Four teenagers allegedly walked into a Walmart at Intercity Mall, filled their backpacks, and when stopped, one of them pulled out a handgun and fired at a police officer. The shot missed. Later we learned the gun was a C02 airgun. That fact doesn’t change the reality of what happened. It doesn’t erase the intention. It doesn’t calm the fear. Four kids, aged 13 to 17, decided to rob a store, threaten people with a weapon, and one squeezed the trigger.

These aren’t hardened adults. They are children. Yet, they made adult choices. When I chaired the Winnipeg Police Board, I learned that these kinds of crimes are not random. Sometimes they’re tied to gang activity, sometimes they are initiation rituals. We don’t want to face it, but it’s a truth police see every day. It should alarm us that

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