Remembering the 6th Anniversary of the Dawson College shooting
The following is an article I wrote two years ago on the fourth anniversary of the Dawson College shooting in Montreal:
Twenty students were shot and one was killed on a fateful day four years ago. A few days shy of the anniversary, an insensitive and poorly timed video game entitled “Dawson College Massacre” emerged online; complete with sounds of screams and blood erupting when someone gets shot. Apparently it is not illegal to replicate such heinous acts of murder and terror according to Montreal Police.
Hundreds recall where they were on that ill-fated day when a disgruntled Laval man opened fire at a local Montreal cegep. Images of students running out of the school, some covered in blood were strewn across the media. Although there was only one casualty, 18-year-old Dawson College student Anastasia De Sousa, there were 19 other victims of the horrendous shooting.
Where do these people come from? What can be done to prevent something like this from happening again? These are only some of the many questions people wonder in the aftermath of a such a tragedy.
According to comments made by Virtuaman, the creator of the online game, posted on the site www.newgrounds.com, “What was going through Gill’s mind? Why did he do what he did? How did he plan for this incident? what if his parents caught him? What was it like? What did it look like? What did it sound like?…I tried to answer all of these questions and the only way I could think of experiencing them was through a game. So I made it, I thought it was ok and I didn’t feel personally offended so I released it.”
It’s a good thing he didn’t feel personally offended; unfortunately, he may be the only one.
Kimveer Gill, the 25-year-old Laval resident, had posted images of himself holding guns in the days leading up to the bloody massacre. According to ctv.ca in a posting to his profile on the site VampireFreaks.com one day prior to the attack, Gill called on people to stop making fun of others for the way they dress or act.
On the day of the attack, the killer posted a reference to the Megadeath song “A tout le Monde,” which cites the lyrics “A tout le monde, à tous mes amis, je vous aime, je dois partir” which in English, translates to “To everyone, to all my friends, I love you, I must leave”.
Such online posts, hinting at potential violence should be given more weight and scrutiny. If somebody is posting pictures of themselves holding weapons, complaining about the way people treat him and then saying a virtual farewell to the online world somebody, somewhere, at some point should clue in.
