ShareThisByJOE FRIESEN
Thursday, November 09, 2006
It was early evening in the Gilbert Park public-housing complex, and smoke from fires set by neighborhood kids curled among the two-story concrete townhouses. Brian McKay, a soft-spoken teen with wire-rimmed glasses and a pronounced limp, was drawn to the flames.
Within minutes, he had been shoved inside a burning woodshed by four girls and a boy, all younger than 12. They barred the door with a stick, and laughed and danced outside as the flames started to eat away the plywood structure. Brian was trapped inside.
Brian, 14, stands 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 95 pounds. He wears braces on his legs because he was born with spina bifida. Other children have always picked on him because of his size, he says.
He had moved to his grandmother's house in the housing complex only a week earlier, and was still getting to know the local kids. It was during the past weekend that he saw a group of young girls and a boy lighting cardboard and trying to shove it under the storage shed of the neighborhood day care, and wandered over to see what was going on.
"I saw somebody was lighting a fire under the shed, and then they pushed me in there," he said, remembering the incident while sitting at his grandmother's kitchen table Monday.
He recalled trying to kick at the door, but his legs, withered by his condition, are barely 2 inches thick.
"It was too hard," he said.
"I was banging on the door but the smoke kept coming on. I was scared and I panicked. ... I couldn't breathe at all."
Brian was still coughing Monday, and complained of shortness of breath. He said he was in the shed for five minutes while it burned. He called for help, "but no one was trying to help me."
He could hear the children laughing and screaming.
The boy was saved by Joseph Bird, a 39-year-old father, whose kitchen overlooks the charred spot where the shed once stood.
Bird came running when he heard his wife's screams. He found a group of about eight children, ages 7 to 11, watching the fire.
Bird broke through the shed door and was immediately engulfed by smoke. He found Brian curled on the ground in the fetal position, his hand over his mouth, coughing.
Brian was taken to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation.
Bird said he's disgusted that the children responsible for Brian's ordeal won't face judicial sanction. Since they are all younger than 12, they can't be charged with a crime under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Instead, they will be referred to programs to alter the behavior of young people in trouble with the law.
