Saturday, September 16, 2006

Murder, mayhem & deja vu

I'm going out blasting taking my enemies with me
Shook Ones - Mobb Deep


Since it happened on Wednesday, I've wanted to talk about the whole Dawson College incident. But what do I say that hasn't been said before?

I could take the easy route and just repeat what the media and two million other websites have stated about the shootings but I didn't want to do that. I mean I could but what exactly would be the point? By now everyone knows that a 25 year old gunman just went into the college and started blasting, injuring 18 persons, killing one young lady and then killing himself.

So what can I say?

When I got home I was actually pretty surprised to see the coverage on TV. There were visuals of young people running for safety and police cordoning off areas outside the school. I hadn't even heard about the incident, I guess that shows how busy I've been at work lately.

Did anyone notice that the killer's mother said he was a good boy? Is it just me or do you notice that a lot with horrific crimes? It doesn't matter, the dude's name could be Adolf Slobadan Bin Laden Mubuto Pinochet and he could have killed more people in reality than every gangsta rappers combined has on wax and his moms will still step up to say he was a good child.

Montreal again! Oh man wasn't it enough that they had the whole Marc Lepine, Ecole Polytechnic shootings there 17 years ago? Damn this Dawson College thing was like deja vu. Anyway I hadn't even heard of Dawson College to be honest even though it turns out that when we lived in Montreal we were only a few blocks away from it. I was thinking from the description I've got to have walked by sometime because I know where the Forum is and Alexis Nihon Mall and Atwater was my subway stop so how was it I missed this college? Weird!

And I found it interesting that they were searching the internet to get insight into the killer's motivations and psyche. Not only that but they, the media that is, seemed surprised that he hadn't left giant footprints and signs saying he was going on a killing spree so that he could be stopped beforehand. Duhhh that only happens in badly written TV shows. All they found was that he was a dispirited youth upset with the world, played first person shooter video games, liked guns and seemed a bit depressed. Sure in hindsight I see warning signals but I'm sure there are tonnes of people, especially young ones who fit that profile but the majority aren't going to try to go out in a blaze of gunshots like he did.

So could this killer have been stopped? Well maybe if society had embraced him or he had embraced society or someone had noticed that something was wrong with him before he started to plot his crimes then maybe.

But once the plot was on unless he had blabbed his intent to someone else or unless we have a bunch of mind readers and psychics like Tom Cruise's Minority Report movie there really is no way to stop a person from doing something like that out of the blue. You can profile all you want but profiles are based on past incidents and other indicators. Someone will always slip one out of the blue case past the profilers.

Mind you he could have been stopped if he was prevented from acquiring the weapons he used on his rampage. Yea I'm still wondering where did this guy get all the guns he had? Now there's a way to prevent some crimes rather than profiling! Stop people from getting access to guns. I didn't know it was so easy to get shotguns and the like in Canada. Don't we have a gun registry and all that? Oh wait maybe he got some stolen guns like all the ones supposedly floating around Toronto because legitimate gun collectors were getting robbed on the regular the last couple of years. Anyway this case will have an impact on the national debate about getting rid of the gun registry. Should be something to watch.

Still back to the killer, I mean yes this guy seemed a little wonky in retrospect but he wasn't as out of the ordinary as some of the weirdos you see everyday on the subway and I don't think most of them are looking to go out in a police shootout do you?

So should we profile more and keep tabs on anyone who plays first person shooter video games? Should we profile everyone who's ever been angry with the world or their job or their family or their neighbour or someone down the street in the corner store? I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it wont stop every other nutcase from slipping through because with this crime it wasn't even like the killer had a connection with the school he shot up. It was just some random out of the blue reason he chose that school to go on his killing spree. You just cant stop random out of the blue.....once the madman acquires the weapons that is.

17 comments:

Melody said...

Seems like de dad, possessed by alcohol, killed de family's spirit & indirectly sent de broken son on a homicidal spree. Children R empty vessels, & there was a lot o' poison poured into that good boy, so a venomous man was de only outcome. Sad that he vented on de public who'd never harmed him -- as in, it woulda seemed like chickens home to roost if he'd gone after his own parents.

Honest said...

I was always thought things like that didn't happen in Canada. I was pretty shocked to see this on the news. I guess I missed that first incident 17 years ago too.

bitchdoctrine said...

he should have gotten some damn licks when he was younger. good boy my rass...

Mad Bull said...

You can't stop these guys, there is always some way to get weapons.

Rose said...

Parents whose kids do horrific things always claimed 'he was a good boy'. Sadly parents should be the first to know that their child is acting or doing something differently. If parents paid more attention to their children they could get the child the help he or she needs. This whole incident to me is so frightening. I sent my only child off to college 7 hours away, I have to worry about her 100 percent with the crap happening now at colleges. Today I heard that 5 basketball players at a college was shot and wounded by a non college students who was angry because of something at a party. What to do to help these kids deal with this high level of anger they are exhibiting.

Unknown said...

Very few parent, almost noe at all, come on the TV and say their child was bad, even if the cild was the worst.

The only explanation for these actions are just plain craziness and wickedness.

Abeni said...

Heard about this in passing but never realised it was so serious.Frightening stuff.

It's like at funerals when you hear all good about the deceased.Maybe the parents trying to seell their child as not and out and out monster

Luke Cage said...

I liked the Minority Report reference man. Anything shorter than utilizing a tactic like that from the movie is NEVER going to prevent premeditated or non-premeditated crimes. Unfortunately, there are times where there aren't ANY warning signals and that's when an unsuspecting society should beware!

Unknown said...

Sounds like a Canadian Columbine. Every parent likes to think their child is a good boy/girl, else they would have to admit to themselves that they didn't raise them well.

Radmila said...

Sociopaths are good at living double lives.
His mother said he was "a good boy" and she "had no idea"...in these situations, I feel sorry for the parents. I do.
Because, there is very little help for the mentally ill, and mental illness can be deceiving.
Families often don't want to face the fact that their loved ones are not "right". Combined with the fact that sociopaths are very good at playing the game of behaving the way people expect them to...until they burst into a school and shoot 19 people.

It seems to me that this young adults' online persona collided with his real life self.

Marc M said...

The tradeoffs between security and freedom - makes life so difficult nowadays.

princessdominique said...

Yeah I heard about it, it was all over CNN and you are the first person I thought about since I don't know many other people up there. I knew you'd blog about it.

inciquay said...

It's so "Higher Learning"! Maybe he needed a hug from his moms for being such a good boy...

Deelze said...

You have got to be kidding me.

I am not as up on it as I should be....but after reading your post I am definitley up to beat now.

Very well written.

~Smooches~

Amadeo said...

She probably thought he was a good boy cause he never did anything...meanwhile dude is sitting in room wishing he and everyone else would die. I hope that don't take the lame route and blame video games.

Cali J said...

The only solution is more guns in schools!

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