Police Say Six Teenagers Have Been Charged in a Swarming at Calgary Drugstore

People leave a Shoppers Drug Mart where they are providing COVID-19 testing by appointment only during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on September 25, 2020. The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette

Calgary police say six teenage boys have been charged in a swarming attack that left two store employees injured in November.

Police say the group of male youth was asked to leave a Shoppers Drug Mart store on 17th Avenue, a popular pedestrian street in the city’s southwest, after causing a disturbance.

They say the teens left the store but remained outside the entrance, where they argued with one of the store’s employees when he left at the end of his shift.

Police say it escalated and the employee was physically assaulted.

They say another employee who tried to intervene was also assaulted by the group.

A seventh teen is expected to be charged and investigators are trying to identify an eighth person who is believed to have been involved.

Each of the six youth charged face one count of aggravated assault and one count of assault.

They are between the ages of 15 and 17, and cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

It’s the second so-called swarming attack by a group of teens in Canada in a matter of months.

Eight teenage girls were charged with second-degree murder in the swarming death of a 59-year-old man who lived in Toronto’s shelter system in December.

Toronto police said the girls, who range in age from 13 to 16, met on social media and congregated on a Saturday night in the city’s downtown core.