Gunman slays 1 at Montreal college

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Has there ever been anything like this in Canada?

A police officer stands guard as students evacuate Dawson College after a shooting at the school in Montreal on Wednesday.
By Paul Chiasson, CP via AP 
 

Gunman slays 1 at Montreal college
Updated 9/13/2006 9:45 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this   
 
 
By Paul Chiasson, CP via AP 
An injured woman is wheeled away on a stretcher during a shooting incident at Dawson College in Montreal on Wednesday.
 

 
  AREA IN DETAIL
 
 

From staff and wire reports
A man in a black trench coat and a mohawk haircut opened fire Wednesday at a downtown Montreal college, slaying a young woman and wounding at least 19 other people before police shot and killed him, witnesses and authorities said.
Police Director Yvan DeLorme said the suspect, whose identity was not released, was killed by police.

According to the AP, students fled into the surrounding streets after the shooting broke out around 1 p.m. ET at the 10,000-student school. Student Devansh Smri Vastava said he saw a man in military fatigues with "a big rifle" storm the school's cafeteria.

"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."

Derick Osei, 19, said he was walking down the stairs 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. He was hiding behind the vending machines and he came out with a gun and started pointing and pointed at me," he said. "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.

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

The shootings sent fear and shock through the school, which is the largest preparatory college of general and vocational education in the province, and surrounding neighborhoods.

"People are panicked, our cellphone systems are overloaded ... everyone's trying to find out what's going on," Wendy Fixman, owner of the Mess Hall restaurant about a mile from the campus, said by telephone. Fixman, 30, grew up in the predominantly English-speaking part of Montreal where the school is located. Many of her employees and customers attend Dawson.

Police rushed to the scene, hiding behind a wall as they exchanged fire with the gunman, whose back was against a vending machine, said student Andrea Barone, who was in the cafeteria.

He said the officers proceeded cautiously because many students were trapped around the assailant, who yelled "Get back! Get back!" every time an officer tried to move closer.

Eventually, Barone said, the gunman went down in a hail of gunfire.

One young woman later died, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the victim's next-of-kin had not yet been notified.

[GMantis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre
Still, it hasn't happened in recent years.

[Bono]

Looks like the liberal gun control is working swell.

[GMantis]

Looks like the liberal gun control is working swell.

Proportionaly to population, the US has far more cases like this.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Looks like the liberal gun control is working swell.

Proportionaly to population, the US has far more cases like this.

Absolutely--especially in the 90s.

[John Dibble]

I don't really think we should turn this into a gun control issue. The problem isn't the guns. The real problem is the type of person who commits these kinds of crimes. These people clearly have mental issues, and gun control or not I think these people tend to be determined enough to get weapons one way or another, so I don't think a greater number of occurences of events like this in the US really has much to do with gun control. After all, a Canadian could probably easily smuggle weapons across the US-Canada border if they wanted - it's not exactly the tightest border when it comes to security. So the question I think we should be asking is why we have a higher rate of such people in the US vs Canada.

[Bono]

I don't really think we should turn this into a gun control issue.

It's not our choice. You can bet that the second a thing like this happens, the liberal anti-gun leaders are going to be taking advantage of these people' grief in their quest to restrict the rights of law abiding citizens. If we want gun rights to survive, we have to fight them in their own turf.

[John Dibble]

I don't really think we should turn this into a gun control issue.

It's not our choice. You can bet that the second a thing like this happens, the liberal anti-gun leaders are going to be taking advantage of these people' grief in their quest to restrict the rights of law abiding citizens. If we want gun rights to survive, we have to fight them in their own turf.

I was speaking in terms of discussion on this forum, where most people will actually listen to reason.