The phenomenon of scorewho could be responsible for at least one of the innocent shooting victims in Montreal last week could be growing due to the internet’s lack of vigilance, according to a criminologist.
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“We can’t speak of a practice yet, but we have a feeling that there is something,” believes Maria Mourani, president of Mourani-Criminologie.
Scoring consists of scoring “points” by sometimes attacking random people in an enemy gang’s territory.
This is a practice “very similar to video games” observed in England, among other places, where the perpetrators of these crimes gave themselves points depending on the body part hit by the bullet, among other things by boasting about it on social networks, according to the criminologist .
“Do we need to worry? Difficult to say, Ms Mourani thinks. […] But we sense there’s something there, in the style of the new generation of gangs that I call Generation 3.0, that grew up on social media and certain types of video games. »
According to police sources, this phenomenon could be the origin of the attack that took place in the Rivière-des-Prairies neighborhood on Thursday, where an innocent 25-year-old woman was injured by a projectile during a spate of beatings in the legs. from fire.
The day before, Jayson Colin, also believed to be innocent, was killed by gunfire during a shooting in Montreal North that injured two others.
feeling of insecurity
However, the scoring hypothesis has been put forward a few times since 2020, when it had previously been virtually never examined, particularly to try to explain the murder of young Thomas Trudel.
Attacks on innocent people increase the feeling of insecurity among citizens “many times over,” emphasizes ex-Montreal police officer Stéphane Wall.
Not enough presence on the web
One of Mourani’s main criticisms of the government’s strategy to combat armed violence is precisely the lack of online prevention.
“Gangs are no longer just on the territory, they’re also online,” she points out, arguing that 10% of the government’s repression budget should be allocated to prevention initiatives.
“Currently, there is a lot of focus on repression and less on prevention,” agrees Yanick Charette, a professor at Laval University’s School of Social Work and Criminology. A lot more money has been spent on repression and I don’t think that’s the right direction. »
Gunshots in Blainville
- The wave of gun violence in the greater Montreal area continued yesterday as gunshots rang out opposite to 9:10 p.m in a residence on Boulevard du Curé-Labelle in Blainville on the North Shore.
- None of the three occupants of the house were injured. No suspects have been arrested yet.
- At first glance, the residents are not known to the police.
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