Two people accused of setting teen on fire at Kelowna party
Posted December 13, 2012 9:05 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
KELOWNA (NEWS1130) – Two people from Kelowna are accused of setting a teenager on fire after he passed out at a house party.
It happened over the weekend; the 18-year-old victim has second and third degree burns to most of his back.
Cst. Kris Clark says one of the men is accused of pouring some kind of accelerant on the victim and then lighting it, and ultimately him, on fire. The other is accused of filming it.
“It’s certainly known to cause severe injury and death and so if it’s intended to be a prank it’s not all that funny,” says Clark.
Matthew Sweet-Grant, 20, and Joshua McWhirter, 18, have been charged with aggravated assault.
Clark says one of the suspects may have done this before.
How common is this becoming with teens and young adults? If you type it into YouTube, you can actually find a number of videos of people doing similar things.
Social media expert Kemp Edmonds is calling it exhibitionism. He says the need to share the insane things people do is one of the most scary things we see on the Internet. “We now have these devices that as soon as something is created it spreads like wildfire, no matter what it is, that’s the nature of things.”
Edmonds says young people often have no idea what the Internet is capable of.
