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ellit’s happened again. On Friday November 29th ‘o more students who live on the residence of P.E.1. were verbally and physically assaulted by a owd of high school students numbering from about } to 20. In the first incident the two male students o were assaulted had to be transported to the hospi- | to receive stitches and medical care before they uld be released because they basically... were

aten to a pulp!! The second time when students

sre approached luckily the couple, consisting ofa ale and female were not harmed.

irther-more the seen had worsened when a group of arian Hallresidents heard about the incident. A

oup of 16 pissed off residents decided to go down McDonald’s (where the second couple was con- ynted) and seek retaliation hoping to scare off the uths from future attacks against residence students. hen the word got out that a group from Marian Hall is furious and were waiting at Burger King looking fa particular group of guys, they too were con-

fronted by car loads of youths. As the tense minutes | passed, more and more car loads of youths appeared.

I happened to notice that one of the youths who had showed up was trying to start a fight with anybody who practically looked at him. Not before long the group from Marian Hall was out-numbered by AT LEAST 60 youths. Their cars filled the parking lots of both A&W and Burger King. Out-numbered by increasing amounts of youths, the group from Marian Hall slowly backed off trying to avoid an onslaught. But the more the group cautiously backed off it brought more youths out from there cars and on to the field beside the A& W restaurant. As their numbers increased, so did their courage and willingness to break up the group from enraged Marian Hall.

As the youths greatly out numbered and started to enclose on the group from marian Hall, one lone Charlottetown city police showed up at the field. As they examined the situation that was escalating they final went over, broke up, and separated the two groups.

Luckily nothing happened to either groups, but if squads of youths insist on randomly assaulting people and U.P.E.I students I can see a seen, like the one that occurred on Friday escalating again. Reporting incidents like these to the police aren’t to effective when about 10 of them (high school youths) jump you from a dark corner or ‘‘THEY’’ are protected by the young offenders act. It’s easy to ignore themifyou don’t mind seeing your close friends physically assaulted one at atime. Sure... youcan gang up on them if you can pick one of them out in a crowd sometime when they’re not expecting you. But cross- ing threw the Burger King parking lot might be quite the task or just plain ‘‘suicidal’’ the next time you’d like to go to K-Mart with just ONE or TWO friends.

Retaliation is definitely not the answer! But sitting back wondering when your number will come up and it’s your turn to lie in the hospital is not a cure ei- ther! If these youths from Charlottetown and around want to let offa little steam, why not joina boxing or karate club, it seems that they have alot of spare time in the evenings. Why not be more constructive with all their energy, instead of being destructive.

R. MURPHY

PEI X-P RESS January 23, 1992 Page 9