Gunman Kills Fourteen University Of Montreal Students

MONTREAL (CUP) - Four- teen women are dead after a gun- man went on a shooting ram- page through the halls of the Uni- versite de Montreal’s engineering building yesterday.

Saying he was out to get fem- inists, the man, dressed in hunt- ing gear, methodically sought out women and shot them using a .223 calibre semi-automatic ri- fle before committing suicide, ac- cording to witnesses.

Twelve others — most of them women — were taken to hospital. Four remained in critical condi- tion last night.

The horror of the worst mass- shooting in Canadian history be- gan sometime between 4:30 and 5 pm yesterday — the last day of classes at the university.

Witnesses say the gunman, who has not been identified yet, was in his twenties and seemed calm when he walked into

~ the second-floor classroom, where students were giving final presen- tations for a mechanical engineer- ing course.

”He asked the men to leave and told the women to stay,” said student Stephane Morin, who was in the class at the time.

”We thought he was joking — it was the last day of classes. But when he shot his rifle (into the ceiling), we knew he was serious.

”When we were in the hall we heard gunshots and we ran to phones to call the police.”

Genvieve Caudin, a 19-year- old student who suffered a su- perficial head injury, was on the third floor when she was shot.

”T know at least one of my friends is dead,” Caudin said. "I’m not sure about the others, some are in the hospital.

”T just keep asking myself why he would do this,” she said.

Police director Claude Saint Laurent said there is no indica- tion who the gunman was or what prompted the Wednesday night massacre.

Police sources say the gun- man left a three page letter, which talked about problems with women, and feminists in particular.

” All we know right now is that the man walked into the class- toom and said, ’You’re a bunch of feminists’ and started shooting.”

According to one witness the man said, ”I want the women” as he calmly walked through the building.

Bodies of the dead and wounded were found on three floors. The gunman’s body was

found near four of his victims on the third floor.

Ls ee 2 S=Thursday, December 14,1989

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Some students on other floors panicked when a fire alarm was activated in an attempt to evacu- ate the building.

Sylvie Auger, a first-year en- gineering student who was in the building at the time, said a group of students were trapped on the sixth floor during the shootings.

”We heard the fire alarm go off so we went to the emergency stairway, but we couldn’t open the door,” Auger said.

” We thought it was a fire (but

then) somebody came running up and told us that a man was walk- ing around on the third floor with atifle. We finally got out through another exit.”

Worried parents began arriv- ing at the university soon after news of the rampage got out. Police have set-up a.temporary morgue in the building while the victims are identified.

Claude Ryan, Quebec’s edu- cation minister, interrupted de- bate in the National Assembly

Montreal Shootings and Sexist Culture

“ BY RACHEL GRAY

We should not be having this discussion at all. There can be no doubt. It is time to make the con- nections about all of these things.

A man carrying a new semi- automatic rifle walks into a tradi- tionally male dominated institu- tion, and kills 14 women. In the hallways, he mainly ignores men and hunts women. In the class room, he separates the women from the men before killing them. At some point during the car- nage he has railed against femi- nists. He turns the gun on him- self and dies with a suicide note in his pocket which identifies women and feminists as the source of much of his unhappiness. This all seems very clear. Is it not obvi- ous who he intended to kill? Who is dead? What is up for debate?

Now, there are those who would have us believe that this is the work of a sick and demented mind, and that it is an isolated incident. There are those who would have us believe that this is a human tragedy with no more bearing on women’s lives than on men’s. There are those who agree that we live in a sexist soci- ety, but who say that ”this thing in Montreal” has no place in a discussion about violence against women because violence can’t be qualified according to sex. ~

On the campus at Queen’s University a bunch

_of self-proclaimed "friendly guys”

feel misunderstood. They say, ”No means kick her in the teeth”. They say, "OK, so it may have been in bad taste but it was just a joke. My dad says that worse things happened in his days here. It was a prank. Queen’s is a great university. What are they com- plaining about?”

These friendly guys have a need to make jokes about women being raped. The language they use for joking about rape involves gang bangs, kicking her teeth in

and tying her down. How much

_ uate student.

time would you want to spend with these friendly guys? Have they ever considered the woman who is raped — a real person — be- ing gang banged, tied down and a mouth full of broken teeth? If rape jokes are acceptable mate- rial now, is it because women are safe; safe from rape, sexual ha- rassment and assault, exploita- tive images that use our bod- ies to sell cars and beer, safe from violence at home and on the street,...safe from murder? These boys don’t have to think about rape and therefore it’s fine to joke about it. What is not their consciousness, their experience, is not their concern. And if I don’t take a joke about suffering and pain and violence and hatred then I’m the one with the prob- lem — not them.

When I walk home at night I am cautious and quite often afraid. When statistics tell me that one out of ten women will be violently attacked by the men

who share their beds and their

lives this affects me differently than it does my brothers. When my friends talk abqut being raped I know that those boys at Queen’s have never thought about what it

is like to be a woman in a woman .

hating society. They haven’t had to. Don’t you think it’s time they

‘did?

~ As long as it’s okay to make jokes about rape, the ”thing in Montreal” should not shock us. It illustrates the hatred and vio- lence that is accepted and justi- fied and joked about. For women who have been raped, who are beaten in their kitchens, who walk home at night knowing that the keys gripped tightly in hand are a poor defense, who feel hos-

tility because of the way they -

dress, or the work they do, or the independence they seek, or the

conventions they reject...for all of

us women this is not a shock. It may be our worst nightmare come true, but it should not be a shock.

Rachel Gray is a History grad-

last night to send condolences to

the families and friends of those killed. ,

Calling the killings ”tragic,” Ryan said the dead students had been ”cut down in the prime of their lives.”

After Ryan’s speech, the Na-

Student Union

Ciciicial Election Results —

Graduate Students Elected Representative:

Mark Powell

Assoc.

tional Assembly, which had been debating an education funding bill, was dissolved for the night.

Montreal police are not releas- ing the gunman’s identity, but one report said his first name was

Marc.

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