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KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK 1988
2013
THURSDAY
Thursday, June 20, 2013 X Volume 26 No. 49
Kamloops, B.C., Canada X 30 cents at Newsstands
THIS WEEK
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TEEN SEXUALLY ASSAULTED AT BUSH PARTY More than 1,000 people converged in Barnhartvale for weekend end-of-school bash By Dale Bass STAFF REPORTER dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
With more than 1,000 youth partying outside together, Kamloops Mounties are hoping some of them might have something recorded on their cellphones that will help find a rapist. RCMP Cpl. Cheryl Bush said police are hoping anyone who discovers that kind of video evidence calls the detachment rather than uploads it to YouTube and face criminal charges. Bush said the crowd gathered overnight on Tuesday, June 18, in an area between Barnhartvale and Campbell Creek known as the Tree Flats, celebrating the end of the school year. During the party, a 17-year-old girl who became separated from friends was approached by a male teen, who sexually assaulted her. The girl phoned friends to get her and she and her parents contacted police. The teenager was taken to
‘They’re prey up there. They’re drinking, they’re vulnerable and they aren’t paying attention.’ — Karl deBruijn SD73 assistant superintendent Royal Inland Hospital, where she was treated and released. Bush said police want to avoid the kind of situation that has made headlines in other communities, where videos have been posted of teens being assaulted — actions that add to the victim’s trauma. “It’s the world we live in now,” Bush said, noting the teen recalls other people were in the area of the attack. “Investigators believe there are individuals who witnessed what
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took place and have photographs of the incident,” Bush said. “The community as a whole has an important role to play in assisting our investigation and providing support to the victim rather than victimizing her further.” Karl deBruijn, an assistant superintendent with the KamloopsThompson school district, said all students receive frequent lessons and reminders about drinking and driving, using drugs and putting themselves into situations that-
could be harmful to them. Graduating students in particular are the focus of these messages, deBruijn said. “It’s almost socially acceptable at grad time to put all this aside. “I don’t know why we would think they’re immune to danger this one time of the year.” Beyond that, there is little the school district can do, he said, because parties like these happen outside of school hours. A similar party last year saw a
female student suffer a broken pelvis when run down by a vehicle, while another teenage girl was attacked with a liquor bottle, suffering lacerations to her head. In the past 18 months, a firearm was brandished at a bush party, a wildfire was sparked at another bash and a man died after he was accidentally shot during a stag party and the vehicle racing him to hospital crashed. “You would hope parents would exercise authority,” deBruijn said, acknowledging that, as teens get older, it’s more difficult to convince them to stay home. “But, they’re prey up there. They’re drinking, they’re vulnerable and they aren’t paying attention.” He said parents are encouraged to at least talk to their kids. If parents cannot convince their children to not go to a bush party, deBruijn said, they need to make sure the teens know what they need to do to be safe.