Duo arrested after air cadet leader assaulted while offering poppies: police | Hanomansing Live

A 59-year-old Hamilton man is suffering life-altering injuries after an alleged attack by a 12-year-old boy and a 48-year-old woman. Police say the man was helping some young air cadets sell poppies when they were first approached. Sarah is on this story for us this evening. Sarah. Sweeney, of course, it's a lead-up to November 11th, and so we see veterans, we see air cadets sometimes out on the sidewalks, street corners, and they are, you know, exchanging poppies for donations. It's a... Very common sight, and that is what was playing out on the corner of near to Ottawa Street and Barton. We have a map I can show you. Those familiar with this area of East Hamilton, well, pardon me, this is the actual location, but it was on this street area. Here we have the map. This area right in here, this is where the center mall is, and it was just outside of that. We had air cadets and their commanding officer, 59-year-old man, who was overseeing and helping them to, you know, to do what we see happen, play out across the country. What police say happened, though, is that two... Young boys approached with an air horn, blew the air horn full blast in the ears of some of these air cadets. And then these two boys took off to a restaurant. We understand from a witness to this that it was the Mandarin restaurant in the Central Mall complex. So the commanding officer then follows the two into the restaurant. And it's at that point that that commanding officer... 59 years old is assaulted by, police say, the 12-year-old boys, and that a 48-year-old woman, they say, who was not in any way connected to this or didn't appear to be, takes part in this. And as a result, they say that this commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets is now suffering from life-altering injuries. Yeah, and police had a... Pretty useful tool here when it came time to arresting the suspects. Yeah, so there was some video evidence. So they were able to see who it is that they were looking for. The commanding officer, paramedics attended to him. He was taken to hospital. Police arrived. They see the video footage. But the, you know. Those, the suspects had all left, the 48-year-old woman, the 12-year-old boy had left. But they say in the press releases there was another new unrelated incident later the day on the Sunday. Based on the video evidence, they say they knew who they were looking for. They were able to lay the assault charges. A 12-year-old boy now facing those charges as well. The 48-year-old woman was, they were able to find her, arrest and charge her this morning. Okay. Sarah, thank you very much. Such a... A strange case, and to find out a little bit more about it, let's bring in a member of the Hamilton Police Service. And so Superintendent Michael Spencer joins us now. He also happens to be a member of a Canadian Army Reserve infantry unit based in Hamilton. Thank you very much for joining us. So when did the police service first find out about what was going on here? Thank you, Ian. The police service first became aware of this incident yesterday, November 1st, at about 1.45 p.m. in the afternoon. You know, for a lot of us, this far away from what happened, it's just hard to get our heads around the idea that air cadets could be selling poppies. I mean, what could be a more... peaceful thing than that, and that, you know, it would escalate into this alleged assault. I don't know if you can help shed any light on this. How did this happen? Ian, what transpired or what we became aware of at about 1.45 p.m. yesterday afternoon was an assault had taken place at a restaurant at 1223 Barton Street East here in Hamilton. Reports was that it involved two young male youths and a 59-year-old man who was the victim of the assault. The incident began when the two youths approached some cadets, some air cadets that were outside of the restaurant, and they were collecting donations for Remembrance Day poppies. The two youths approached the cadets and blew a very loud air horn in their ears. Information to us was that the 59-year-old male who was supervising the cadets at the time followed those two youths into the restaurant to confront them about their actions. What happened inside is that a struggle ensued between the male and the two youths, as well as an adult female who was not initially involved in the altercation. Looks like she jumped in to assist the two youths. She proceeded to assault our victim, causing him to fall to the ground. One of the male youths then struck our victim several times. What happened next is that the two youths and the female both fled the restaurant. And from what I understand, and my colleague Sarah was just talking about this in her recounting of this, there's video, I guess, inside the restaurant. So the police have a pretty clear sense of what happened here. Yes, we do. A video was seized and our Division Two detectives took over the investigation and they were able to interview witnesses as well to help corroborate what was seen on the video. You're a senior police officer. You've seen lots of things that would be disturbing. You know, in terms of magnitude of crime, this obviously is not the highest order of crime. But in terms of senselessness, like, again, I kind of repeat a question I asked you earlier, and I know there's no clear answer for it, but based on what you and your officers know about it, how does something like this escalate to how it ended up? You know, Ian, we're not quite sure at this point. And as the investigation continues to roll on, hopefully that will come to light. But what I can tell you is that this is, you know, it's incredibly tragic that this has happened. The wearing of the poppy, it's a time-honored tradition here in Canada. It's a symbol of remembrance and respect for those who have served, continue to serve, and most importantly, for those that have sacrificed their lives for our country. This incident, I can tell you, is deeply disturbing and disappointing, and particularly given the significance of the poppy and what it represents and us approaching Remembrance Day within a week. Yeah, well, I mentioned earlier your reservists. Both you and I are wearing our poppies right now. All right. Can you tell us anything about the magnitude of the injuries? We heard life-altering. I don't quite know what that means. I mean, I can sort of guess, but what do we know about the injuries to the person supervising the cadets? Ian, to respect the privacy of the victim, I'll leave it as life-altering. I think you'll be able to glean a sense that, you know, due to them being life-altering, they are serious. Well, you know better than me that sometimes you can't make sense of criminal acts and we'll see if there's a trial, if we get any further insight into this. But yeah, it certainly is concerning. Superintendent Mike Spencer with the Hamilton Police Service, thank you very much. Thank you.