Yesterday In Montreal

A 25 year old Montreal native acted out in anger and violence, with murderous intent. Kimveer Gill walked in to Dawson College with an assault rifle and began firing randomly at students and staff. Within 4 minutes police were on scene and within 1 more minute he had been "neutralized".

In his wake there were 19 injured and 1 dead. It is that 1 dead that I think of now.
Another Montreal native. An 18 year old girl. Her crime, having gone to class that day.

Somewhere in Quebec a family's heart was broken in to a million little pieces yesterday. I don't know them. Chances are you don't either. But God do I feel for them. The horror, the pain, the helplessness is not something I can fathom. The loss of potential, the loss of her future is unmeasurable. What could she have done? What could she have been?

I just pray for the others that are injured. They've made it through the first night, something that we can take as a sign of hope, I think. Pray for their strength and pray for their families.

Kimveer Gill, as discovered on his Vampirefreaks.com profile, was an angry and unhappy man. For him, the world seemed full of deceit. He had been betrayed. By whom, we'll probabley never know.

While the profile has now been deleted, his echo in cyber space will remain. I know, that as I write this, there will be many blog entries and and stories that will pop up. Each trying in their own way to come to terms with what has been done. They will theoriorize. They will probabley give you hints at motives and the little pieces of him that he let be known in his on line journals. But still I do not think we will ever fully understand. As we still do not fully understand Columbine. This is simply explained. The normal, average person can not fathom doing as he did. It is not something that enters our heads, even as distant fantasies. Therefore how could we even begin? We can't. We do not have such rage within us. I take comfort in this. Those that can and do commit such senseless acts are few and far between. We are not them.

However as a society we do need to look for the answers of what can we do to lessen the threat? What do our children need from us to not be so rage filled, To value life as it should be valued, To be heard, To be loved, To be honest, To be respectful? I don't claim to have all the answers. But we as a society need to address this. This is not just a family or community problem. This is much larger.