this youth running drugs? Who knows. But what was he doing that got him "stabbed in the chest 3 times", or so I overheard. And what are we doing to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future?
We have laws set up to protect Youth from harsh penalties, and this is just used by the criminal element to recruit our Youth. This boy is dying, very likely, as a result of our current Youth Justice System. He was likely stabbed while working as a drug runner, being devoured in a world he was too young to be in.