Reena Virk, a resident of Saanich, Canada, was born on March 10th 1983, and she passed on in 14th November 1997.She hailed from an extended family that had immigrated to Canada from India. Virk yearned for acceptance from her peers but hey ended up taunting her because their subculture was dependent on the street gangs found in Los Angeles. She was a bully and murder victim at the same time, and this created a lot of attention in the Canadian media. She was bullied by the Shoreline six, and they were the ones who gave her the first beating. After her first beating, she was murdered by her boyfriend who was known as Warren Glowastki. The boyfriend committed the murder with the help of his friend Kelly Ellard. Consequently, Glowwatski got a life sentence after being convicted of the second-degree murder whereas Ellard was tried by the court thrice. The verdict of Ellard’s third trial that was a conviction was eventually set aside. The supreme court of Canada appealed the third verdict, and it ruled that a fourth trial cloud not be held in an 8-1 decision. Thus, the Ellard’s conviction and sentence was upheld. Reena Virk’s case was transformed into a national tragedy, and it marked a watershed scenario for the moral panic due to the violence that the girl experienced. The weakness that is associated with this story is that it does not explain clearly the motive to the attacks against Reena Virk and as such the reader is left in suspense as to what might have motivated the attacks. Conversely, the strength of this story is that Sheila Batacharya presents the Virk’s situation from the feminist perspective, and this brings out the theme of girl violence in a clear way.
Work Cited
Racism, “Girl Violence,” and the Murder of Reena Virk
