OPOKU o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-11-18 published
Tragic deaths shock teens
Students react to accidental deaths
By Rosie DIMANNO
Teenagers embrace and weep. Some are angry and direct that fury
at outsiders, anyone beyond the terrible closed circle of their
grief, their incomprehension.
What a wretched week it has been for students and faculty at
James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School. They are in need
of tenderness and solace.
Already stunned and emotionally raw over the arrest of 14 black
male students charged with sexually assaulting or harassing a
white female teenager over a prolonged period -- police swooping
down to remove the youths on Monday, allegations of racism swirling
since -- these students were left reeling anew yesterday morning
upon learning that another one of their own had been found dead
in a car only a few hours earlier, apparently the victim of accidental
carbon monoxide poisoning.
The deceased is Anna
ZARNOCH, a 17-year-old girl in Grade 12,
reported missing by her parents the previous day. Her lifeless
body, along with that of a 22-year-old male, was discovered shortly
after 6 a.m. in a Cadillac parked inside the garage of a Lansdowne
Ave. home, where the young man resided with his family.
Autopsies were to be performed today but police believe this
awful tragedy was an accident. It appears the couple had fallen
asleep in the back seat of the vehicle, with the engine running.
The keys were still in the ignition but the car wasn't running
because it was out of gas by the time the gruesome discovery
was made.
Det.
Sgt.
Scott
GILBERT, of 13 Division, told the Star last night
that the young man's mother had seen the couple going into the
garage the night before. "She went back out at 1 a.m. to check
on them... but she didn't have any reason to think anything was
wrong."
The mother then went to bed. It wasn't until a friend of her
son came by early yesterday morning, to pick him up for work,
that the mother realized he wasn't in his room, sources say.
That's when the garage was checked again and the bodies found.
Police were called, arriving at about 6: 20 a.m.
It was all too, too much for students at McGuigan, a high school
on Finch Ave. just west of Keele St. Girls sobbed openly as they
mulled around the school's front entrance while teenage boys
puffed furiously on cigarettes and shouted "Go Away!" at reporters
arriving on the scene.
"Leave us alone!" several pleaded. "This is a terrible thing
that's happened. It's not news."
Alas, it is news, however unconnected the two occurrences --
the arrests and the accidental death -- may be. It is a hideous
coincidence or confluence of events, with many wondering what
in God's name this poor school has done to be so stricken by
calamity, with all the attendant media attention.
"I just saw her yesterday," said Elizabeth
OGUNBOYE, 14. "We
walked together right along this street. The next thing I know
she's dead. She was such a nice, a really nice, girl.
"First the arrests and then this."
It took considerable courage for any of the students to speak
with reporters, as other youths shouted at them to shut up, knock
it off. A few of the teenage boys and one extremely hostile girl
took it upon themselves to steer others away from reporters,
who were careful not to venture onto school property.
"Anger, sadness, shock," said Jessica
OPOKU, 14, describing the
atmosphere inside the school. "Oh my gosh, all the pain."
Added Nakisha
BEALS: "A lot of people are crying in there. Dozens
of people crying. It's so tragic. I feel so sorry for the family.
They didn't even know where she was, they'd been looking for
her."
And, from another student who would not give a name: "It's been
hell on Earth."
Students learned about the death of the 17-year-old girl shortly
after classes commenced. Faculty had been summoned to a staff
meeting where the principal is said to have broken the news.
Each teacher was given a sheet of paper that contained a picture
of the deceased and the few details then known, with instructions
to tell their students what had happened. It was decided, after
consultation with Catholic school board authorities, that this
would be more appropriate than announcing the death over the
public address speaker.
A fleet of grief counsellors descended -- enough to take every
class under wing. Later in the afternoon, with the school's flag
lowered to half-mast, a prayer service was held for the dead
girl.
"It is with great sadness that we confirm the untimely and accidental
tragic death of one of our students," Mary Joe
DEIGHEN, spokesperson
for the school board, told reporters, reading at first from a
prepared statement. "The staff and students of James Cardinal
McGuigan Catholic School have suffered a great loss.
"This school has been under a lot of media attention during the
past few days. I am asking and demanding that the press allow
this community to grieve quietly. This has been requested by
students and staff of this community.
"This accidental death is in no way, in no way, related or connected
to the previous experience... we've been experiencing at this
school."
DEIGHEN added: "They're grieving, they're hurt. We're hoping
to start a healing process. But it's going to take a long time."
Out of respect for the deceased, the school cancelled an academic
awards celebration -- 116 winners -- that had been scheduled
for last night.
It was only one more small way in which the lives of these students
have been overwhelmed by recent events. Unhappiness and volatile
resentment were already thick on the ground following the arrest
of the boys -- some of them athletes -- early in the week, after
a 16-year-old girl told a teacher, then the police, that she
had been sexually assaulted repeatedly since September 2004.
Those assaults allegedly occurred both on and off school property.
The boys, who were handcuffed in front of their peers when removed
from class or the corridors, spent the night in jail and all
were granted bail on Tuesday. Since then, much of the student
body appears to have closed rank around the male youths, with
appallingly little sympathy expressed for the alleged victim.
In this hard attitude towards the girl, the students seem to
be following a tone set by some parents of the accused. One mother,
after bailing out her son, complained loudly that the girl had
"been caught," suggesting she was a willing participant to whatever
transpired, as some sort of 16-year-old predator.
Several parents, fiercely protective of their sons, have also
lobbed accusations of racism and racial profiling by police,
because all the accused are black and the alleged victim is white.
Police adamantly deny this.
It seems not to have occurred to anyone that, if there were any
racism at work in this alleged matter, it might be of the reverse
variety -- a white girl allegedly victimized by a large number
of black youth.
Four were charged with sexual assault and forcible confinement
and 10 with criminal harassment. Two females have also been charged
with making threats. Because of their age, none can be identified.
Parents are also livid over how the arrests were conducted, claiming
they were not informed beforehand, with some further accusing
the school of not protecting their kids, permitting them to be
humiliated in front of other students. These issues were among
the subjects of a tense meeting with school and police officials
on Wednesday evening, attended by about 250 parents.
All the boys have been suspended from school and ordered to give
up their cellphones and pagers, pending trial. They will be permitted
to attend classes at any other school that might accept them.
The girl has not returned to class.
It doesn't take a scholar to see why.
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