Woah my God. An eight-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl were doused with gasoline and set on fire by a third child this weekend, The Canadian Press reports. In the understatement of the century, the Mounties say that this happened in “an altercation” between the children.
A resident of the Lac La Ronge First Nation, a remote Indian reserve in Saskatchewan, tells CTV that around 1 AM on Sunday, she saw three children walking down the street, crying, and the third ran away when she called the police. CTV reports:
The two injured children, an eight-year-old boy and his 11-year-old sister, stayed with the woman in her home as she called 911. The boy had burns on his face and was losing consciousness, she said. The girl’s hair was burned and she was crying.
The two blamed the third child, a boy, the woman said.
Police haven’t reported much further detail aside from the fact that the offender is too young to charge. The minimum age limit to charge a person is 12, and the minimum age to charge a young person as an adult for attempted murder is 14.
Now what to do with child number three.
Because of the age restriction, it’s left to Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Social Services to decide. Without making assumptions, we can safely say that everybody needs to put a child-safe lock on the gas. ASAP.