We're starting to learn more about the person responsible for the rampage yesterday in Montréal, 25 year old Kimveer Gill of Laval. It's frightening enough that this person was totally off the radar screen of police as he had no criminal record. What's even more frightening is his blog at a site celebrating Goth culture called Vampire Freaks (since removed by the site's administrators). The pictures show a man in a trenchcoat in all sorts of war-like poses and combat boots. The entries were pretty ominous. He liked to play a video game based on the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado; he hated country music, hip-hop, jocks and preppies; and this entry: "His name is Trench. You will come to know him as the Angel of Death." The last blog entry was 10:41 am yesterday, two hours before the rampage began.
It is probably next to impossible to monitor every single blog on the planet. To be blunt, I'm pretty sure I'm on more than one little list because of my feelings about the policies of Stephen Harper and George W Bush (although not them personally). However, someone trolling at random for any blog in particular must have noticed there was something up about Gill. If this guy was about to let loose, or do something out of the ordinary, was in fact acting in a totally strange way -- why didn't anyone turn him in? Especially with the blog entry: "Live fast, die young .... leave a mangled corpse"?
According to the reports I've read, the parents of the young man are in a state of shock -- which goes without saying because most parents never notice anything their kids do. Moreover, this guy did everything by the book. Contrary to some previous reports, we now have learned he had three guns which were all legally licenced and registered. He even took the time to make sure his car was parked legally!
No question, people are going to ask questions about security and who's job it is to protect students. Certainly one can ensure entrances that are supposed to be locked stay locked and only "authorized" access points are used. In the real world, locking down everything would contribute to a society that is not free; which is the exact opposite of what the haters of freedom -- be they Al Qaeda, McCarthyites or Goths -- want.
As I look in the sky, a corporate hot air balloon has been flying over my neighbourhood all day; which I find strange because the Canadian Open was last weekend. Are "they" spying on us? Or it is just blowing off helium? I prefer to think the latter. Similarly, and in a morbid way, one must ask why this guy chose to blow off steam the way he did. Aren't their rifle ranges and target practice areas around Montréal where Kimveer Gill could have blown off his steam, rather than turn it on his fellow human beings? That question must be left to pure speculation now because we know what choice Gill made.
One final note: Gill was of East Indian origin, and the area does have a large community with descendants from the world's largest democracy. One can only hope reprisals aren't taken out on them, solely on count of one terribly misguided and lost human being.
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