The Vampirefreaks community has reacted to the fact that Kimveer Gill was among their membership…
Kimveer Gill, also known as Trench, pictured on the vampirefreaks.com website. Administrators pulled his profile from the site this afternoon.
Users of the website Vamperfreaks.com are defending the site following the shooting rampage at a Montreal college by a frequent visitor to the site.
“Yeah, there’s been a couple incidents before with people on the site but the site itself did not make those people do the things they have done,” says a message board contributor identified as Michelley. “ This site does not condone murder or suicide. Blame the man at fault here. The shooter. Not the site. The site did not put the gun in his hand and say ‘go kill people at school.’”
“I offer my condolences to the victims and their families, it really is a tragic event,” writes Jet. “However, we do not condone or influence this type of behavior in any way. Just because someone goes around shooting people and happens to be a member of vampirefreaks, doesn’t mean that this website has influenced him to do such a horrible thing. The goth scene is a very friendly, nurturing, non-violent community and we are very supportive of our users and do not condone any illegal activities.”
An adherent of Goth culture, he had a profile on Vampirefreaks.com under the name Trench.
After his identity became known, his website was inundated with angry comments from other Goth followers, such as: “I hope you’re burning in hell, you sick f—.” Website administrators deleted his profile early this afternoon.
Yesterday I said that I had e-mailed Super Columbine Massacre RPG creator Danny Ledonne looking for a comment on the fact that Dawson College shooter Kimveer Gill played his game. This was his response…
I’ve been fielding press on this one all day. Interesting to note that while Kimveer listed dozens of games as favorites, “SCMRPG” is the one listed in the press. On some level, they are proving my point for me: video games are readily-made scapegoats for violent behavior… this guy was 25 years old and probably needed some serious help.
My one regret is that he never contacted me so I could suggest a different course of action.
I was going back over Steve Huff’s entry on Kimveer Gill seeing what comments he was getting. Steve had updated his entry and I read something that made my heart drop…
UPDATE, 5:52 p.m. EDT
Kimveer Gill, as you might expect, didn’t just start aping the style and mannerisms of past psychos like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. He probably had been going down the deadly road he was on for quite some time.
To my surprise, I found posts by Gill (and at this point, for all I know, others have already found these as well — this story promises to be very heavily covered by everyone because the guy had an online journal) on the Usenet.
I knew that e-mail address well. rogue_warrior_50@yahoo.ca had left comments on this very site. I understand that you’re skeptical. I would be too. Let me provide some photographic proof for you. This is a picture of my blog’s control panel…
He went by the name Rogue and left the following comments…
On an entry about Christopher Penley, the Florida teen who was shot and killed at his school for brandishing a pellet gun at police, entitled “Was lethal force justified?” Gill left this comment…
The police used extreme force. It’s completely unacceptable. The Rebel was moving the gun in all directions, very fast. He didn’t once point, steady, stance and aim it. He was just swinging it around. And everyone knows you can’t kill someone like that, if you’re moving it around, at the sky, and whatever. No shots were fired by the young Rebel, he didn’t even hurt anyone.
That cop is a coward. He was attacked earlier in his life. And ever since that he has become paranoid, and scared. Like a girl after she gets raped. Afraid of everything and everyone. The police had been told earlier that it wasn’t even a real gun. They didn’t even mention that on T.V.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with this country. Two schoolgirls were playing around, joking if you will, and now they’re going to go to jail, just for a joke.
When I was in High School people would say they were going to kill each other all the time, no one got in trouble.
Why have the masses on this earth turned into cowards?
Where are the warriors
This comment on an entry about a teen who made a threat that he was going to use a pitchfork in a school attack…
A student at school makes a joke, and the police spend all their resources to stop him. “A little joke”
The young lad was just letting off some steam. Give him a break. Come on, where’s your sense of humour?
Nobody goes on a killing spree with a pitchfork.
The country is full of child molesters, priests, rapists, and child molesting priests. Can we perhaps take them off the streets before spending all law enforcement resources on a teenager’s prank.
Poor Christopher
He did nothing wrong
Commit no crime
And now they’ve sent him to prison
It’s just not right
Well at least we can rest easy that this young lad will be free and back to his old tricks in a few short months
Here’s hopin’
This comment on an entry about a teen from Michigan who got in trouble for printing out a bomb threat on his school computer…
I can’t believe the school would over-react like that. Children at school can’t even joke around anymore. And for the police to go along with this, I mean, come on…..this is shocking.
They’re slowly turning the country into a police state
My friends and I have said things like that at when we were still in school, and we never thought we would go to jail for it. I don’t understand what kind of society this is. I thought we had freedom of speech.
I had a feeling someone was going to try to do something like this on the 20th of this month. The cops got it all wrong. They wern’t going to do it for real. They’re just kids having a little fun. I hope the pigs don’t actually give them a fine or 2 weeks in jail, cuz’ that would be an injustice.
If they were really going to do this, they would not be posting messages on MySpace and telling people in their school about it.
I can’t believe the police have nothing better to do than waste tax payers money on stuff like this. I mean come on now……Boys will be boys
This comment on an entry about a threat made by a student that he claimed was a joke…
Why would the student face disciplinary action?
It’s just a joke……we’re sending our kids to jail, and ruining their lives over silly childhood pranks
How can the police arrest this young rebel, and send him to jail? He hasn’t done anything wrong. Many teenagers feel isolated and alone, and for such a reason they may create an imaginary reality within their own mind, such as shooting people.
If he was really going to kill alot of people then he wouldn’t be telling people he was going to do it. It’s just common sense. I believe he just wanted a little attention, nothing more.
Lets hope he gets outta jail soon, and the police give him back the guns the seized
For that comment, I banned him from leaving comments on my site.
The last time I heard from him was from an e-mail he sent me, which you can see here.
(UPDATE 7/1/2012: Some of the entries that Gill commented on have since been deleted from the site. However, I have created a standalone blog called Gill Was Here that has all his postings from my site.)
MONTREAL — On a scary website, Kimveer Gill describes himself as a potential killer and admits that his favourite video game is Super Columbine Massacre.
For those of you just joining us Super Columbine Massacre RPG (or SCMRPG for short) is a homemade video game put out by amateur game designer Danny Ledonne that puts you in the shoes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I’ve previously called it something along the lines of a sick tribute to one of the most horrific mass murders of all time or something like that. For some of my previous takes on the game, you can go here or here.
I’ve emailed Mr. Ledonne asking for his comment about it but as of this posting I have yet to hear back from him.
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. I can give you names, Jeff Weise (Red Lake), Johnny Casas (Quartz Hill), Joe Nee (Marshfield), and the list goes on.
“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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
