15 Years Ago: Montreal Massacre

[yvr girl]

Massacre a reminder of work needed to end violence: PM

MONTREAL (CP) - An act of mass murder at a Montreal university 15 years ago continues to have a profound impact across Canada, Prime Minister Paul Martin said Sunday, as Vancouver residents built a peace symbol to remember the women killed by a gunman.
"We were reminded that if we are to build a just society, we must work to end violence against women," Martin said in a statement out of Ottawa to mark Monday's grim anniversary. "As we observe a moment of silence and reflect on that terrible day 15 years ago, we think of the families of those 14 young Canadians. Together, let us honour the women lost that day by reaffirming our commitment to end violence against women."

Family members of the women killed by Marc Lepine on Dec. 6, 1989, say that day unleashed efforts by survivors and relatives of victims to tighten Canada's gun laws, legislation that still faces challenges in the form of the contentious gun registry.

On Monday, hundreds of Montrealers are expected to visit the scene of Lepine's rampage for this year's National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Other ceremonies will be held across the country.


http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=canada_home&articleID=1785517

[Larkspur]

1. This is important to remember

:kick:

Lepine killed the 14 female engineering students because he didn't think women should be engineers and he claimed that women would take his economic opportunies away. It was a murder based upon misogyny, pure and evil.

[iverglas]

2. thank you

I have read the coroner's report on the deaths -- both the investigation into the emergency services response and the actual autopsy reports on each of the victims. Reading not just the descriptions of the trajectories, within their bodies, of the bullets that killed them, the clinical details of their deaths, but also the descriptions of the socks they were wearing when they were killed ... the incongruous juxtaposition of the immense horror of their deaths and the commonplace details of what had been their lives ... it's hard to describe the feeling that prompts when one is not used to that sort of thing. It really was the socks that got to me most.

For any of our neighbours who aren't familiar with the event, or any of us too young to remember it, the CBC archives contain a number of stories, some with video footage:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-70-398/disasters_tragedies/montreal_massacre/

The other mass murder most prominent in the Canadian consciousness these days, the serial murders in Vancouver's downtown east side, were also acts of misogyny. The victims in that case were not the best and the brightest like the victims in Montreal; but they too were especially vulnerable because they were women, and we'll be thinking about them today as well.

[Jackie97]

4. Your link doesn't seem to work.

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if it's the link. We can get off our butts and research it though. I just thought I'd tell you. It's always interesting to learn one more thing that I should have already known.

Edited: Damn. I cannot believe somebody actually shot women because he "hated feminists". That is so messed up. Well, it's messed up to begin with, but I've never heard of anything like that. I've heard of people going after those for feminist causes (like pro-choice, where doctors are killed). I've heard of men who kill women and random because they hate women. I've never heard of a man actually killing women because of the claim that he hated feminism.

There's obviously more to that story, but I'll have to do more looking into that tomorrow. Sorry about what happened (even though I'm a little late).

[Swede]

3. I remember being stunned by the news.

It seems like only yesterday in some way.