'WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU'

Students Mourn Classmate Who Overdosed On Ecstasy

Friends say they got a peek at the ecstasy tabs on the dance floor
inside Galaxyland on Friday, when a girl pulled 12 red pills from a
napkin she had concealed in her bra to sneak them past the security pat-down.

While they waited in line on Friday to get into the underage dance
party at West Edmonton Mall, Cassie Williams and another girl paid a
dealer $50 for pills their friends and family now think were triple-strength.

Once inside the Rock 'n' Ride party, the girls, both 14, swallowed
six pills each.

Cassie died the next day.

Her friend has since been released from Stollery Children's Hospital.

Brandon Ferko and Lonnie Powell, both 16, watched as the ecstasy kicked in.

"Cassie was kind of making this weird face," Ferko said. "My friend
saw them (later). He said they were rolling around on the floor."

The girls didn't know the tabs were triple-strength, said Ferko. "I
guess she thought she could handle them."

It was apparently Cassie's first time trying the drug, Powell said.
"I just hope people learn from this."

As students at St. Elizabeth Seton school mourned the Grade 9 student
on Monday, the vibe in the halls was more like that of a church than
an elementary-junior high. Cassie's friends embraced and cried as
they worked on two makeshift memorials.

Darrian Navarro, 14, helped pin the notes she and others addressed to
Cassie and her family on a bulletin board. "(Cassie) was her own
person," said Darrian, who was supposed to go to Rock 'n' Ride with
the two girls but opted out. "She didn't care what anybody else
thought of her."

Darrian said she doesn't do drugs. "And if I had been there, they
wouldn't have done them," she said.

Students covered Cassie's locker on Monday with letters and notes.
"It seems as if it were only yesterday when you were singing in the
talent show," wrote one classmate. "You had such a beautiful voice."

On a table-top memorial, behind the teddy bears and flowers, sat a
well-used skateboard, dedicated in memory of the young girl, who
liked to skate. "We will never forget you Cassie," someone had
written on the board.

Teacher Tenille Morin called Cassie a great student who had lots of
friends. "They're taking it very hard," Morin said.

Regular ecstasy users have their own clique; they're known as candy
kids. Like emos or preps, they tend to dress in a similar fashion.
Powell said you can spot a candy kid by the fluorescent colours in
their hair and on their clothes. Many wear beads and soothers. Some
carry teddy bears.

Ecstasy is known as the love drug because it invokes an up-tempo
euphoria that makes users long for the company of others. Over the
past 15 years, the mall says more than 350,000 people have attended
Rock 'n' Ride.

Police officers say the event is especially popular with the
junior-high crowd. Some parents accompany their kids to the party
(free of charge), but many just drop off their teens at the mall
doors. Other partiers take the bus.

"Security-patrolled Entrances 8 and 50 make drop-offs and after-party
pickups safe and easy," WEM advertises on its website. The mall touts
the event as a "non-alcohol, safe, security-patrolled dance
recommended for youth ages 12 to 17 years" where admission ($13 in
advance, $15 at the door) buys unlimited rides at Galaxyland from 8
p.m. until midnight.

WEM has its own police office, called Summerlea Station, and the
half-dozen officers who work there schedule their shifts to coincide
with Rock 'n' Ride, to monitor the party along with members of WEM
security, in person and via surveillance cameras.

Attendees are patted down at the doors and their bags are checked,
said one police officer, but it would be easy to sneak in tiny pills.
"There's nothing you can do," he said. "It happens. We don't do strip
searches."

Shutting down the monthly party wouldn't stop drug use, the officer
said. "People are still going to do it, whether it's there or somewhere else."

Mall management and staff expressed their sympathies for Cassandra
Williams' family on Monday in a news release issued in response to
requests for an interview.

"Unfortunately, the drug problem plagues teenagers across the
country, and Rock 'n' Ride management takes these abuses very
seriously," mall spokeswoman Sheri Clegg said in the release.

"Rock 'n' Ride management has been and will continue to be committed
to ensuring this event is as safe as possible."

The next Rock 'n' Ride is scheduled for May 22.

There was no word on charges on Monday against the 16-year-old boy
who allegedly sold the pills to the two girls.

He was last reported to be in stable condition after passing out
while he was being arrested downtown.

"During the course of an arrest, a 16-year-old male ended up in
hospital," the Solicitor General's office spokesman Andy Weiler said.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) is investigating
the actions of the officers who made the arrest.