Dawson College Shooting Occurred on September 13, Essay

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Dawson College shooting occurred on September 13, 2006 at Dawson College located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was reported that the shooter was Kimveer Gill and he shot a total of nineteen people. Out of a total of nineteen people, one person died whereas others were injured. Out of the injuries, a total of eight students were critical and six of the people required surgery. Subsequent to the shootings, the shooter shot him in the head and committed suicide. It was reported that the gunman also had a bullet in the arm which was due to the police when the person was shot. (CBS) The victims that were hurt were treated at the Montreal General Hospital when the shooting occurred.

Pathway to Violence explained.

Before we get in the details of how the shooting unfolded, it is crucial to explain the path to violence as presented by Calhoun and Weston in 2003. The pathway itself is full of a number of steps that eventually lead to the violent attack. Just as anything, attacking a school or any attack for instance would require some sort of planning. Calhoun and Weston stated that the first step in this pathway was Grievance. This means the person who will go on to commit the attack or the killing in this instance would not be living a happy and a satisfied life. There would be a problem or a grieved in their life that is either disturbing them subconsciously or consciously.

The second step in the pathway was ideation. Ideation is basically the creative procedure of making up, developing and delivering new ideas. A person that undergoes ideation a lot would be constantly thinking and planning in his or head. There would be constant need for that person to keep on developing new ideas and then trying to put them into action. This ideation can either be a positive or negative one. Thus, it should be noted that in this instance ideation is thought to be linked to negative thoughts. The shooter in this case, Gill, would have been constantly involved in thinking a planning and thus would not have a normal healthy life like another college students. Someone with aboriginal forms of ideation show certain characteristics which will be discussed in correlation to Gill below.

After an idea has been developed in a person's head or they turn out to be fond of that idea, that person would go on to research it and plan it out. Generally speaking, if a depressed person in thought, the ideas that they would have would not be positive ones. Thus, depression leading to ill thoughts and if a person is really determined to cause some sort of damage. The research and preparation would therefore be linked to the killings or the violence that the twisted person would later cause.

Subsequent to research and planning, the person who is committing the crime has to prepare for his attack. Preparing for the attack could mean different things. This could mean that the person has to prepare himself psychologically. Regardless of how disturbed the person is, it is not an easy task to kill or injure people. The person might have to do a second check on his research and thus actually be aware that he or she would be satisfied after the killings. Apart from that, preparations would include like making a plan of invasion. With the degree of security and defense that is present all around, there needs to be a proper plan of action of entering the place wherever the violent act is supposed to take place. A major thing that is needed to be prepped is the weapons and ammunition that would be taken with. The case that we are discussing, Gill had a lot of guns and ammunition with him. Such was the load of the ammunition that he had to make a hostage carry it to the building. This could require strategic planning so that he would not be suspected of planning an attack and thus getting caught. Normally, if someone is to make a big shooting in a place with a lot of ammunition, they would need to start planning and preparing way before the attack is suppose to happen.

The second last step in the pathway to violence was the breach. It has been said that most of the school or college shootings, the person enters the place quite easily. Since in educational institutions, it is mandatory to do a security check on the people entering.

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This becomes even more confusing if the person entering is a student of that college. Thus, the invasion process and the entrance is another issue. When all of these steps have occurred, the person goes on to carry out the attack and thus the pathway to violence comes to an end. Since now the steps to violence have been covered, it would be interesting to note how this model fits to the shooting that occurred in Dawson College.

What actually happened?

Around 12-30 pm in the afternoon, Gill had parked his car on de Maisonneuve Boulevard near the campus of the college. The people standing there saw that the youngster was taking out weapons from his car. It was at this moment that Gill took charge of a person passing by; that the sources reported was a lawyer. Gill took him hostage and started walking towards the campus. It was surely very courageous of Gill to open fire at the students sitting outside the steps of the college. This should quite a high degree of rebel in the youngster and that he was pretty determined to cause damage in the school. He shot with Beretta Cx4 Storm semi-automatic carbine. It was reported that as soon as he shot the people, the lawyer he had held hostage ran by and went to go hide Gill's bag. (LCN)

Following that, Gill then entered the school and went on towards the cafeteria. The cafeteria in the college campus was located near the entrance of the college and therefore it was easy access as soon as anyone entered the college. Gill positioned himself in the corner of the building right where the microwave oven was and then started firing at all the people in front of him. It was reported that Gill started the fire after setting his bag on the floor and then loading his guns. Even though Gill had planned the shooting from before, it didn't occur to him to load the guns before.

The first round of shots that he started was aimed at the people directly in front of him. He shot the people with a pistol and then raised it up in the air. It was at that time that everyone was aware of the shooter in the room. As soon as Gill raised his weapon up in the air, he told the students there to lie down and not go out of the room. Gill, inflicted by a lot of internal rage and anger kept on shooting at the students lying on the ground. It was a good luck that at that time there were police officers in the building. Three police offers were present in the building duet to some other incident and after they heard gun shots, they rushed to the cafeteria. Despite security officers being present there, the shooter had still managed to shoot a lot of students. By that time, a lot of officers had also completely surrounded the area. When Gill was confronted by the police offers in the cafeteria that is he when he took two more people hostage.

The police offers couldn't just stand there and see innocent students get killed. Officer Denis Cote shot Gill in his arm and that is when Gill shot himself in the head and committed suicide. Even though the police tried to resuscitate him, the attempts failed. The police were forced to take his body outside and then start the search operation for another shooter. The prospect of a hidden shooter or a second shooter makes the scenario all the more tense. After the autopsy that was performed on Gill's body, a suicide note was also found on the body. All of these events started at 12:30, and by 1:30 PM, the killers body was being dragged out by the police. Thus the time span of this shooting was no different than the other shootings that have occurred. The shooting happened quickly, police forces came very rapidly and the killer himself was dead within no time.

Even though the shooting happened inside the building, that chaos that incurred over the students later on was horrible. The students that managed to escape were surely traumatized more physically and psychologically. The scene that was created after everyone's knowledge of the shooter being inside was truly unfortunate. Hundreds of students were running out of the school with their heads covered. Most of the students had blood on their clothes either from wounds to themselves….....

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