Youth vs. mailbox

Port Moody teen assaults mailbox

By Dylan Hackett, News Editor

Last month, a local teenager from Port Moody was found by police at the crack of dawn harassing and assaulting a mailbox. The 15-year-old, estimated to be six-feet in height, was dancing around the grey post-box on the corner of Moray and Portview on July 15, just blocks away from Port Moody police headquarters, when a nearby resident called the police. Police believe that the young man was in a delusional state brought on by a hallucinogenic substance.

Speaking about the teen’s torrid destruction of Canada Post property was Port Moody Police spokesperson Const. Luke van Winkel, who said, “Our members attended and saw this 15-year-old kid literally talking to this mailbox and full-out fighting it.”

The officers on duty attempted to take the teen into custody but were met with force. It took three police officers to gain control of the situation. The police took the boy to the hospital to be treated for minor cuts and bruises inflicted by the mailbox. The officers on hand elected not to press charges against the young man, believing the assault against them wasn’t a deliberate act.

“When people are on drugs—on these types of stimulants—it’s amazing what they can do, these are three big police officers,” van Winkel said. “That’s part of the drug use.”

[quote style=”boxed”]The story was first picked up by the local newspaper, The Now, published in the July 20 issue, then subsequently posted to the popular social news website, Reddit, where it humoured millions of users and was picked up by Huffington Post and a slew of smaller blogs and news providers[/quote]

“It’s just a kid who made some bad choices. Criminal charges aren’t in the best interest for that kid, ” van Winkel said.

Later in the month, officers also dealt with a similar dispute between a man and a garbage can, according to the @PortMoodyPD twitter account.

The story was first picked up by the local newspaper, The Now, published in the July 20 issue, then subsequently posted to the popular social news website, Reddit, where it humoured millions of users and was picked up by Huffington Post and a slew of smaller blogs and news providers.

Police were also occupied by a bizarre early morning incident on the same date of July 15, when, according to the Police department’s Twitter account, a drunk male was stumbling by the Rec Centre, shirtless, with his pants around his ankles. He made attempts to elude officers through bramble bushes.

The story also comes on the heels of the “bath salts” craze, a trendy class of drugs alleged to cause users to become delusional and violent. The textbook bath salts story was Rudy Eugene’s cannibal assault against Miami homeless man Ronald Poppo. It was later revealed that Eugene tested negative for any “bath salt” substance known to available toxicology reports, but the story gave public attention to the class of designer drugs marketed as bath salts.