Two people were reportedly pepper sprayed by four teenage boys in a Burnaby mall this weekend, the RCMP says.
Officers responded to reports of the assault inside Metrotown shopping centre on Saturday evening.
“Investigation revealed that the two victims, a man and woman, both 30 years old, were innocent bystanders,” Corp. Mike Kalanj told 1130 NewsRadio.
“They were treated by the Burnaby Fire Department.”
Kalanj says the two were walking through the mall when the teenagers ran past them, allegedly spraying each other.
“It appears as though one boy was spraying, one boy had sprayed the other three,” he said.
The suspects were already gone by the time police got there.
Kalanj says pepper spraying incidents in that area are on the rise.
“They have gone up, it is happening a lot more often,” he said.
“We do have one of our sections, our Community Response Team, working with the city to get a bylaw to change the way pepper spray is bought and sold in Burnaby.”
Kalanj says there are bylaws like this in other parts of town, and they seem to be working to bring pepper spraying incidents down in those areas.
Police say they are working with mall security to identify the suspects.