Student slashed in fight
Incident began at school, moved downtown, police say

by Richard Gleeson and Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 03/97) - A fight between two Sir John Franklin High School students ended in a slashing near the Centre Square Mall Wednesday afternoon.

A 15-year-old boy suffered minor cuts after being slashed with a razor-type knife with a retractable blade. He was treated for minor injuries at Stanton Regional Hospital and released.

RCMP arrested a 14-year-old suspect within 30 minutes of the 3:45 p.m. incident. Police charged him with assault with a weapon.

Witnesses said the incident began after two Grade 9 students agreed to a fistfight after school. But when one student decided he didn't want to have the fight, he was pursued from the school to the 48th Street entrance to the mall by the other youth.

"The one guy didn't want to fight and tried to get into a house across the street," said one student, who was part of a large group at the school who gathered to watch the fight.

"The other guy tried to knock him over the banister."

The reluctant combatant turned on the student, chased him outside the Centre Square Mall, near the Grandma Lee's entrance.

The boy being chased had a knife in his hand, witnesses said, and cut the head of the other student in a brief scuffle.

Both students were apparently cut in the fight. The fleeing student left a trail of blood along his path through the mall. The blood led to a mall exit and onto 50th Street.

The slashing victim was interviewed by police in a stairwell near the elevator doors. He was holding a cloth to his head to stop the bleeding as he walked to a waiting ambulance.