Daisies and Bruises

Remembering the Montreal Massacre

06 Dec 2011 7 Comments

by daisiesandbruises in Hindsight Tags: abuse, change, fear, PTSD, school, suicide, violence against women

Today is the twenty-second anniversary of the Montréal Massacre, during which a twenty-five-year-old male, Marc Lépine entered the École Polytechnique and after separating the men and women, opened fire on the women. He shot twenty-seven people, killing fourteen women total.

My family lived in Montréal the year before the massacre, but moved here to London, Ontario in 1989. Since I was only four at the time I don’t remember hearing about the tragedy when it occurred but certainly learned about it as I grew up.

The usual knot in the pit of my stomach is tighter today but I can’t name the feeling. Fear? Anger? Disgust? All of the above.

The Wikipedia article touches on the fact that a psychiatrist visited the shooter’s family, trying to make sense of why Marc Lépine committed such a heinous crime. Other psychiatrists analyzed his suicide note and researched Lépine’s childhood abuse, questioning whether he had a personality disorder or was experiencing psychosis that caused him to turn violent.

I feel angry when mental illness is a topic of conversation around murder. Yes, there is always the possibility that mental illness plays a role in murder (as in the recent Greyhound murder of Tim McLean) but the truth is that nine times out of ten, people want to explain the inexplicable by calling the murderer “crazy.” It’s safer to think that someone out of their mind would do such outrageous things, not just a regular person. Not your neighbour down the street, not someone that goes through the Tim Horton’s drive thru every morning. But up until December 6th, 1989, Marc Lépine was just like anybody else.

I did not know Marc Lépine, so I can’t tell you whether he was mentally ill or not, but this was a man with an intense hatred for women. He had the presence of mind to legally obtain a weapon reportedly surveyed the school for weeks ahead of the massacre. He also had the presence of mind to write a suicide note, and single out women as a target on that fateful day.

As most of you will agree, the people shot that day were not the only victims of Lépine. The ripple effect of such trauma does not end at those directly involved. The shock wave of the Montréal Massacre was strong enough that it is still shaking us to this day twenty-two years later. And speaking of mental illness, think about how many people developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of December 6th, 1989. Or suffered from depression or experienced anxiety attacks. Some even committed suicide and mentioned the lasting pain from the massacre as a reason behind their deaths.

The violence on December 6th, 1989 was abuse in its purest form. It was gendercide. It was hatred towards women personified. It was Hell on Earth. Remember that abuse and violence against women happen every single day. Let’s not only remember those lost twenty-two years ago today but remember the living victims of violence worldwide. It has to stop and each of us plays a role in stopping it.