Photo on otherwise dull MySpace page
Posted on 09/13/2006 10:42:27 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Edited on 09/13/2006 2:49:00 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
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."
Osei said people in the cafeteria were all lying on the floor.
"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.
People also were evacuated from two nearby shopping centers.
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.
Did the police announce that 'this isn't terrorist related' yet?
Call for national gun registry
Even before the exact circumstances of the Dawson College shootings were clear, some politicians said the incident showed that a national gun registry is needed.
"We need the registry," Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe told Radio-Canada. "The costs were outrageous, but we need the registry.
"It's tragic. We can never explain why these things happen," Duceppe said. "At the [l'École] Polytechnique, women were targeted. But here, we have no idea."
Duceppe was referring to the shootings at Montreal's l'École Polytechnique de Montréal on Dec. 6, 1989, when 25-year-old Marc Lepine gunned down 14 women before fatally shooting himself. Lepine shouted "I hate feminists" as he opened fire on the female engineering students.
'We must unite'
A statement from interim Liberal leader Bill Graham and Lucienne Robillard, Westmount-Ville Marie MP, decried the "senseless" Dawson College shootings and said Canadians must join together in its aftermath.
"We must unite as a country to show our compassion for those whose lives have been dramatically altered by this inexplicable event," they said.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said the incident was a grim reminder of shootings at Columbine and École Polytechnique, and that it hit particularly close to home for him.
"I know Dawson College well, as someone who grew up in Montreal, and I can imagine the students and staff are in shock there," he said.
Layton said he awaited police confirmation on the type of gun or guns that may have been used, adding that a crackdown on the importing of illegal guns was needed.
I carried a Bersa .380 and or a Colt King Kobra .357 in college in my backpack. I would say out of the 30 or so close friends I had (males) 95% of them carried something. I knew of at least 2 professors that carried small pistols at all times. Especially around finals.
I just watched CTV call for the useless gun registry and interview a kid of Arab origin say how glad he was it was a Nazi type. He added PM Harper would use this against Arabs if it was one of them. Sheesh. Beyond appalled. Tuning into Fox for some sanity now...
Do we know anything about the perp (or perps, seems I've read several very different stories) other than a mohawk, piercings and black trenchcoat?
susie
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/09/13/1834543-cp.html
Shooting at Montreal school
By DENE MOORE AND ALEXANDER PANETTA
MONTREAL (CP) - A trenchcoat-clad gunman with a zealous gaze turned a college cafeteria into a combat zone Wednesday with a commando-style assault that left him and a young woman dead.
Dressed in black from head to toe, sporting a Mohawk haircut and searching intently for targets to shoot, the man stormed into downtown Montreal's Dawson College and began coldly cutting down students. Another 19 students were injured while screaming and sobbing youngsters spilled out onto the city streets in the shadow of the fabled Montreal Forum hockey arena. At least eight were listed in critical condition.
Inside, the cafeteria was transformed for 15 minutes into a shooting gallery in a scene eerily reminiscent of the city's 1989 Ecole Polytechnique massacre in which 14 women were killed.
The gunman took cover behind a row of vending machines and exchanged gunfire with police while petrified students dropped to the floor in an effort to elude the barrage of bullets.
Surrounded by police, he repeatedly barked a single order each time the officers inched toward him: "Get back! Get back!"
The exchange ended with the attacker slumped on the floor, collapsed in a hail of gunfire.
Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme confirmed that officers killed the gunman, who was described by provincial police as a 25-year-old from the region.
He said provincial police had been called in to investigate, which is customary in a killing involving the local force.
-snip-
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/09/13/1834866-cp.html
Shootings likely to rekindle gun control debate
By JIM BROWN
OTTAWA (CP) - When Marc Lepine gunned down 14 women at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique 17 years ago, it sparked a political storm over gun control.
The shootings Wednesday at Dawson College seem certain to do the same - whether or not anything that politicians do can really avert such tragedies. The latest incident comes with the Conservative government poised to debate legislation this fall that would repeal the federal long-gun registry, in effect undoing some of the moves made by Ottawa in the wake of the Lepine slayings in 1989.
Events should dictate a different course, said Wendy Cukier, a Ryerson University professor who heads the Coalition for Gun Control.
"Every time there's a tragedy you have to ask 'How did this happen, where did the gun come from, was there something that could have been done?' It's evidence that we can do better."
-snip-
Where are the common sense controls on black trenchcoats?
Nobody needs a black trenchcoat. Write your MP now. If just one life is saved.
Wonder how many were shot after a normal response time of an armed student and the time the police put down the alledged shooter?
Hey, Layton, the illegal imporation of anything is called smuggling and the laws are already on the books.
Mark Lepine was a muslim who changed his name before shooting some 14 women at a collage in Montreal a few years back,
Your silly comment hardly needs responding to except to say that you've had a molson's too many...and maybe suffer from the complex that many canadians are afflicted with: denial.
Another gun-control success story--success story for the liberals that is. This will provide the excuse to start a whole new round of anti-gun legislation and crackdowns. The harder the govt. cracks down, the more often stuff like this happens. It's a vicious cycle that can only be stopped by allowing concealed carry, not banning it.
You can here in Virginia as long as you aren't a student or faculty.
Photo on otherwise dull MySpace page
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.