The Dawson College gunman, Kimveer Gill, seems to fit a familiar profile…
Late last night, Montreal police searched the Laval family home of Gill, whose black Pontiac Sunfire was found parked near the school.
The Star found a website last night for a 25-year-old Goth freak who identified by the single name “Kimveer” in which he muses — shadows of the Columbine high school shootings — with banal disaffectedness.
“Work sucks … school sucks … life sucks … what else can I say?
“Metal and Goth kick ass. Life is a video game, you’ve got to die sometime.”
Let’s stop there for a second. Before everyone starts jumping to conclusions metal, goth, and video games did not cause this shooting. I listen to metal, I’ve dated some goth girls in my life and I play video games. These are not triggers to a shooting no matter how many people try to tell you it is. I’m not some kid either. I’ve been listening to metal and playing video games for over 20 years and I lead a nice little boring suburban life with the wife and 2.5 kids and a decent job. Mr. Gill obviously had mental issues that go well beyond metal, goth, and video games.
Bystanders, over and over, described seeing a man wearing a Goth-style overcoat, combat boots, with a Mohawk haircut, studded with body-piercings — walking purposefully toward the school as students milled about outside, carrying what seemed to be an automatic rifle, and abruptly opening fire before continuing, barely breaking stride, into the second-floor atrium cafeteria, ordering those inside to get down on the floor, and then shooting upon them without mercy.
He had, La Presse reports, parked his car close to the college, opened the trunk and removed: a 9-mm semi-automatic rifle, a .45 pistol and a bag containing a 12-calibre gun that can shoot four bullets per shot.
What happened next was so eerily reminiscent of that shocking episode in Montreal 17 years ago when 14 women were slaughtered at L’École Polytechnique by Marc Lépine, who then turned the gun on himself. If this assailant intended the same thing, to take his own life after the horrific deed, it seems he never got the chance — brought down, witnesses say, even as he wielded his weapon and shouted at cops with guns drawn to stay back, stay away.
Yelling at them, according to student witness Nikola Guidi, as reported by the Montreal Gazette: “Get the fuck away from here!”
It is not definitive, and won’t be until an autopsy and forensic tests are conducted, that an officer’s gun extinguished the murderer’s life. But it was this body that was later dragged from the building, leaving a trail of blood. From across the road, office workers reported a limp man, dressed in black, being pulled across the pavement. Police slapped handcuffs on him, but the man never moved. A yellow tarp was later thrown over the body and it remained there for a long time.
There does not appear to be any connecting thread, any common denominator among those shot, save for their fateful presence at a sprawling downtown post-secondary school when a man — purportedly young and cold-faced — with motives as yet unknown, decided to embark on a rampage. There is no evidence, authorities were quick to emphasize, that the shootings were racially or ethnically inspired. The act bore no terrorist imprint.
One man with an undetermined rage and three lethal weapons. He never reloaded.
“Based on current information, the suspect was killed by the police,” said Delorme, who would provide no further details, including whether the shooter was a student at the school, although it was palpably obvious police knew precious little themselves.
“I can confirm that there are no other suspects,” another police spokesperson told reporters in late afternoon. “We don’t know anything about the motive of the suspect.”
I’m not quite ready to throw the “M” word out yet but it’s getting pretty close.
I’m at work so I can’t post any links to his Vampirefreaks profile or anything like that so if anyone has the links feel free to post them in the comments.
Thanks to Harding for his assistance.
Leave a Reply