Shots fired at Montreal school

Christ. For the past hour and a half I’ve been watching the news. Someone opened fire on students at Dawson College, a Montreal CEGEP*.

So far the only person who has died is the gunman, who was “neutralized” by police. However, many people have been taken to the hospital, some in critical condition or requiring surgery for life-threatening injuries.

I didn’t go to Dawson but my sister did, and I spent enough time there on several occasions for student paper events and also to audition for their Theater program, so I know the layout enough to know he picked the best time of day (lunch) and the best location (cafeteria) to make the maximum impact.

I can’t believe this happened.

*For non-Montreal folks, CEGEP is similar to a prep school for university. We only go to grade 11 in high school here, then you go to CEGEP/college where you can take a two-year program to prepare for university or a three-year technical program that includes internship and leads straight to the work force.

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5 thoughts on “Shots fired at Montreal school”

I saw that on the news this evening and was just … saddened. Blah. I hate when things like this happen. It really makes me want to put Nicholas in a bubble.

I have of course been keeping an eye on the media coverage of this tragedy – one that apparently could have been much worse than it turned out.

My intention isn’t to trivialize what happened, or what could have happened. But what irks me quite a bit is some of the the local media coverage. And I think it’s probably common outside of Quebec.

Here in Hamilton, our local television station immediately tried to localize the story by looking into safety and security at a local college and McMaster University. It seems to me this is an inaccurate comparison and explanation. It’s the wrong context. I knew Dawson was a CEGEP. But do you think any of the hundreds of reports already televised mention that or try to explain any detail of Dawson and the Quebec education system?

As far as I know, only CityTV in Toronto investigated that angle – local high schools – which are more comparable to a CEGEP. Though they did axe Grade 13/OAC here in Ontario a few years back. But why not explain this? It didn’t take much for Sherry to clearly describe what Dawson College really is, and a personal connection to it.

Wouldn’t a look at our local school boards and high schools be a more reasonable comparison and context? Maybe it’s a little nit-picky. Maybe it’s not the most important thing.

Craig – I found a lot of the coverage here to be chaotic. I know it was a crazy situation and there were constant updates coming in but it took a long time to know what was going on. At one point they were saying there were two, three, maybe four gunmen. It was nuts.

Canada AM was covering it today of course, and I find they tend to do a really good job (yay, Seamus O’Regan) so I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up explaining the concept of CEGEP. I had to change the channel to cartoons for Hayley though so I didn’t see much this morning. They’ve released the name now.

We had a lot of decent info coming in over on the Montreal Metroblog site including a personal account by a blogger who works at Dawson.

CTV did at a few occassions explain the concept of CEGEP both at the 6:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. news. I was glued to the TV and Nicholas was just as interested in understanding what had happened at his Aunt’s school yesterday.

Sherry, I found the reports to be quite vague yesterday as well, until later in the evening. I guess they couldn’t confirm for sure certain things, or couldn’t say that there were indeed deaths until next of kins were contacted. But it seemed to take forever (to me anyway) and it kind of drove me nutts.

My sister was not hurt by the way, shaken up but not hurt – thank god!

I feel that there is too much analysis being done after everything is over. I don’t know how much the video game aspect really had to do with it, but I don’t think you can blame too much on this phenomenon as it is only a game and really how many of you people have played any of these games and are still living normal healthy lives. As to the gun registrey, what do people expect from it. How is keeping this in force going to help with this particular event? THe athourities already know where the weapon came from and who did the shooting. How was this system supposed to identify what was going to happen and put an end to it before it started? I am the owner of a restricted weapon but so what, I’m not about to go out and shoot people indiscriminatley, I keep it for protection of myself and family and I don’t have an abundant supply of ammunition.
What I believe we should do now is to move on with our lives and try to forget what happened. THis is of course my personal feelings on the subject.
Dave

Jenna on September 13, 2006 at 9:44 pm said:

I saw that on the news this evening and was just … saddened. Blah. I hate when things like this happen. It really makes me want to put Nicholas in a bubble.
Craig on September 14, 2006 at 7:47 am said:

I have of course been keeping an eye on the media coverage of this tragedy – one that apparently could have been much worse than it turned out.

My intention isn’t to trivialize what happened, or what could have happened. But what irks me quite a bit is some of the the local media coverage. And I think it’s probably common outside of Quebec.

Here in Hamilton, our local television station immediately tried to localize the story by looking into safety and security at a local college and McMaster University. It seems to me this is an inaccurate comparison and explanation. It’s the wrong context. I knew Dawson was a CEGEP. But do you think any of the hundreds of reports already televised mention that or try to explain any detail of Dawson and the Quebec education system?

As far as I know, only CityTV in Toronto investigated that angle – local high schools – which are more comparable to a CEGEP. Though they did axe Grade 13/OAC here in Ontario a few years back. But why not explain this? It didn’t take much for Sherry to clearly describe what Dawson College really is, and a personal connection to it.

Wouldn’t a look at our local school boards and high schools be a more reasonable comparison and context? Maybe it’s a little nit-picky. Maybe it’s not the most important thing.
Sherry on September 14, 2006 at 8:00 am said:

Craig – I found a lot of the coverage here to be chaotic. I know it was a crazy situation and there were constant updates coming in but it took a long time to know what was going on. At one point they were saying there were two, three, maybe four gunmen. It was nuts.

Canada AM was covering it today of course, and I find they tend to do a really good job (yay, Seamus O’Regan) so I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up explaining the concept of CEGEP. I had to change the channel to cartoons for Hayley though so I didn’t see much this morning. They’ve released the name now.

We had a lot of decent info coming in over on the Montreal Metroblog site including a personal account by a blogger who works at Dawson.
Cindy on September 14, 2006 at 6:25 pm said:

CTV did at a few occassions explain the concept of CEGEP both at the 6:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. news. I was glued to the TV and Nicholas was just as interested in understanding what had happened at his Aunt’s school yesterday.

Sherry, I found the reports to be quite vague yesterday as well, until later in the evening. I guess they couldn’t confirm for sure certain things, or couldn’t say that there were indeed deaths until next of kins were contacted. But it seemed to take forever (to me anyway) and it kind of drove me nutts.

My sister was not hurt by the way, shaken up but not hurt – thank god!
Dave Osborne on September 15, 2006 at 4:24 pm said:

I feel that there is too much analysis being done after everything is over. I don’t know how much the video game aspect really had to do with it, but I don’t think you can blame too much on this phenomenon as it is only a game and really how many of you people have played any of these games and are still living normal healthy lives. As to the gun registrey, what do people expect from it. How is keeping this in force going to help with this particular event? THe athourities already know where the weapon came from and who did the shooting. How was this system supposed to identify what was going to happen and put an end to it before it started? I am the owner of a restricted weapon but so what, I’m not about to go out and shoot people indiscriminatley, I keep it for protection of myself and family and I don’t have an abundant supply of ammunition.
What I believe we should do now is to move on with our lives and try to forget what happened. THis is of course my personal feelings on the subject.
Dave