Flurry of social media activity about incident, police unable to find evidence after patrolling the Village
Rumours that spread across Facebook and Twitter Monday night, regarding a man in the Village dressed in a Santa Claus suit armed with a gun, turned out to be false.
On November 27, Toronto Police searched the Village after being notified that a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit armed with a gun was in the area.
York students were tweeting and posting on Facebook, alleging that friends of friends had seen this man. The earliest tweet with the hashtag “#YorkU,” which described a man dressed as Santa in the Village, appeared at 12:10 a.m. On Facebook, the earliest post appeared at 10 p.m.
Twitter user @superkyol tweeted, “York friends in the Village: there’s a man dressed as Santa driving a tank down Sentinel. Be Safe! #YorkU.”
Constable Wendy Drummond says several officers were assigned to the case at 11:44 p.m. and left the scene at 12:48 a.m. after being unable to locate any evidence of this man. For “security reasons,” she was unable to comment on how many units were dispatched.
Elvira Garcia, a third-year psychology student, says she first heard the news upon returning to Pond residence from studying in the library at 1 a.m. Garcia says her entire Facebook wall was covered with posts about the alleged incidents.
“At first, I was laughing because it sounded really stupid and funny, but there were so many posts that even though I tried not to be scared, in the end, I was,” says Garcia.
Drummond says this was all a rumour that began last night, and there’s no truth to any of it. She says there were no reported injuries or occurrences.
Kashan Kaukab, a second-year business and economics student, says he first heard the rumour through a post on Facebook around 10 p.m. The post warned others about the armed man and suggested they to stay indoors.
Kaukab says he was not too concerned initially and quickly forgot about it, but he recognizes that he, as well as the rest of the campus, may be on edge given the latest string of reported campus crimes.
“The last week, we’ve been getting emails that people have been getting robbed, so I thought there might have been something going on,” says Kaukab.
Eumna Syed, a first-year English major, also says she didn’t believe the rumours at first because they sounded ridiculous.
“When a lot of people started posting about it, it became more real. It kind of confirms it when more people talk about it,” Syed says. “Every day, there’s some kind of news about somebody getting assaulted. When will it stop?”
Alex Hum, Features Editor
