The individual pictured here is Kimveer Gill, who walked into Dawson College in Montreal yesterday, dressed in black from head to toe and carrying what witnesses described as a “huge machine gun,” and opened fire, killing an 18-year-old woman and critically injuring at least five other people. Gill died in the incident, shot either by police or by himself. Gill, who left a wealth of information about himself at his page on vampirefreaks.com (username: fatality666) was 25 and desi:
Gill, who is known to other users on the website as Fatality666, describes himself as Indian, 6-foot-one, who was born in Montreal on July 9, 1981.
Gill wasn’t just your typical deranged guy with violent fantasies. He was obsessed with guns and knives and posted numerous photos of himself armed online. He enjoyed a videogame based on the Columbine massacre. His “personality quiz” on the site matched him with Adolf Hitler, Satanism, the Angel of Death, werewolves, and other morbid connections. He boasted of his whisky drinking. And so on:
“I think I have an obbsetion (sic) with guns . . . muahahaha,” is the inscription below another picture of Gill aiming the barrel of the gun at the camera.
“Anger and hatred simmers within me,” said another caption below a head shot of Gill grimacing.
The site also has lengthly lists of likes and dislikes. On the “likes” list are: first-person-shooter video games, “Super Psycho Maniacs roaming the streets freely,” massacres, trenchcoats, destruction and “crushing my enemies skulls.”
He also shows a penchant for semi-automatic handguns, combat shotguns, sawed-off shotguns, assault rifles and myriad other weapons.
He dislikes: “The world and everything in it.”
“But to be more specific,” he continues, he hates jocks, preps, country music, Hip Hop, “all those who oppose my rule.”
Gill seems to harbour particular disdain for authority, including police, “all the government on Earth,” “bible-thumping know-it-alls” and God.
The desi angle in this story is, as they say, developing: We know nothing about Gill’s life story yet. But he was desi, and we report the good and the bad here. We’ve also talked about desi goths, though this guy was clearly mentally ill, not a “normal” goth. This story also reminds us of how much evidence of psychopathic or violent intentions resides in plain sight on the Internet. You could look at this guy’s web postings as cries of pain that weren’t heard by anyone other than a small echo chamber of people with similar inclinations. Lots of trees fall in this forest every day; few are heard.
Kimveer Gill put up an image of a tombstone and epitaph on his web page: “Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse.” Well, he left two — his own and that of an innocent young woman, with five more struggling to survive.
That could have been prevented had the parents spent time sowing the seeds of that understanding.
Alpha male in the human setting is usually used to describe someone who’s socially powerful – basically someone that can pull chicks. By saying he has an “alpha male” complex, it in part insinuates he doesn’t do well with the womenfolk. My example was, in effect, “I don’t do well with women either, (perhaps I suffer from the same alpha male complex) but I’m not locking and loading any time soon.”
You’re too kind. no really.
SM admins are you getting this? Not only are you providing a space for intelligent debate on relevant issues, you’re preventing horrific, deadly rampages as we speak!
The premise behind my post is: what’s happened to him that hasn’t happened to truckloads of other people? So I don’t attach it to purely environmental causes. Sorry, but I see no reason to grant him any quarter on this.
[NOTE: I DO NOT CONDONE OR SUPPORT OR PRACTICE OR WOULD EVER PERPETRATE SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST ANYONE AT ANY TIME BUT ONLY MAKE THIS STATEMENT FOR PURPOSE OF ARGUMENT, EXAGGERATION, AND HYPERBOLE]
yes, i can hear the splashes off the side of the ship… whether called for or not they have to wash their hands … goes to show, when shit hits the fan – the chickenshit hit the road. what ever happened to the community spirit.
huh… anastasia’s been prominently pointed out as portuguese. it’s a descriptor, not a slur.
After a quick search of which articles mention that Kimveer Gill was a Sikh, there seems to be a greater tendency for aricles from India based media to state that Gill was a Sikh.
Relatively speaking, the Indian media are making a bigger deal out of him being Sikh (or being born into a Sikh family) than the Western media. It’s a known fact that Sikhs are usually portrayed unfairly and negatively in Indian media, so it doesn’t surprise me.
Google News Search for kimveer+gill+sikh
I don’t think that the Western media is going out of its way to say that Gill was Sikh. Obviously some will mention it, its a fact. Most are just using what Gill said on his website – that he is INDIAN.
Metric — I see your point. Ethnic background is mentioned when the person seems not to be a ‘real’ Canadian. Gordon McGordon or Laurent Leblanc. But it’s not always a white thing — Major Hess von Krudener, the soldier killed in Southern Lebanon recently, had his Dutch background mentioned in news stories. Probably becuase he had a funny name, and the newspapers needed to ‘explain’ it.
If so, then the statement wasn’t necessary in the first place. Rape fantasies are cool only between informed consenting adults. If you were trying to tell us that you wrestle with violent inclinations, that’s one thing (and you should get help). But if it was just for shock value, not cool. Let’s try to keep this a safe and open space where everyone can be comfortable.
His background is part of the story because in Canada you’re always a hyphenated-Canadian. I’ve been described in the press as Irish-Canadian. It’s just a multiculti thing.
I agree that the Goth angle is where it’s at. Not all Goths are into murder, obviously, but Gill was a violent, nihilistic and suicidally depressed man, and part of the way he expressed that was an ongoing fascination with death. Hence, Goth. The real story here is the mental illness that is so obvious in his blog.
One very interesting fact is that he was a regular on this website, where he consistently posted that kids who post on their blogs their intention to shoot up a school are all “joking,” each and every one of them.
And the gun trail is not going to lead anywhere. All of his guns were properly registered and Gill himself says that he wasn’t a druggie. He was a drunk.
Tony, you’re right. The Indian media is tribalist, and this confirms negative stereotypes widely held about Sikhs. So of course they use it. I’m sure this is big on whatever the desi equivalent of soc.culture.us-asian.indian is these days. However, I doubt these same media outlets described Biswanath Halder as Hindu.
Point taken. I don’t wrestle with violent anythings, I guess shock value is the closest thing. It was more of a “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” type thing, as in “I’ve been so nice to women to no avail that…” Didn’t mean to offend.
just thought i’d share it because this is the first practical application i’ve come across for the gun registry. it does make sense. let’s say gill had committed a lesser violent assault – surely the registry would have helped the police red-flag the guy. This is all theory of course – because getting the process to work cross-department is easier said than done.
still, if i were an investigative journalist i’d contrast pickton with gill and see if there are common elements ot their psyche and their environmnts.
That leads to confirmatory bias. You want to look at things that are common between them, but still different from the people who do nothing. In practice, you use statistics, and you look for things that are more common between them but less common with others.
Just looking at what they share leads to all sorts of interesting conclusions like “they killed because they were angry at somebody”. Or “they killed because they trimmed their toenails in the previous month”.
Sorry for the pedantry here, but journalists actually do make these kinds of absurd assertions all the time.
Socially powerful, yes…but I think you have the relation mixed up. That’s one facet, albeit a facet that desi guys seem to wrestle with (see the other heated post at the moment for further discussion on this topic). An alpha male may exhibit other qualities beyond sexual dominance. Group leadership in general would be the primary characteristic; secondary fallout would be things like sexual dominance, first / preferred choice of resources and consumables, etc.
sorry. i said pickton, when i meant roszko. another angry dude. pickton is a pig farmer who’s been charged with killing several women (mostly socially vulnerable women) over an extended period of time.
1/2 minute summary on roszko. guy is another angry dude. lives on a farm in b.c. past history of crime, pot, abuse. officer goes in regard to some vehicle dispute is shot. incident ends with four rcmp constables dead. weapon used is semi-. more debate on gun registry.
you may be on a tangent. the three pieces here that i need answers to are why did these people become societal pariahs, what were the flashpoints on their lifetime which could have red flagged their spiral, how easy/hard was it for them to buy guns. .
I think it’s all linked. An alpha male can lead groups, an alpha male can pull chicks, an alpha male gets all the shit he wants. They can’t be separated like that.
I agree it’s linked, but not just willy-nilly. Wolves, and to some degree humans, have hierarchies hardwired into their brains. In the wolfpack analogy, there may be other males or females who are higher up in the hierarchy who get first pick on good eatin’ after a kill, but do not get sexual choice. In fact, they may not be allowed to reproduce at all until the alpha male is driven away, killed, or “impeached” (yes, wolves can change their minds about their leaders, too, though their voting methodology is a bit more violent than we’re used to).
People are much the same way. The “alpha male” is a leader first; the other characteristics you describe stem from that. A person may be very successful sexually (maybe because he or she is very good-looking, or is one skilled macaca in the sack (ahem) or is hung like a horse), yet never amount to much else. Or he or she may make a great deal of money, and have resources at his disposal to travel, to indulge whims, yet have trouble finding sexual or marital satisfaction.
When you say an alpha male “can pull chicks, can get all the shit he wants,” etc…you’re right. That’s because he’s recognized as the leader of a particular “pack.” (sorry, no gender bias on my end…this holds true for women, too). I think we’re basically saying the same thing, but I’m saying that there’s a hierarchy to the traits you describe, and a reason that they flow the way they do.
I hate to say it, but reading about this guy, especially his blogs, and the messages he posted on the site that raincoaster linked to, is scarily compelling. It’s all rather ghoulish, and morbidly fascinating at the same time. Maybe, at the back of the mind, he wanted that, and he wanted people like me to feel that way about him.
I don’t care about wolves man, I’m talking human beings. I think it could go the other way around. I think if a dude enters a space with a hot chick on his arm, it’s a DHV (demonstration of higher value) and leadership emerges from it. I think of it as a flat structure. If a dude is pulling chicks, he’s not having any leadership issues – because the dudes that don’t pull chicks will naturally look up to him. And a guy that leads people naturally will pull chicks easier, so thats what I mean by it’s all linked.
“Or he or she may make a great deal of money, and have resources at his disposal to travel, to indulge whims, yet have trouble finding sexual or marital satisfaction.”
Bill Gates has no problem getting some.
Yeah, well…I actually know a once-billionaire (who also holds the record for most money lost in a single day), and while he’s still far from poor (net worth around $80 million), he’s single.
Can he get laid? Sure.
Does he have game? Not even a little bit. He’s a jackass. The women who hook up with him know it, and make a conscious decision to ignore his boorishness. They benefit by being able to go to great parties, never having to pay for a drink, and generally getting to live a life they could otherwise not lead. He benefits by having an appearance he strives to cultivate. He fulfilled his fantasies, but now he’s gotta live with reality: he’s a single, fairly unhappy, arrogant bastard. No sane woman wants him.
I really wouldn’t characterize a guy as a potential leader because his girlfriend is hot, though. Sorry, man. I know plenty of guys who consider themselves “players” who cannot be trusted to tie their own shoes. They get more ass than you can shake a stick at, but they’re fairly abyssmal excuses for human beings. I certainly wouldn’t give them a job. I would hope you wouldn’t, either.
Ennis, fo’ shizzle my nizzle. Indian journalism is a joke anyways, akin to tabloids in North America.
Ikram: you said you were glad that he didn’t have a muslim sounding name. Is this because you fear a backlash based on the actions of a person who is form another community, but may be mistaken for a Muslim? It’s something Sikhs are all too used to… being mistaken for Muslim, and bearing the brunt of the backlash. I’m sorry man, but it bothers me that you feel a sense of relief that this guy will not be mistaken for Muslim. Even if he was, it woudl still be Sikhs that would be targeted, so you don’t have much to worry about.
And on the topic of a backlash, I have read comments on the vampirefreaks.com website that people are out Goth Bashing. This kind of backlash stuff makes me sad. I had some friends who were into goth in high school… nice people they were.
I might point you to this: click here My point was, if someone is characterized as an alpha male, they have qualities X, Y, and Z which are inextricably linked, and supportive of each other. This of course does not necessarily imply that if someone exhibits quality X (having money) they necessarily have quality Y (long term likeability – which I would even argue is not a necessarily alpha male quality)
Many leaders (for example, Steve Jobs) are abyssmal excuses for human beings.
Ennis (from post 88): Who on earth is Bobby Jindal? I’m not familiar with this particular northern hemisphere controversy. In any case, this discussion reminds me of Hanif Kureishi’s story about his uncle asking him if he was an atheist. When met with the affirmative, the uncle confirmed that he was one too. But a Muslim atheist. I found that pretty poignant, actually. I’m not too much into God myself, but I can put away some langgar any time. Even when I renounce God, I know which brand I’m renouncing. What you’re born into ends up being the reference point: that’s why I decided not to wear any Ks; I didn’t decide not to wear a crucifix.
Gill was a poser. Neither goth nor satanic culture tolerates murder. Those of us who live alternative lifestyles which some people like to refer to as dark are just as pissed off, saddened and shocked at this man’s actions as your god-fearing christian. Satanists uphold life as the greatest indulgence. I really dislike these silly online quizzes like the one that stated Gill’s religion wud be that of a satanist. NO way in hell poser! As for blame, it is our belief that responsiblity goes to the one responsible, meaning not a site nor a vid game nor anything else can influence a normal mind and turn it into an obssesive mind bent of death and destruction. Gill lived at home with his parents. Did they not question his growing arsenal? Nope. They said since the weapons were legally obtained there was no cause for concern. HELLO! Your son is not balanced! I also witnessed the whole scene as I live directly across from the college. Goths here are great folk. And I know being a satanic reverend that the media loves sensationalism but honestly satanists do not condone senseless violence and abhore those who cannot survive the blows of life without taking others down with them. Gill was not goth, he was not satanic, he was sick sick sick. Period.
Rev Stephania Dore and the PLHP
Huh? Obviously are social circles are widely different.
Ok, maybe when you are 15 years old. You really need to have not gotten laid in a long long time to suck up to someone cos they got a hot chick.
My experience says many guys who command respect with their peers are quite often not a real hot sellout among the girls. IMO what impresses guys and what impresses girls is v v different.
more info on kimveer
they deserve our compassion. pray.
“Do a lot of young desi guys tend to sway white/Goth rather than white/skater-cum-surfer-dude or ghetto/hip-hop? What else is there for teen guys? Either way, do you end up feeling like a poser or wannabe? “
Well, this would have never happened if he grew up in Toronto or Vancouver. He would have becomed a Punjabi gangsta (after all he already likes whisky) and his profile would say things like ‘pUnJaB 4 lyfee’ or ‘JATT 4 lyfe’ (if indeed if was a jatt) and glamour shots of himself with a fade with his face all lined-up along with pictures of 2pac, Scarface, and Lamborginis and posting whatever the latest Bhangra remix he was listening to.
Alas, he was raised in Montreal..
Ikram, I also agree, I’m glad he didn’t have a muslim sounding name. Why? Well, like a palestinan muslim friend who watched Syriana, said afterwards, ‘I’m so glad the suicide bomber wasn’t arab’…. its that ‘not-another-one’ feeling. The less than 5% of over a billion muslims have left the rest of us enough to deal with.
Yet, being Canadian and desi myself, I am shocked, horrified, and saddened at what he’s done. I can’t help but wonder why no one had reached out to him to help him. So he was a bit of a loner, but he had family…had siblings….and if they weren’t close, someone online could have helped him…afterall he did have a blog, and the site he visited.
To whomever it may concern,
This e-mail is in reguards to the recent Montreal shootings involving a Mr. Kimveer Gill.
Vampirefreaks.com. Why is it being assumed that just because this “murderer” was a member of VF, that it has anything to do with the website or its anyother 600,000 members?
A place I call my “cyber” home, is now being investigated. Among the 9,000 people who joined Vampirefreaks.com to view Gill’s profile, there were investegators, detectives and police.They have access to everything and anything they want and true members, like myself, who have been members for over two years, are starting to wonder wether this is actually going to go away, or if infact the site will end up a shut down mess.
Google.com and such sites have copied Gill’s profile, journals, photo galleries and much more, seeing as his actual profile needed to be deleted as a result of such hate mail and what not. The Media is saying that we could have prevented all this from happening. That his profile and picture gallery was a deffinite sign of his mental state. There are actually thousands of profiles on Vampirefreaks.com exactly like that…. but only 0.0001% of those profiles are actually a threat.
As for Jet (VF Webmaster). He should be completely left alone. The Media has been “harrassing” him to no end. He is a completey decent person, and for reasons I have already stated, has nothing to do with these recent events, just like he never had anything to do with previous murders and crimes. Please concider a positive story or statement concerning the matter. I suspended my own profile on Vampirefreaks.com purely because I keep getting enquires about giving an interview, and I was not willing, but now I am.
Please contact me.
R.Petan Sydney, AU.
whoa