Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A Day of Terror at Dawson College

I never quite understand why these horrible things happen. It seems beyond belief, that someone would suddenly snap and lay waste to a number of complete strangers, all to answer whatever demons are in his or her head.

The troublesome times of our society once again struck today, at Dawson College a junior preparatory college in Montreal, where students from age 16-18 prepare for their soon to come university days. There’s no motive known yet, no reason given as to why those that were killed or injured were selected on this late summer afternoon in the normal safety of a college building.

The happenings of today in Montreal, just leave us a lot of questions and not many answers. Hackingthemainframe, had a Montreal bloggers recollections of the day. His/Her thoughts provide a bit of you are there reporting, that takes you through the halls of Dawson as people are scrambling for their safety.

The day’s tragedy was of course grist for the media mill all day long, from CTV, CBC to Fox and CNN, from 10 am to 3 pm it seemed to the only thing happening in the world on this day. One network talking head, credited his co-workers for their heroic work today, a rather strong dose of hyperbole considering the day long parade of mis-information that was generated by the media throngs gathered in Montreal.

Heroic is a word that gets tossed around a bit too liberally at times, in this instance the media probably doesn’t fit the bill. Rather, the police officers that went quickly towards the sound of the gunfire, would be heroes. The ambulance attendants that followed into the unknown situation, to tend to the wounded and get them to a hospital as soon as possible, yes they would be heroes. The students, staff and managers of Dawson College who took care of each other and calmly got themselves out of harms way, they too would be heroes.

It’s a thankful rarity these spasms of violence that strike this country, which is probably why we react in such horror when they do occur. The worrisome thing for us though is that they seem to occur more and more frequently as the days go on, something that we can’t seem to find an answer for.

Today however, you only wish for peace for those families who were impacted by this horrible incident. Cold comfort for many families in Montreal today, that once again suffer the mindless violence of a troubled soul who today made far too many innocent people share in his rampage of terror.

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