Teen charged with manslaughter after deadly brawl
Updated Thu. Apr. 26 2007 6:05 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A 14-year-old schoolboy is dead and a classmate has been charged with manslaughter charge following a school brawl, reportedly over a hat.
Quebec provincial police said the two 14-year-olds got into a fight Wednesday outside the school's cafeteria over a baseball cap. One of the boys threw a punch that hit the other boy in the temple and knocked him unconscious.
The boy was rushed to the local hospital in Trois-Pistoles and transferred to Quebec City, where he died Wednesday night.
The unidentified boy's father says he doesn't understand why the fight happened but believes it was the result of a culture of violence.
"More and more we're seeing violence everywhere," the man told the all-news network LCN in a phone interview. "We see it on TV. It's not funny. But it happens everywhere. Now it has come into my house."
"He was a good little guy with good marks... he was full of potential," he said of his son.
Fellow students at Ecole secondaire Arc-en-ciel have set up a makeshift memorial with flowers and pictures inside the school.
Principal Claude Thibault said fights are rare at his rural high school, which is attended by 500 students.
"We're not talking about a violent school," Thibault told a news conference. "It's a rural environment. Everybody knows everyone else."
He called the student's death an isolated and unfortunate incident, "something we had no control over."
School officials cancelled classes following the incident. Thibault said students will be given help to cope with the incident.
The teen was remanded in custody on Thursday and will be back in youth court in Riviere-du-Loup on Friday for a bail hearing.
