Eight teenage girls were charged with second-degree murder Tuesday after a 59-year-old Toronto man was stabbed to death in what police characterized as a “swarming” assault. Three of the girls are 13 years old; three are 14; and two are 16, according to a Toronto Police Service release. The man was not immediately identified, pending next-of-kin notification, but police said he’d recently moved into the city’s homeless shelter system. A resident at the shelter the man was staying at told CBC that they’d been smoking cigarettes together when the girls approached them. “He protected me” after the teenagers attempted to swipe her bottle of alcohol, she said. The girls attacked him, punching him repeatedly. “Bleeding, bleeding, bleeding,” the woman recalled. “I didn’t know if they had a knife or what. I was just scared. I think they stabbed his belly.” The entire incident lasted roughly three minutes, according to police, who said the man was quickly hospitalized but later died of his injuries. Three of the girls have had “prior contact” with police, Detective Sgt. Terry Browne said at a news conference. The group, which Browne said wasn’t being considered a gang at this point, apparently “met each other through social media.”