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.
Siddhartha – I’m not so sure his words are so unusual. There’s a certain subculture of goths/metalheads who talk like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t tell his profile from tons of others on the same site. I’m not saying that all goths / metalheads are mass murderers / terrorists. I just don’t think that his blog ravings are all that rare.
I think I speek for everyone here when I say MOTHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU###################@@@@@@@@@@@@@ER!!!!
Am ignorant about this…What is a normal goth?
I am surprised because when I was watching the news people were describing the gunner as a white guy.
So far the Canadian police (as usual) have been sketchy on the details. They have not yet formally identified him, nor indicated exactly how he was killed.
An excerpt from the Toronto Sun article gives some indication of his state of mind before the killings.
On Tuesday, a day before the shootings, at 5am Gill is reported to have launched a tirade against authority figures.
“It’s not only the bullies’ fault, but the principal’s fault for turning a blind eye … it’s the police’s fault for not doing anything when people complain (ooooops) my mistake, the cops are corrupt sons of whores, so it’s not like they can do anything about it. F— the police.”
Gill then allegedly added that he was disgusted at society, which allowed people to behave like “assholes” to each other. “Society disgusts me,” he wrote.
Four hours earlier at 12.56 a.m., he is said to have posted the stark message: “F- people, F- Life.”
And therein lies the inherent problem with racial profiling. Most people would not bat an eyelid while creating a profile to fit this sort of annihilistic behavior, usually white, suburban, teenager with a penchant for violent video games.
Depends on the context… I don’t think the police would be looking for a Black person if they are looking for an Aryan Nation member.
shades of dave chapelle
This is scary. Reminds me of the Gus Van Sant movie about the school massacre in America.
Siddartha – “You could look at this guyÂ’s web postings as cries of pain that werenÂ’t heard by anyone…..”
please spare us – the world doesn’t understand me…so i will go on a blood thirsty rampage, excuse.
he was a cowardly punk and nothing more.
Disgrace to the race.
Good thing he shot himself.. this wouldn’t have looked very good on his biodata.
Vikram,
Apparently you’ve never heard of Clayton Bixby.
But jokes aside, I agree that context definitely applies to the situation, but usually there’ll be a signature to a particular crime. No one’s obviously going to be looking for a brother when someone finds a burning cross, and in much the same way, when we see Columbine style shootings, that in itself serves as a signature crime, which has been thus far associated with angstridden white teenagers. That’s the profiling that I was referring to, the kneejerk reaction to think that it must’ve been a bunch of white boys who must’ve done this.
Couldn’t agree more. The student who was killed is possibly Desi too: Anastasia De Souza
but hes fair skinned, so all would be forgiven…
I lived in Colorado at the time of the Columbine shootings. A year later I put on my camos and went paintballing in Littleton. Half way through the day they told us that the two killers would practice on that very field. Chills. I love paintball though.
he leaves behind a mother. any thoughts to spare?
his blog is crazy! holy crap!
sure – let’s take over lisbon as well while kicking at the cadaver.
shit doesnt fly in a vacuum – it’s an alimentary thing.
Cauvery:
Yes, I have, and I have also heard of Robert Sterling Wilson. As with any statistical pattern, there are always outlier points. But I wouldn’t throw out all historical information based on a few anomalies. Most crimes are in fact solved by careful correlation with past patterns and information.
Yeah I just looked at his blog and got scared. I’m never making fun of goths again.
Says here that Montreal has suffered two similar psycho shooting sprees on it’s university campuses in recent years, including one where a professor shot four of his colleagues.
“I am surprised because when I was watching the news people were describing the gunner as a white guy.”
Well, he’s got light skin – so when someone is running through a crowd shooting people up – it’s easy to see how he would be mistaken as such. Not to mention that it may have been “expected.” Some of the french messages say he has a strange first name – indicate that they don’t expect him to be anything other than white – or that this is a strange first name for a white person.
Most news stories on the subject do bring up his “Indian ancestry” – I wonder why? I’m not being conspiracy-theorist, but it is strange, no? That that would be an impulse at all?
However, his goth and trench-coat status, do take precedent – which is also pretty dumb. I’m no goth, but it’s pretty telling that we always want to paint people who do crazy shit like this as “the other” I have to agree with the sentiment that his page doesn’t stick out that much – except for the pictures of him posing with guns.
“Good wombs bear bad sons” – Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”…I think
It is tragic for his family, no one brings new life into the world envisioning this as a scenario. I hope his parents weren’t indulging his gun fetish. Isn’t difficult to get assault weapons in Canada ?
Here is another little tid-bit: The main/lead quote on his blog is from the movie The Crow (probably one of my top three favorite movies ever)
It could be argued that he thought he would be resurrected like the character of Brandon Lee in order to become an invincible killer of killers.
i’m glad american brownz aren’t “bady boyz.” less psy but at least these outlier mherf**kers don’t pop up that often (excepting random muslims who decide to go on anti-jewish rampages in seattle).
Um… don’t know what your malfunction is… I had a Goan friend by that name so as I said it is a possibility. I don’t say for sure she was Desi.
Um… don’t know what your malfunction is… I had a Goan friend by that name so as I said it is a possibility. I don’t say for sure she was Desi.
ps. I hate that this murderer loved “the Daily Show”!!
most prominent .. but i’ll let someone like dq pick up what it means to her… is the ecole polytechnique massacre.
To be honest, I thought the US would produce the first Indian origin wacko.
Tragic. Horrible. But I have a question for you non-psychopathic desi dudes out there. Apart from Kimveer’s first name and the one place where he listed his heritage as “Indian,” he chose to affiliate himself almost completely with angry white Goth-ness. So — if you’re a desi guy growing up in the burbs, and you can’t or don’t want to wear a model-minority-math-nerd-spelling-bee-winning label, how DO you define yourself culturally? 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?
“To be honest, I thought the US would produce the first Indian origin wacko.”
Another sad story:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001783.html
We did: Biswanath Halder (although he was an FOB). See previous posts: 1, 2.
Biswanath Halder
Cowardly or not, if he was genuinely mentally ill rather than just being a malicious jerk, I think it would be worthwhile for people to refrain from some of the more callous comments that have been posted on this thread. Not that this would be of any comfort to the victims, of course, who deserve our sincere sympathy first and foremost.
Tragic that someone like this managed to slip through the net.
Goans more likely to use the “z” in Desouza than others.
If he used the CX4 Storm shown in the pictures, that is not classified as an assault weapon.
i remember being a little incredulous when the parents of the Columbine massacre perpetrators said they had no clue or hint that their sons were capable of such a thing, despite their rooms being a shrine to dysfunction and violence. i wonder if this young man managed to hide his nihilistic feelings and unhealthy obsession with violence and guns from his parents and friends and teachers at school (when he was there) or if they just didn’t think it would ever come to this and was a passing phase? especially after Columbine, these similar signs and symptoms should ring warning bells in the people closest to them. sounds like he was bullied as well.
it is.
although as a random nugget – toronto’s gun club has its firing range on the top floor of union station in the downtown core, plumb next to the financial district. and its co-president is a desi dude.
i am mulling the ramifications for the ruling conservative party. Part of their platform was a disbanding the gun registry – intended to be wildly popular among the ‘rod and rifle’ type, and equally wildly unpopular among the ‘hemp and henna’ type.
this incident will grow into something big – can bring down the conservative government. there are a couple of other political footballs here – arms for border agents, gun running laws (across the border) etc. let’s see how this grows.
I don’t think race has anything to do with this. Rather, it’s just another example of disaffected and angry suburban males acting out. I have no idea what causes this type of behavior, but something has to be done. I was especially surprised that this took place in Canada. Unfortunately, school shootings in the States are no longer as shocking as they should be. I didn’t realize that the problem spread to Canadian youth as well.
A 25 year old man hating on school, jocks and other assorted stereotypes from a bad teen flicks. Now there’s a clue to the mystery.
yeah, its not like hes still in school getting bullied or something. that IS wierd.
this mad man had THREE guns??? he was readying for war
hairy_d:
His parents probably deserve some of the blame. I know kids aren’t robots programmed by their parents. But if I’d had gone so far off the rails as this SOB, the least my parents would have done is to prevent me from hurting others. My dad literally would have tied me up and sat on me so that I wouldn’t bring this kind of misery to the world.
hairy_d:
Turning it to politics… any thoughts to spare on these “political footballs”?
List of things Kimveer hates from his blog:
-American Government -Anyone Who Supports The American Government -Capatalists(sic) -Bible Thumpping Know-It-Alls -Church Going Assholes -Catholics -Republicans -All Priests
But he’s a big fan of the Daily Show..
Subtract the Vampire/Goth stuff and you have the nice beginnings of a lefty blog! I’m sure we’re going to see as much condemnation of leftwing hate as we would have of rightwing hate.
Couldn’t resist that jab, but obviously the guy’s got more problems than being a leftist. He hates basically everyone and everything that wasn’t him.
Bowling for Columbine has been undermined. Canada was such a good foil vis a vis the USA regarding guns. Now Canada has lost a little of that. Pity.
His list of “hates” seems very simplistic and not well thought out for a 25 year old – even if he does watch the Daily Show.
And, c’mon, for those who say the parents have some responsibility – HE’S 25!!! At some point you have to take responsibility for your own life. I’m not saying that they didn’t mess him up somewhere along the way, but he’s 25!!!!
metric:
??? Where have you been? Dayzee parents R 4 LIFE! They ROCK!
Maybe Kimveer’s an orphan? Could explain some things.
And I heard and hear a thousand and one leftists bring that up as an example of right-wing, white, Christian hate. And that let to massive condemnation and examination of right-wing talk radio, militia groups, etc by people at that time. Some of that condemntation was legit, and I would hope that people would find the time to do so again. Like starting with that film glorifying the assasination of Bush that premiered a bit down the road from Dawson college a few days ago.
A group of people coming together, following certain philosophy and converting it to a plan of action. Vs. Some punk w/ too many guns, randomly spewing hate.
ThereÂ’s a difference, donÂ’t you think?
If youÂ’re thinking of a lefty gone mad, UnabomberÂ’s your man. Not Kimveer Gill.
Huh? Many on the right said that they sympathized with his goals but that he went too far. Gore Vidal, a prominent right wing figure, lionized him. I never heard right wing figures denounce McVeigh’s goals in the same way that they demand that Muslims denounce the Islamicists. As I recall, some congressmen even had some non-negative things to say about him, but I don’t remember who.