Gunman Wounds 20 at Montreal College

MONTREAL A gunman in a black trench coat and sporting a mohawk haircut opened fire Wednesday at a Montreal college and wounded at least 20 people _ six critically _ before he apparently was killed by police, witnesses and authorities said.

Scores of panicked students at Dawson College near downtown fled into the surrounding streets after the shooting broke out at the school of about 10,000. Some had clothes stained with blood.

Police spokesman Ean Lafreniere said there was just one gunman at the school and the search for any others was over.

Although police initially suggested the gunman had killed himself, Police Director Yvan DeLorme later said at a news conference that "based on current information, the suspect was killed by police."

CBC-TV showed police with guns drawn standing behind a police cruiser as a SWAT team swarmed the 12-acre campus. A bloody body covered in a yellow sheet lay next to a police cruiser near an entrance to a school building.

Montreal General Hospital said 11 people were admitted, including six who were in critical condition. The other nine were taken to two other hospitals.

Witnesses said a man wearing a black trench coat entered the school cafeteria and opened fire wordlessly.

Derick Osei, 19, said he was walking down the stairs to the second- floor cafeteria when he saw a man with a gun.

"He ... just started shooting up the place. I ran up to the third floor and I looked down and he was still shooting," Osei said. "He was hiding behind the vending machines and he came out with a gun and started pointing and pointed at me. So I ran up the stairs. I saw a girl get shot in the leg."

"I saw the gunman who was dressed in black and at that time he was shooting at people," student Michel Boyer told CTV. "I immediately hit the floor. It was probably one of the most frightening moments of my life."

"He was shooting randomly, I didn't know what he was shooting at, but everyone was screaming get out of the building," Boyer said. "Everybody was in tears. Everybody was so worried for their own safety for their own lives."

Raamias Hernandez, 19, said he had just finished his class when he saw everybody starting to run.

He said the gunman was dressed in a black jacket and had a mohawk haircut. Hernandez said he started to take pictures on a camera cell phone with his friend and the suspect saw them and started shooting.

Student Devansh Smri Vastava said he saw a man in military fatigues with "a big rifle" storm the cafeteria.

"He just started shooting at people," Vastava said, adding that he heard about 20 shots fired. He also said teachers ran through the halls telling students to get out.

"We all ran upstairs. There were cops firing. It was so crazy," Vastava said. "I was terrified. The guy was shooting at people randomly. He didn't care, he was just shooting at everybody. I just got out."

A SWAT team and canine units were dispatched to the school, going floor by floor to look for victims, Sgt. Giuseppe Boccardi told CNN.

Canada's worst mass shooting also happened in Montreal. Gunman Marc Lepine killed 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnic on Dec. 6, 1989, before shooting himself.

The 25-year-old Lepine roamed the halls of the school firing a rifle, specifically targeting women whom he claimed in a suicide note had ruined his life. Nine other women and four men were wounded.

That shooting spurred efforts for tighter gun laws and greater awareness of societal violence _ particularly domestic abuse. Canada's tighter gun law was achieved mainly as the results of efforts by survivors and relatives of the victims.

Another shooting in Montreal occurred in 1992, when a Concordia University professor killed four colleagues.

Dawson College was the first English-language institution in Quebec's network of university preparatory colleges when it was founded in It is the largest college of general and vocational education, known by its French acronym CEGEP, in the province.

thanks for confirming.

People need to know the truth.

Mark Lapine/Gamil Gharbi had been taught by his father to hate women.

This is important....

Lepine's suicide note:

Forgive the mistakes, I only had 15 minutes to write this. See also Annex.
Please note that if I am committing suicide today 89/12/06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. For I have decided to send Ad Patres the feminists who have ruined my life. It has been seven years that life does not bring me any joy and being totally blase, I have decided to put an end to those viragos.
I had already tried as a youth to enlist in the [Armed] Forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me to enter the arsenal and precede Lortie in a rampage. They refused me because of asociality. So I waited until this day to carry out all my projects. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks despite not handing in my theory assignments and studying little before exams.
Even though the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational and erudite person that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to undertake extreme acts. For why persevere in existing if it is only to please the government? Being rather retrograde by nature (except for science), the feminists always have a talent for enraging me. They want to retain the advantages of being women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventive leave) while trying to grab those of the men.
Thus, it is self-evident that if the Olympic Games removed the Men/Women distinction, there would be only be women in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, people were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontlines during the world wars. How does this sit with the fact that women were not authorized to go to the frontline at the time??? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50 per cent of history's ranks, although they never existed? A real Casus Belli. Sorry for this too brief letter.
[List of 19 women he wishes to kill.]
Nearly died today. The lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed those radical feminists to survive. Alea Jacta EST.

Lepine's last words, "Oh sh!t", before putting the gun below his face and firing.

Timeline

`26 Oct 1964`	Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi born to Algerian Liess Gharbi and former nun Monique Lepine.
`1966`	Sister, Nadia, born.
`1972`	Monique Lepine granted custody of their two children.
`c. 1977`	At age 13, Gamil changes his name to Marc Lepine.
`1978`	Big Brother Association provides Marc with a "Big Brother."
`1981`	Marc Lepine applies to the Canadian Army, but is rejected as "unsuitable."
`1989`	Application to join faculty of University of Montreal rejected.
`Sep 1989`	Marc's best friend, Erik Cossette, leaves for a year to backpack in South America. Lepine is devastated.
`21 Nov 1989`	Purchases a Ruger Mini-14 at Checkmate Sports.
`1 Dec 1989`	Begins casing Ecole Polytechnique. He is seen on the 1st, 4th, and 5th of December.
`6 Dec 1989`	Mark Lepine kills 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique, University of Montreal, and injures 15 others. It is the worst mass murder in Canadian history. On him is a suicide letter explaining his actions as being specific revenge against 19 "feminists who have ruined my life... I have decided to put an end to those viragos."
`1999`	The Toronto Star reports that Lepine's original name was Gharbi, a fact which had somehow escaped the attention of the Canadian public to this point.

THANKS fanfan and here's another eyewitness account:
---

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/he-almost-hit-me-by-an-inch/2006/09/14/1157827048116.html

"'He almost hit me by an inch'"

Jano Gibson
September 14, 2006 - 6:56AM

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Ali Hussein told CTV he thought the gunman had a fake weapon until he notices a woman lying on the floor with blood around her.

"He was pointing the gun at the top of the stairs because he saw people running up the stairs and then he shot right at us and we all jumped and ran the other way."

"He almost hit me by an inch. He hit the wall and a piece of the wall chipped and fell on the floor."

"I thought it was a fake gun at first, I thought the gun was joking around and then I saw a lady lying on the floor and she was bleeding all over ... and then I knew it was for real. That's when I got my stuff and started running the other way."

Another student at the college, which has close to 10,000 students, said he and fellow students on campus learned about the impending danger via text messages and phone calls."

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