I have no words, really, to express the myriad emotions I/we are experiencing.
I am posting for no other reason than to reassure friends and family who may have only sketchy details of today’s events. There was a fatal shooting at Dawson College, a Cegep in downtown Montreal. A young man with a gun shot several people; at least 20 are in hospital and one young woman is dead. The shooter is also dead, apparently by a self-inflicted wound.
I have many friends who work at Dawson, and I am worried about the ones I haven’t heard from. If things had played out differently, I might have been there – but I chose to teach at Vanier College, instead, and now I am thankful that I made that decision. I suspect many of my colleagues are feeling the same way. It’s a weird mix of relief, horror and sadness.
Thanks for posting, Maggie. I hope your friends are okay. 🙁
Yes indeed thanks for posting to reassure us all. I hope you hear from your friends soon. My heart is with you guys tonight in Montreal.
Terrible day. Yet another Montreal school with a violent day to mark. Simply awful.
Take care…
“If things had played out differently, I might have been there – but I chose to teach at Vanier College, instead, and now I am thankful that I made that decision.”
I had the same thought about you last night as I listened to the days events on the radio. I hope you hear from your friends soon and that they are all well.
Thanks for the posting and best of luck to all the teachers and students in the CEGEP system. My time at John Abbott was so important to me personally and I can’t even imagine it being interupted by something like this. Unbelievable.
I was thinking the same thing myself. One of Rob’s friends’ kids was in the cafeteria at the time and actually saw the guy. She got out okay. Ed Fuller was (for some reason) also on the campus at the time. He’s also okay (in fact, I first heard about in an email from him telling everyone that he was unharmed). This thing is so horrific and screwed up, I don’t even know where to begin…
I was a student at Dawson when the ’89 shooting occured at l’ecole polytechnique. At the time we were thinking “could that happen here?” …
Have you heard from your friends, Maggie?
JB.