As boxing sees apparent resurgence, police struggle to monitor fight clubs
Veteran officer says stopping parties before they grow out of control is key
As boxing sees an apparent surge in popularity, Ottawa police say they're struggling to monitor violent parties in parks and other public spaces.
Earlier this month, one violent gathering in Britannia took nearly two dozen officers to shut down. A 17-year-old boy was assaulted after the illegal beach party and boxing tournament spilled into the streets of Britannia Village.
The semi-organized tournaments have popped up elsewhere in the city, too, including recently at a boat launch onto the Ottawa River at Blair Road in the east end.
Jennifer Collins, a social worker and resident of the city's Herongate neighbourhood, said she was on a noon-hour walk last week when she encountered a group of about 20 teens in a clearing in the woods near her home.
"It was a large group of kids and they were trying to hurt each other," she said.
The woods are an easy walk from Ridgemont High School and St. Patrick's High School.
At first, she thought the teens were all ganging up on one person. Then she realized they were pairing up, squaring off and "taking turns throwing wild punches."
When she described the scene to the 911 dispatcher, Collins said the woman on the phone replied that it sounded like something from the 1999 Brad Pitt film Fight Club.
"And I said, 'Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me, too,'" Collins said.
Sgt. Andrew Pidcock, a veteran officer who's part of a team patrolling parks in Ottawa's west end, said he's concerned about the size of the parties and the dangerous mixture of alcohol and partying.
WATCH | One violent gathering earlier this month:
It's especially troubling since the end of the school year and consistently warm weather haven't even arrived yet, Pidcock said.
"We can't be present in these parks all the time," he said. "We are trying to get the intelligence in advance so we can be effective."
Boxing 'having a moment'
Boxing does seem to be enjoying a renaissance among young men.
At the ElevateMMA gym in Ottawa's eastern Beacon Hill community, trainer Dylan Laflamme says the renewed interest is partly due to the popularity of the 2015 boxing movie Creed, a spin-off of the Rocky film franchise.
On Saturday, the gym will host a fight promoted by Fred Auguste, who's billed the event to his followers on Instagram and YouTube as "Last to Get Knocked Out in the Hood."
The Ottawa online entrepreneur isn't admitting an audience. Instead, he will film the fights and post them to his YouTube channel where the clicks will earn him income.
Boxing is "having a moment," Auguste said, and fight videos are more popular in the U.S. He adds that he's keen to bring them to Ottawa.
The reason such fights are increasingly popular is "hard to pinpoint," said Tracy Vaillancourt, who researches the links between aggression and mental health in children at the University of Ottawa.
WATCH | One researcher's thoughts on the fights:
Vaillancourt said it could be an example of young people "externalizing" their stress, signs of their inability to "self-regulate," or merely a social media trend ripe for copying.
Monitoring the violence is essential in order to prevent it from growing and derailing young lives, she said.
"More and more schools across the country are saying they're having more behavioural problems than they did before the pandemic," Vaillancourt added.
Corrections
- Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story misspelled Sgt. Andrew Pidcock's name.May 19, 2023 2:38 PM EDT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
