Box Cutter-like Blade Found Under Slide In School Playground
Posted September 10, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s happened again. Just one week after kids went back to school, police are warning teachers, parents and students of a potential hazard in their midst. A box cutter-type blade has been found underneath a slide at Indian Road Crescent P.S. in the Keele and Bloor area. Authorities have sealed off the scene and are hunting for more sharp objects, which could be buried on the ground there. There’s no indication if any others are present or how this one may have come to be placed there.
“At recess today, one of our educational assistants found what looked like a box cutter blade in the dirt in the playground structure,” explains principal Janice Chung. “So it was immediately removed and the police were called and we cordoned off the area.”
The playground will remain closed until further notice and a letter has been sent home to parents. They’re horrified by the discovery. “It’s terrible, it’s terrible,” agrees a mom named Kerry Anne, as she surveys yellow police tape at the school. “We want to be able to make sure that we bring our kids to school and they’re safe … And I hope that they resolve it and the kids can get back to having fun.”
It’s not the first time this has happened this year. On August 28th, cops were called to the playground at J.G. Workman P.S. on Birchmount Rd. after razor blades were discovered there. Last April, experts pored over a play area at Munn’s Creek Park on River Oaks Boulevard West in Oakville, when a large number of the cutting edged objects were found secreted in the bases of the equipment.
The crimes are extraordinarily difficult to solve unless the person who put them there is caught in the act or spotted by witnesses. In many of these cases, police never wind up making an arrest.
The school in this latest case pledges to continue doing sweeps of the area to ensure there’s nothing they missed. “We’re going to be combing any area that might have a razor blade and we’re going to do that again tomorrow,” Chung assures.
The good news: the object was found in time and no one was hurt.
