Portal:Disasters/Selected anniversary/December 2007
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The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife, shot twenty-eight people, killing fourteen (all of them women) and injuring the other fourteen before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women to shoot. He killed fourteen women and injured four men and ten women in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.
Lépine was the child of a French-Canadian mother and an Algerian father, and had been physically abused by his father during his childhood. His suicide note claimed political motives and blamed feminists for ruining his life. The note included a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine considered to be feminists and apparently wished to kill.
Since the attack, Canadians have debated various interpretations of the events, their significance, and Lépine's motives. Most feminist and many official perspectives regard the massacre as an anti-feminist attack and as representative of wider societal violence against women, and the anniversary of the massacre has since been commemorated as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Some interpretations emphasize Lépine's abuse as a child or suggest that the massacre was simply the isolated act of a madman, unrelated to larger social issues. However, some commentators have blamed violence in the media and increasing poverty, isolation, and alienation in society, particularly in immigrant communities.
The incident led to more stringent gun control laws in Canada, and changes in the tactical response of police to shootings, which were later credited with minimizing casualties at the Dawson College shootings.
