Seven high school students, some as young as 12 years old, were arrested yesterday in Gatineau, for buying drugs in an apartment building close to their school. The tenants of the apartment raided by police will be charged, along with two teenagers. The younger students were taken back to their school and their parents called. The drug bust happened on Robinson Street in Gatineau over the noon hour yesterday just blocks away from the high school the kids attended. Jasmin Marois-Bourgeois lives next door to where the bust occurred.
"Yesterday, I come out, holy smoke,” says Marois-Bourgeois, “eight police in the block, in the back side too.”
Inside apartment number 7, Gatineau police arrested ten people; seven of them school kids from nearby Polyvalente Le Carrefour, who police say were at the apartment buying drugs. They ranged in age from 12 to 16.
“I was shocked,” says one student from Polyvalente Le Carrefour, “in our school, there’s a lot of people who have drugs and things like that.”
The arrests were the talk of the school today. But students also had a message for those selling the drugs and those buying them.
“They're too young for that,” says another student, “it screws with their mind and they're going to become very bad people when they're older. It's very bad to start young.”
“Adults shouldn't be selling that to really young people,” admonished another student, “they're not thinking.”
Gatineau Police were working on a tip about adults selling to kids. They arrested a 49-year-old man and 46 year-old-woman. Two teenagers were busted for possession. Police seized 1700 grams of marijuana and some methamphetamine pills.
Sergeant Jean-Paul Lemay is with the Gatineau Police, “We responded quickly to the information we had. It's a small investigation but we're happy with the results of arresting the people that were targeted as selling drugs to kids.”
