The Price Of A Ticket

Once again Toronto has shown the world that it is a haven for senseless violence. Two days ago a seventeen year old boy was stabbed to death because he refused to give up his bus ticket. He was killed for two dollars and seventy-five cents. This young man’s life ended in broad daylight while hundreds of students were making their way home; he lay in a pool of his own blood while his friends screamed for help.

Will someone please tell me what is going on? When did it become the norm for kids to kill other kids just for the hell of it? When did become the norm for teenagers to have absolutely no respect for life? What happened? Where did we go wrong?

Maybe I was naïve in thinking that violence like this only happened in other cities, but it does happen here and it happens far more often than it should. Six years ago a teenager by the name of Mattie Baranofsky was beaten to death by another teen while a group of kids stood and watched. Last year a twelve year old girl was shot in the eye as she road the bus, and last Christmas sixteen year old Jane Creba was shot and killed by another teenager while shopping on Yonge Street. What both saddens and angers me is the complete lack of emotion these young people show, it’s almost as if they are totally immune to feeling anything. What is going on with these kids and how can we stop it?

When I was growing up the mere thought of this kind of violence happening was absurd; violence like this only happened on ‘T.J. Hooker’ and even then William Shatner put a stop to it inside of an hour. When I was growing up I was taught to respect others, to work for the things I wanted and to strive to attain my goals. When did these things cease to be important to teenagers? When did ‘work for things’ change into ‘get a knife and stab the kid until he gives you what you want’? It frightens me to think that we have raised a generation incapable of caring for anyone or anything and it frightens me to think that it will only get worse for the generation after them.

So what can we do? How can we reclaim this ‘lost’ generation? Stiffer gun laws? Stiffer sentences for young offenders? Knowing the government of Canada neither of these are likely to happen in the near future, so until the government gets a clue it’s up to us to get these kids to care about themselves and others again. If we don’t become more involved then we will all lose.

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