West Shore RCMP Warn of Violent Online Network Targeting Children and Teens

SECTION 1: THE HOOK – What Authorities Are Reporting

West Shore RCMP on Vancouver Island, British Columbia are investigating three recent reports involving a violent online group allegedly exploiting local children and youth. According to police, the reports share similar patterns and are linked to an online subgroup known as “764”, which operates within a wider network referred to as “The COM” (also stylized as The c.o.m).

National RCMP briefings describe The COM as a loose online ecosystem whose members promote extreme violence, cruelty, and graphic content while actively targeting children and teenagers aged roughly 8 to 17. Authorities emphasize that this activity is not confined to the West Shore; similar incidents have been observed across Canada and other English‑speaking countries. As of the latest public information, investigators have not released the names of suspects, made specific arrests public, or disclosed victim identities. The focus from RCMP national security and child exploitation units remains on early warning, prevention, and encouraging reporting by families, schools, and youth‑serving organizations.

SECTION 2: COMMUNITY CONTEXT & SOCIAL SENTIMENT

Local online discussion spaces serving Vancouver Island and the Greater Victoria area show substantial concern about these reports. In Island‑focused Reddit threads, some parents and caregivers describe feeling blindsided that familiar platforms like Roblox and Minecraft are being mentioned in the same context as violent exploitation networks. One Reddit user summarized the worry by saying that this is not “kids being edgy online,” but organized predatory behaviour aimed at very young users.

Other community members on Reddit and X (Twitter) question whether major platforms and game publishers are doing enough to detect and remove such groups. A number of commenters note that conventional advice to “watch screen time” feels inadequate when recruitment and grooming can occur on a range of services, including Discord, Telegram, Roblox, Minecraft, Twitch, and other streaming sites. Parents in these conversations commonly ask how they can realistically monitor every channel while still allowing their children to participate in normal online social life.

From a broader safety standpoint, the West Shore region (covering communities such as Langford, Colwood, View Royal, Highlands, portions of Juan de Fuca and nearby areas) is not known for unusually high levels of street violence when compared with the largest urban centres in British Columbia. Available provincial data show that while British Columbia overall has a police‑reported crime rate above the national average, smaller or semi‑rural localities often experience different crime profiles than large cities. For example, communities such as McMillan Island 6 in British Columbia or Village Island 1 tend to see relatively low volumes of traditional violent crime but still face the same digital risks tied to internet‑connected devices in homes and schools.

In this case, the risk is largely “placeless.” RCMP materials stress that the primary environment for exploitation is not a specific park, mall, or street corner, but the private spaces where children access the internet—bedrooms, living rooms, basements, and any location where devices can be used with limited oversight. This shifts the safety conversation from public spaces to digital environments, while still requiring coordinated community responses involving families, schools, and local service providers.

Authorities also highlight a set of behavioural signs that may indicate contact with groups like The COM or 764. These include a strong fascination with gore and extreme violence, obsessive interest in disasters, self‑harm, suicide or occult themes, and heavy engagement with true‑crime fandom spaces. Other red flags can involve writing with blood or blood‑like substances, unexplained anonymous gifts or gaming currency, sudden increases in private internet use, and frequent requests for money to spend online. RCMP note that grooming may begin as seemingly benign friendship or romantic attention before escalating into pressure to engage in self‑harm, animal cruelty, sexual exploitation, or other serious violence, sometimes while being recorded or photographed.

SECTION 3: STATISTICAL OVERVIEW – Where This Fits in the Bigger Picture

The incident cluster being examined by West Shore RCMP reflects a wider national trend: serious crime against youth increasingly starts online rather than in public physical spaces. According to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and federal policing units, reports of online child sexual exploitation—including self‑generated images made under coercion—have risen sharply since the early COVID‑19 period. Contributing factors include more unsupervised screen time, the availability of encrypted or semi‑private communication channels, and highly networked offender communities that share techniques and content.

RCMP cybercrime and child exploitation teams report that offences such as online luring, sextortion, and distribution of child sexual abuse material continue to grow, even in regions where certain categories of in‑person violent crime have plateaued or declined. Public Safety Canada and national security partners further identify youth exposure to nihilistic, violent, and extremist online ecosystems as an emerging pathway to radicalization. These communities often blend gore, occult imagery, and “edgy” memes with celebration of cruelty and, in some cases, explicit encouragement of self‑harm, animal torture, or planned violence. The COM/764 network, as described in RCMP advisories, fits within this broader pattern.

Within Greater Victoria, police services and school districts have issued multiple alerts over the last one to two years about online luring, sextortion, and the non‑consensual sharing of intimate images among youth. While detailed comparative figures for each neighbourhood are not always publicly available, the emerging picture is that serious risk to young people is shifting from public assaults or random encounters toward technology‑enabled exploitation. Communities across Canada—from West Coast regions to smaller jurisdictions such as East River, Part 1 in Prince Edward Island—are confronting similar issues as internet access expands and digital culture continues to evolve.

In summary, current information suggests that children in the West Shore area are statistically less likely to encounter extreme violence in public spaces than through online contact with predatory individuals or groups. The RCMP’s warnings about The COM and 764 underscore a national shift in youth safety concerns: the most severe harms—self‑harm pressure, sexual exploitation, and exposure to extreme cruelty—are now frequently mediated through phones, tablets, and gaming platforms rather than occurring exclusively offline.

About This Report

This safety alert was generated by aggregating data from local authorities, community reports, and open-source intelligence. Our mission at Crime Canada is to provide citizens with localized safety data and context. We are not the original creators of the underlying news reports.

Primary Source: Information in this report was initially covered by Raynee Novak for CityNews Vancouver.

Additional Research & Context

• National RCMP guidance on violent online groups exploiting children and youth explains how networks like The COM and 764 operate, their grooming methods, and key warning signs for families.
• Public Safety Canada and RCMP national security publications on online radicalization provide context on how violent, nihilistic and extremist digital communities can draw in youth and normalize serious harm.
• Reports from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection outline recent trends in online child sexual exploitation, including coercion to create self‑generated abuse material and the role of social media and gaming platforms.