TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: School Violence

  • What would we do without experts?

    What would we do without experts?

    School shooters resist telltale patterns:

    I did a phone interview with The Globe and Mail last night about the Dawson College shooting. It was done before we knew anything concrete about the situation. I’m not making excuses, just setting the time frame because I still stand behind what I said…

    Trench Reynolds, the pseudonym of a Charlotte, N.C., man who runs a website devoted to school shootings, concluded from early reports that the Dawson rampage was another in a long line of copycat incidents that have followed the 1999 shooting at Columbine in which two students killed 12 fellow students and a teacher.

    “To me, it sounds like a copycat almost to a T,” he said.

    At the time, I meant the media reports reminded me of Columbine with the unconfirmed reports going out. However, knowing what we know now, I still stand behind my statement that Kimveer Gill was emulating Columbine in someway. The experts disagree…

    But analysts say it would be a mistake to draw conclusions based on the gunman’s appearance.

    “When you see something like a mohawk or a piercing, that is not a predictive behaviour of anything violent,” said Michael Hoechsmann, a McGill University educational psychologist. “I think it’s a dubious proposition to draw too many parallels to something that is unfolding right now.”

    University of Toronto education professor Kathy Bickmore agreed. “It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that there’s a parallel in particular to Columbine,” she said, referring to the gunman’s trench coat. “But it’s not uncommon enough clothing for me to say that has anything to do with it.”

    O RLY?..ahem…I mean, oh, really? I’m not basing this on a particular article of clothing but more of a subculture. For the most part, since Columbine, school shooters and would be shooters have been considered at some point goth, metal, punk, etc. They feel excluded because of their choice of music and dress. They sympathize with the Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold over their mythical status of being heroes to the outcasts and bullied, even though Harris and Klebold were neither, in my opinion.

    “There is no real type,” said James Sheptycki, a criminologist at York University in Toronto. “Any psychological profile that people could come up with would identify too many individuals to actually be useful and wouldn’t necessarily fit all potential perpetrators. There simply isn’t a profile that works.”

    Maybe not all perpetrators, but I think there’s a profile for most of them. Now I’m not saying all goths, punks, and metalheads, are potential school shooters. Just the ones that have a fascination or obsession with a certain Colorado school shooting.

    Again thanks to Harding for the article.

  • Kimveer Gill

    Kimveer Gill

    Kimveer Gill

    Montreal gunman identified:

    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.

  • More on the Dawson College shooting

    More on the Dawson College shooting

    Carnage at Montreal campus:

    We finally have some definite details from the Dawson College shooting…

    The 25-year-old man used legally registered guns for the rampage at Dawson College.

    As horrific as it was, the attack could have been much worse. Police arrived on site within three minutes of the gunman’s opening fire and, in their words, “neutralized” the shooter a short time later.

    The gunman was not immediately identified, although police said he was born in the province of Quebec and lived in Montreal’s North Shore. Witnesses described him as very tall, with spiky hair and multiple piercings. He carried a rifle and a bag with at least two other weapons, a shotgun and a 9 mm pistol.

    Several published reports identified the gunman as Kimveer Gill, 25, of Laval, north of Montreal. Several newspapers published a photograph of Mr. Gill dressed in a long black trenchcoat and holding a long-barrelled gun. Police would not confirm the reports.

    An on-line image gallery on Mr. Gill’s blog contains more than 50 photos depicting the young man in various poses holding a Baretta CX4 Storm semi-automatic rifle and donning a long black trenchcoat and combat boots. “His name is Trench. you will come to know him as the Angel of Death,” he wrote on his vampirefreaks.com profile.

    No relation.

    Shortly after the rampage began, the gunman was killed by police during an intense gun battle inside the school. (Because the man died at the hands of Montreal police, the death is now being investigated by the Sûreté du Quebec provincial police.)

    There have been conflicting reports about how the gunman was shot and killed. Chief Delorme said that officers killed the gunman. However, witnesses told La Presse he shot himself in the head after police a bullet struck him in the leg. Officers then dragged him outside, where he died on the street.

    The incident was, for all intents and purposes, over by 1:10 p.m.

    Montreal police officers are now trained – as a result of other fatal school shootings – to immediately pursue gunmen in such circumstances, rather than just sealing off the area and waiting for a SWAT team.

    Police said the new procedures saved lives Wednesday.

    And also news on the victim that died…

    An 18-year-old woman died at the scene. Five others were in critical condition with severe wounds to the head, abdomen, chest, arms and legs, but were expected to live.

    The dead student was identified by family members as Anastasia DeSousa, 18, of Montreal. “She was full of life, she was the perfect little niece,” her uncle Real Hevy told Montreal Gazette.

    Outside Montreal General Hospital, Natalia Hevey was frantically trying to get help locating her niece, 18-year-old Anastasia De Sousa.

    The first-year Dawson student was apparently shot in the arm while fleeing the gunman, was taken away in an ambulance but could not be found. Ms. Hevey said her niece was last seen being lifted into the ambulance in television news reports.

    And comments from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper…

    Prime Minister Stephen Harper condemned what he called “a cowardly and senseless act of violence,” adding that his “thoughts and prayers are with the injured and their loved ones.”

    My sentiments exactly.

  • Victim dies from shooting in Montreal

    Victim dies from shooting in Montreal

    Woman, gunman dead in Montreal school rampage:

    One killed, 19 injured in school shooting spree:

    What’s known so far is that there was one gunman. He’s now dead. It’s unknown if he died by police or his own hands. He was a 25-year-old man from Quebec. His identity has not been released as of yet, and there’s still no motive.

    Police have not identified the shooter, but a spokesman said he was armed with three weapons, likely including a semi-automatic rifle. He was also described as “a young man, of Canadian origin.”

    The victim who died was a female in her late teens to early 20s who died from her wounds after being rushed to the hospital.

    My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their friends and families.

  • Only one gunman?

    Only one gunman?

    Twenty people wounded in shootings at Montreal’s Dawson College:

    Now Montreal police are saying that there was only one gunman at the Dawson College shooting but are still being tight-lipped with other details…

    MONTREAL (CP) – An armed man dressed in black and sporting a Mohawk haircut entered a Montreal college on Wednesday and went on a shooting rampage, wounding 20 people and causing widespread panic.

    Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme said the gunman died and that the 20 injured included three people in serious condition. Police said there was only one gunman. Earlier unconfirmed reports indicated there may have been several suspects.

    “For now, I am limiting it to one suspect who died after a police intervention on site,” Delorme told a news conference.

    He did not say whether the man killed himself or was shot by police.

    Asked whether all the victims were female, Delorme said he did not know the gender of the victims.

    He also dismissed suggestions that race or terrorism played a role.

    “There’s no information that leads us to believe that it’s something other than what happened at the scene.”

    I assume the Canadian reporters were asking about the gender of the victims because of what every article has mentioned so far, the shooting spree of Marc Lepine at École Polytechnique.

    Shortly after 5 p.m., Lépine entered the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal. He had applied for admission into the engineering school but was rejected. He blamed it on affirmative action which kept him out in place of a woman. He first went into a mechanical engineering class, separated the men from the women, forced out the men at gunpoint, began to scream about how he hated feminists, and then opened fire. Lépine continued his rampage in other parts of the building, opening fire on other women he encountered. He killed 14 women (13 students and one employee of the university) and injured thirteen others before committing suicide.

    I don’t think this is a copycat of that. Just something deep in my soul tells me this is a Columbine copycat.

    I hope I’m wrong.

  • Another report from Montreal

    Another report from Montreal

    4 reported dead in shootings:

    MONTREAL — Up to three gunmen dressed in black army fatigues opened fire at a downtown Montreal college today and four people are reported dead, including two of the gunmen.

    Police said in mid-afternoon that although many people had been injured, 12 were admitted to hospital and six are listed as critical. The others had been treated and discharged.

    The French-language RDI Television network reported that one gunman had turned his weapon on himself and committed suicide, while a second had been shot and killed by police.

    This could not be confirmed.

    “A suspect has been neutralized, which means he is not shooting any more,” said Ian LaFreniere, a police spokesman.

    Montreal police said they believed there were between one and three suspects. A police SWAT team was going floor-by-floor through the college building.

    This is eerily similar to the conflicting reports that came out of Columbine as it was unfolding.

  • Montreal shooting

    Montreal shooting

    2 gunmen dead after Montreal college shooting:

    Two gunmen who opened fire in a downtown Montreal college Wednesday afternoon are dead, and police are hunting for a third suspect.

    Montreal General Hospital officials say 12 people have been admitted, six of them in critical condition, two in serious condition and the rest in stable condition.

    Montreal police confirmed that at least one suspect was “neutralized,” but did not provide details on how the gunman died.

    “Whether he did it to himself or not, I can’t yet say,” said spokesman Yan Lafrenière.

    Television images showed police officers dragging a bloody body out of the main doors of the building.

    Eyewitnesses say they saw a tall skinny man, wearing a black trench coat and a Mohawk haircut, walk into the cafeteria carrying a large gun. He apparently fired several shots.

    Other reports are saying that the alleged second gunman was in camouflage. More on this as details become available.

    Thanks to Badge and Harding.

  • Love Gun

    Love Gun

    Castillo’s interests were known:

    It seems that Alvaro Castillo’s obsession with Columbine was not his only obsession…

    Investigators knew in April that a teenager now accused of killing his father before opening fire outside Orange High School was fascinated with school shootings, according to a high-school acquaintance who received a video from him saying he was going to kill himself.
    Alvaro Castillo sent Anna Rose the video last spring. It came in the mail April 22, two days after Castillo was picked up by Orange County Sheriff’s deputies and committed to a local hospital after his parents reported that he was suicidal.

    Rose was away at college when the video arrived at her family’s home, but her mother, Bonnie, immediately called 911 when her son started watching it that night. A deputy came to get the tape.

    Rose’s brother played some of the video over the phone to her that night, and she was so scared she didn’t return home for a couple of months, she said.

    Rose said in an interview Wednesday that she met with Lt. Larry Faucette at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office a few days later and Faucette showed her Castillo’s journal, which included photographs of her and detailed his admiration for the shooters in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo.

    The day that Castillo was committed, April 20, was the seven-year anniversary of those shootings, in which two high school boys killed 13 people before killing themselves.

    Rose said Faucette told her that he had read the journal and that Castillo was “sick” and would be in the hospital for a long time.

    But a few days after that, Rose said, Faucette called to say that Castillo had been released.

    “I kept saying, ‘Please don’t let him go, he’s not stable no matter what they think,’ ” Rose said.

    Castillo had a high school crush on Rose. In a video mailed to The Chapel Hill News last week, he brandished a gun with her name on it. The video also showed a second gun labeled Arlene.

    Someone from the sheriff’s office might have approached Castillo, according to a letter that arrived at the Roses’ home after the Orange High School shooting. Castillo wrote to Anna Rose that he knew her “parents are scared.”

    “The sheriff told me you went to the police department so I would not bother you again. I kept my word,” he wrote.

    In the letter, dated Aug. 27 and postmarked the day of the school shooting, Castillo also said he would “die in three days or so,” and that he wouldn’t “go after” Rose’s little sister, who is enrolled at Orange High School.

    Bonnie Rose said she couldn’t understand why the system could not do more to protect her daughter and family.

    “That’s why I sent an e-mail asking people to pray,” Bonnie Rose said. “I realized that was the only protection we had, is if God protected us.”

    Which leaves me with two questions. Why did the doctors release him when he was obviously still bananas, and who’s Arlene?

  • Castillo’s mom denies abuse

    Castillo’s mom denies abuse

    Family, friends shocked by killing, reasons:

    Victoria Castillo, the mother of Alvaro Castillo, denies the abuse claims made by her son as the reason he killed his father…

    The mother of Alvaro Castillo says her husband was not abusive, as her son claims in the video on which he confesses to killing his father.

    Victoria Castillo spoke through a neighbor who is helping the family amid weekend funeral arrangements for Rafael Huezo Castillo.

    “I asked Vicki, `Did he abuse y’all?’ ” said Tim Fluet, who lives on a four-home gravel road near the Castillo family in Hillsborough.

    “She said no.”

    But Victoria Castillo did say her husband, who was a night janitor at Oak Grove Elementary School in Durham, was “very demanding verbally” and spanked the children “sometimes,” Fluet said.

    Now I know some of you Nancy types think spanking is abuse. It’s not. It was probably namby-pamby people like you who put your kids into “time out” who put that idea into his head.

    Fluet said he never detected abuse in the family.

    “Honestly, knowing Mr. Castillo and just being with him, I don’t believe it,” he said. “I came from an abusive home. I know what abuse is.”

    A former employer also spoke highly of Rafael Castillo, who Fluet said was from El Salvador.

    Southwest Elementary School Principal Ari Cohen said Rafael Castillo was hardworking and friendly during the three years he cleaned his Durham school before transferring this summer to Oak Grove.

    “He was an evening custodian so he didn’t have a lot of interaction with staff, but when he did he had friendly conversations,” Cohen said. “He was outgoing and enjoyed talking with staff.”

    And he worked three jobs. Sounds like a real bastard, doesn’t he?

  • Alvaro Castillo’s MySpace

    Alvaro Castillo’s MySpace

    Suspect’s Web page offers a glimpse of his life:

    This is an article from the newspaper that Alvaro Castillo sent the video to about Castillo’s MySpace. I’ve been looking for his MySpace since the story broke. Anyway, on to the article…

    Handguns, shotguns and rifles.

    Those are what Alvaro Castillo listed as his general interests on his Myspace.com page.

    He also wrote that he likes cooking, cleaning, singing and target practice.

    Under Alvaro’s “pics” is a photograph that depicts him holding a pair of scissors above another male’s head as if he was going to stab him. The caption reads, “Attempted Murder. Are you scared? Ha ha.”

    The 19-year-old lists his heroes on his site. They include “God, Mom, Dad, Victoria…”

    Let’s stop right there for a second. If his dad was his hero, why did he kill him?

    He also writes that he would most like to meet John Hinckley Jr., Tom Hanks, Michael Moore and God.

    I can see why he’d want to meet John Hinckley, since they’re both batshit crazy gunmen. I wonder why he wanted to meet Fatboy, though. And he may just get his wish in that last one.

    Also on his MySpace, he lists Bowling for Columbine as one of his favorite movies. I think that movie has helped in more school shootings than it tried to prevent.

    You can see Alvaro Castillo’s MySpace for yourself.