Where cops' energies SHOULD go!
This is what the cops SHOULD BE working on:
In-home assaults terrify Humber students
By JONATHAN FOWLIE
Saturday, Nov. 1, 2003
Students at Humber College said they were shocked and terrified yesterday after two young women were sexually assaulted and threatened during an early-morning home invasion not far from the campus.
"Everyone is just irate and terrified," said Jennifer Green, a 23-year-old marketing student and vice-president of the Humber Students' Federation.
"No one even knows what to say about it. It's so scary to know that the students at our school are not safe."
Calling the attack heinous and disgusting, officers from the Toronto Police holdup squad at 23 Division said they were alarmed at the details of the invasion.
"Even seasoned officers in this particular case are outraged [and] disgusted," said Superintendent Ron Taverner, unit commander of 23 Division.
"We are talking about young people, young people that go to college that are victims here that could be anyone's sons, daughters, brothers, sisters."
He confirmed the victims were college students from out of town, but did not say for certain whether they attended Humber College.
Police say that about 1 a.m., four men armed with a machete, a hunting knife and a handgun burst into a house on Lynmont Road in Etobicoke where four students live.
Only a man and a woman in their late teens or early 20s were home at the time, and the invaders tied them up with duct tape. Throughout the ordeal, the suspects issued numerous verbal and physical threats to the victims, police said.
"One of the suspects took a fancy to the female," Detective Sergeant Wilf Townley of the holdup squad said.
As the others ransacked the various rooms, that man took the woman into a bathroom where he sexually assaulted her for "quite some time."
Not long after, one of the other tenants returned from a pub, where she had been partying with friends.
According to Det. Sgt. Townley, after she had been tied up, the second woman was "stripped and sexually assaulted by these pigs as well."
"I find this one particularly disgusting," Det. Sgt. Townley said at a police news conference yesterday.
The house where the invasion took place is about a five-minute walk from the Humber College campus, and Ms. Green said most students who don't live in the college residence rent rooms in that area.
Ms. Green said the students' federation will meet on Monday to discuss the incident and to make arrangements for a police officer to go into the school to speak with students.
Ms. Green also said that CAPS Pub, the campus bar, was collecting donations yesterday to help the victims replace their stolen property.
Deb Bourk, speaking for Humber College, said yesterday that a security notice will be issued echoing Toronto Police warnings to be aware of surroundings and always to lock doors.
Police said they are looking for four black men, all about 20 years old and between 5 foot 7 and 6 foot 2. All were wearing masks.
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