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Alberta Foster Teen Dies

April 27, 2009 permalink

Yet another Alberta native in foster care has died, this time a seventeen-year-old boy. As usual, Alberta keeps the names a tightly guarded secret. If this case comes up again, will will call it Edmonton Brawler.

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Teen killed in bloody brawl grew up in rural foster home

By Elise Stolte, and Jennifer Fong, The Edmonton Journal, April 27, 2009

A teenager killed Saturday in a north-end fight was a foster child from Hobbema who saw his family every year at Christmas.

"Every one of the kids from the reserves, they all would go back. That's the only time we would get together as a family," said his uncle. "Why do these foster kids keep getting killed over nothing?"

The 17-year-old was found critically injured shortly after 2:40 a.m. Saturday near 72nd Street and 147th Avenue. There had been a fight outside an apartment building involving bats, knives and a sword.

A 16-year-old boy has been charged with second-degree murder, assault with a weapon and possession of an offensive weapon. Since he has been charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, neither he nor the underaged victim can be identified.

The victim, who died later in hospital, had been taken from his parents for his own protection years ago when he was a young boy.

His 14-year-old sister said she barely knew her brother, who grew up in a foster home in Three Hills. About two years ago he moved to Edmonton to live with an aunt. "He was in the system a lot," she said. "He was loud, fun. I never really got to have a long talk with him."

She found out about the death when her mother phoned her uncle, who she lives with. "My dad was on the phone for a really long time," she said. She was inconsolable when she found out it was her brother. "It was really hard for me. He was so young," she said. "You hear about killings all the time and you don't think nothing of it." Until it hits close to home, she said, and started to cry again. "I guess the creator told him it was time to go."

A school friend from Three Hills set up a Facebook memorial site for the teenager. "(His) best quality was the ability to make everyone around him laugh. He was always doing crazy stuff to get attention and to make people smile," she wrote in an e-mail to The Journal.

"He never had an easy life, but he still made the best of it," she wrote. "A lot of people

didn't see eye to eye with him but that (was) because they never really got to know him. So many people were quick to judge him because of the crowd he hung out with. (He) was never afraid to voice his opinion."

estolte@thejournal.canwest.com, jfong@thejournal.canwest.com

Source: The Edmonton Journal

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