TORONTO - Police in Toronto closed nearly 100 beach volleyball courts on Sunday after players about to begin an end-of-summer tournament found razor-blade booby traps hidden in the sand.
Searches of the courts turned up 12 of the traps, blades embedded in blocks of wood and buried in the sand, sometime between Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
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One of the blades found at Ashbridges Bay beach
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"They were placed deliberately to cause injury to people playing beach volleyball," said Det. Norman Brinn at a news conference.
"We are obviously dealing with a disturbed person."
Brinn said perhaps the most troubling aspect is the time taken to build and hide the booby traps. The blocks of wood were between eight and 15 centimetres long. A machine cut them and the blades were glued into deep grooves.
The first of the blocks were found by a volleyball player warming up ahead of the tournament.
Players and organizers of the tournament were shocked. Beach volleyball is played in bare feet, and players often dive to the ground.
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Beach is combed for blades
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Volleyball players found eight of the blades. Police using metal detectors turned up another four.
The general area of Ashbridges Bay in the city's east end would remain open, as the culprits apparently targeted the volleyball courts. But police were warning people to be cautious.
The incident drew comparisons to last winter, when poisoned wieners were planted in a Toronto park. One dog was killed and another 17 were made ill.
Canada is not the happy community of Utopians it likes to think it is.