Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – From Me!

Sept 15, 2006

It Couldn’t Happen in Canada

Carol Roach

We all remember the terrible tragedy which happened at Columbine High School. On April 20, 1999, in Jefferson Country Colorado, two young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher, as well as wounding 24 others, before committing suicide.  The world reeled from the tragic events, the media took hold of this senseless massacre considered to be the second worst school shooting in United States History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre.  Hollywood sensationalized the tragedy and documentaries and movies followed. 

Canadians shook our heads in disbelief and many people were convinced that this sort of thing would never happen in Canada.  We are a peaceful country we have gun control. We can afford to be smug and point fingers at our American cousins.  But how many Canadians even knew that Canada already had its own Columbine, right here in my own beloved city, Montreal.

On December 6, 1989, at the ?cole Polytechnique of the University of Montreal, a lone gunman, Marc Lepine, walked into the university on a killing rampage.  He entered a class room armed with a lightweight Sturm Ruger Mini-14, .223-caliber semi-automatic rifle. He ordered the men to leave and the 10 women presented in this engineering school classroom to stay.  He killed six of the women.  He left the classroom and continued shooting women as he saw them in the corridor.  In the end he had shot and killed a total of 14 women before killing himself.  Why did these women have to die? Their only crime was that they were “feminists” he shouted.  He hated feminists and did not feel they had the right to become engineers. buhttp://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/marc_lepine/index.html

It did not end there.  Montreal’s Concordia University became the scene of another mass shooting when this time, an engineering professor, Dr. Valery Fabrikant, killed four colleagues and wounded another in August of 1992.  He was angry because he did not make tenure and had made accusations that his work was stolen and fraudulently published by the then chairmen of the department. Dr. Frabrikant is serving a prison sentence. 

It happened on the 10^th floor of the University Hall building.  A month later I started classes on the 10^th floor as a new student of the university.  It was a very strange experience for me, as I walked those halls trying to make sense of what had just happened a month before.

The High School of Montreal, my old high school also experienced a shooting.  By the 1990’s the High School of Montreal became an adult education center and it also made the headlines when a disgruntled student killed a teacher who failed him.

There was also an incident of a gun shot fired at Woodland Elementary School during the 90’s.  Fortunately no one was hurt.  But today, Sept 13, 2006 people were hurt.  A lone gunman with a blood hair, sporting a Mohawk haircut and dressed in a black trench coat entered the atrium of Dawson College and opened fired.  The students were caught by surprise.  At first no one took this stranger seriously until the shooting began.  To date two female students are dead, at least six students are in critical condition. Still others have been hospitalized with various degrees of injuries. 

Eye witnesses recount the events of the day and all talk about the complete shock.  “Who would have expected anything like this to happen?” they said.  One of the witnesses explained how memories of Columbine rushed to forefront of their minds. 

Concordia University Student Union representatives were among the first to rush to support the Dawson Students just streets away.  Concordia University followed soon after by opening a reception room to feed and house the frightened young college students who had to escape the Dawson campus leaving all their belongings behind.  Frantic parents made their way down to the university hoping their children were safe.  Dawson’s 10,000 student popular is largely made up of 16 – 18 years olds and is the equivalent of grade 12/13 in other Canadian provinces. 

Can you imagine having to run down to see if your child was safe, can you imagine the panic you would be feeling.  How about being a police officer who rushes to the scene of the crime to find that his daughter was one of the slain?  This was the case for a Montreal police officer who rushed to the scene of the University of Montreal shootings discussed earlier.

My friend Lavinia was forced to remain in the Montreal Children’s hospital where she was visiting a family member while the fiasco was being sorted out.  The SWAT team had cordoned off the streets closest to the College. 

Peter Langman, director of psychology for KidsPeace, told CTV.ca there are three main types who commit school shootings:

Those who come from abusive, dysfunctional backgrounds;

Psychopaths;

Those who are mentally ill and suffering from delusions, hallucinations or paranoia, to name a few symptoms.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060913/shootings_why_060913/20060913?hub=CTVNewsAt11

Other experts say media hype help to put the idea of school shootings into the minds of youth at risk.  These young people are misunderstood, and feel ignored.  They feel alienated by society. However with a gun in their hands they are no longer ignored. 

In terms of prevention, Michael Hoechsmann, a professor of counselling and educational psychology at Montreal's McGill University, told CTV's Newsnet that society does not listen enough to young people.

"When you find a young person with a gun in their hand, you're more likely to listen to them than when they have a pencil or are sitting at a computer terminal."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060913/shootings_why_060913/20060913?hub=CTVNewsAt11

What caused this 25 year old gunman to go off on his murderous rampage? We will never know.  He was killed by a Montreal police officer while trying to flee the scene. 

I attended three out of the five schools I quoted above, never did I feel unsafe.  Now I question if they really are.  Yet, experts maintain that schools are still the safest places. 

My boyfriend called me minutes ago to say thank God his children did not go to Dawson or he would be tearing his hair out at this point. His son is a student at Concordia University and his daughter is a student of the University of British Columbia in British Columbia Canada. 

We do not know why this man decided to kill innocent students and injure others but we know that Canadians can never again look at Columbine and say this could never happen to us.  It did several times over.

Carol Roach

winterose@videotron.ca

A Native of Montreal, Quebec, Carol is a graduate of Concordia, and McGill University.  She holds a bachelor in psychology and a Masters in counselling psychology.  Carol Roach is a published writer and newsletter editor.  You can purchase her book: Picking up the Pieces: A Woman's Journey at www.publishamerica.com, or www.amazon.com.  You can also go to your local bookstore and order it there as well.  Be sure to quote the isbn number: 1-4137-1921-X for local purchases:  Carol’s second book: Angels Watching Over is currently looking for a home. Stay tuned for details. 

If you are interested in other stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry at: http://subs.zinester.com/98907 , or email her directly at winterose@videotron.ca and she will be glad to accommodate you.  Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry.