The slaughter of Polytechnic

Gary Caldwell

Sociologist and farmer

Presentation

To explain the slaughter of December 6, 1989, at the Polytechnic School of Montreal, Gary Caldwell blames the deep revolution of the sexual roles which takes place since the Sixties. It supports that this revolution gave at least a result: the young men, those at least which are very provided education for, seem to have lost the reflex to want to protect the women in danger!

Extract

Then, it orders to the fifty young men to leave the room, which they do, apparently without any protest.

The men ravel by the door. The assassin coldly explains to the women wedged at the bottom of the room his reasons antifeminists. One of the women challenges it, but without result.

In 1990, Louise Malette and Marie Chalouh directed the publication of a collection of comments, quoted in title, on the significance of the massacre which has occurred a few months before at the polytechnic School of Montreal¹. The principal and omnipresent thesis in the many collaborators - almost all the women - affirmed, with reason, that the event had a political significance; i.e. there was a manifestation of the violence made to the women in a company still dominated by the men. In other words, to simply interpret the incident like the action of an unhappy and ruined individual was not enough. It was rather necessary to see the massacre made by Marc Lépine like a reflection, although extreme, of our true social condition.

Of start, I agree with this analysis which I recommend besides to all those which still wonder about the range social and political of this crime counters women. However, while stopping on the behaviour of Lépine in this massacre, the social analysis thus made is remained unfinished.

Now that the central aspect of slaughter was finally highlighted and that we have a little retreat in front of this tragedy, it is time to lean us on other aspects of this so revealing violence. Malette and Chalouh wanted to stimulate "an in-depth debate that she would like to see being held" ²publicly. They provided essential elements enabling us to perceive the true significance of the behaviour and the gestures of the assassin. Now let us become to the behaviour other actors of the tragedy, such as for example that of the students, the professors, the police force and the media.

Thus let us begin again essentially, since it is needed, the painful chronology of the events, such as it was updated by the investigation of the coroner. After having prowl, of 16 H at 16. 40 around the office of the Secretary-general, Lépine goes up on the third floor for then going down to the second where it kills an employee, a little before 5 p.m. 10, moment when it enters the room of C-230.4. course being placed in front of the few 50 students and 10 coeds, it says to them to cease any activity. At this time, studying it which made a presentation in front of the class questioning its serious, Lépine draws a shot in the air. It then orders to the students to separate, the women on the left and the men on the right. They are carried out. Then, it orders to the fifty young men to leave the room, which they do, apparently without any protest.

The men ravel by the door. The assassin coldly explains to the women wedged at the bottom of the room his reasons antifeminists. One of the women challenges it, but without result. It then draws a gust from 30 balls, walking its weapon of left on the right. Last nines of the ten women are reached, including six fatally. A group of five students, who were in the corridor, hear the blows and see to collapse one of the victims. They flee to hide. Lépine leaves the room of course. When it crosses the threshold of the door, it is 5 p.m. 12. Two minutes were passed since its appearance with the door of the room of course. 50 students put at more the 90 seconds to evacuate the room by a narrow door, thus leaving 30 seconds with Lépine to enter there and leave there, to separate the men from the women, to bark the mobile of its crime and to draw the fatal gust.

The assassin leaves the room of C-230.4 course to move towards a room of photocopy where it wounds three people who are taken there with the trap, while threatening those which are with the foot of the staircase. Then, it reconsiders its steps partially and enters, this time, by the C-228 door, in a hall from where it tries to twice fire on a coed, without success, her weapon being empty. It leaves C-228 to go to reload its weapon in the corridor, close to a fire exit. Its reloaded weapon, it sees a coed hidden under a counter and draws above to him. Always in this corridor, it draws through glazed and keep silent door another coed.

At 5 p.m. 20, it takes the elevator and arrives on the first floor, with the accesses of the cafeteria. It shoots then at a woman who is close to the kitchen and kills it. The majority of the hundred people who are then in the cafeteria flee. In this confusion, Lépine kills two other coeds. Thereafter, it cuts down three others in the corridor of them before taking again the elevator to go to the third stage.

It is 5 p.m. 25. Lépine arrives on the third floor and enters again a room of course, B-311. In front of the room a coed and three students are. It orders with the latter to leave and, while they are carried out, it shoots at the coed. Two other women, who try to flee, are killed. The others seek to hide best than they can behind the desks. Lépine advances among the students, going sometimes between the lines of desks, sometimes on the same desks. It shoots at the women who try to be dissimulated after a fashion. Three are seriously wounded, another is killed. The cries of call using the first coed whom it reached with the apron of the class make it return towards her. It leaves a hunting knife and completes dying it, then after having wiped its knife, it draws a ball in the head.

Learning that the killer committed suicide, the police officers penetrate in the building. It is 5 p.m. 36. In all, 25 minutes were passed between the murder of the first innocent one and that of the last, the fourteenth, which precedes its suicide.

As we noted at the beginning of article, the actions of Lépine were the subject of the first analyses which one made on the significance of these events. Let us turn initially our glance on the behaviour of the students. These young women and these young men represent the fine flower of our new meritocraty, lucid and perspicacious, sensitive to the importance of science and technology in our contemporary company.

We observe that, on three occasions on the dark course of the assassin, one could perhaps have had the advantage on him: at its exit of the rooms of course (in the case of its first exit, 50 men came to leave the room before him); when it reloaded its weapon; and finally when it advanced between the lines of desks of the last room of course, in the search of female victims. We will not call upon another possibility, that of a cold confrontation, in front of a directed weapon, like had however done it the sergeant of weapons in front of Denis Lortie at the time of the slaughter of the French National Assembly, like had also made the guard who controlled the Fabrikant assassin at the time of the slaughter of the Concordia University.

This observation does not want to be a moral judgement on the survivors of the tragedy, but rather a report in fact within the framework of a research of the social significance of the behaviour of the people. I do not try to claim, nor to imply, either, that I would have acted differently as similar circumstances.

I want simply to note that the deep revolution of the sexual roles which takes place since the Sixties gave at least a result: the young men, those at least which are very provided education for, seem to have lost the reflex to want to protect the women in danger!

Indeed, in this business with monstrous dimensions, nobody, except for a woman, had the reflex to risk his skin to face the attacker of the community. Even the police officers, with their formation, their bullet proof jackets and their weapons, apparently did not want to endanger themselves. Best than one can say, it is that their police methods, their instructions or their practices prevented some. The fact is that not a male did not try to interpose between the wolf and the others so that they survive!

Some of the collaborators to the analysis directed by Malette and Chalouh had evoked this observation:

"Our daughters wonder why nobody could carry help to the terrified women and immobilize the killer whereas it circulated in School³."

"Poor Little Red Riding Hood! [... ] To say that it could believe only one moment that a good hunter would come to save it. But the good hunter was afraid: it pushed⁴.

This new social attitude of each one-for-oneself it is generalized or belongs it rather to a class, with a layer of the company. In the working and rural medium, after the shock and the horror of slaughter, the spontaneous reaction as the course of the business was known was one of incredulity which was expressed as follows: "But what they did rot, all these guy?"

Indeed, one still observes, in the working and rural medium, a Community solidarity and a male pride which would have perhaps allowed the action combined and spontaneous of two or several men. The relevant element of this male conscience, in the context which concerns us, it is that which allows a spontaneous reaction and a nonverbal communication for a joint action. If we were right to postulate thus, it would then be necessary for us to consider deep middle-class in becoming our young meritocraty; middle-class in becoming which would prepare this youth indeed to assume its role within technocracy québécoise⁵. One is not conditioned any more, socially, to go to the defence of the group, one is rather conditioned to think of oneself, to take care on his interests, to seek his safety and his happiness personnel. All that is well the characteristic of our new Quebecer mentality. It is precisely it for what, middle-class man who I am, I do not dare to claim that I would have reacted differently than the men present on December 6.

But I however dare to believe that my sons, because they result from a rural medium, would have acted differently.

An index of more than middle-class in becoming of Quebecer intelligentsia is in the behaviour of the media around this tragedy. Very quickly, under pretext which one did not want to make feel guilty the young men in question, from the reactions as that which I express today were eliminated from the cover of the events. Some admittedly escaped from the censure in the first days. Thus Andre Beaulieu, professor of affected CEGEP to the vocational training, was quoted in the Press of December 11, 1991:

"That 50 to 60 guy did not react to try to control it proves that our company is declining. I want well that these young boys are excused, but from there to hide in the corridor, it is anti-natural. I do not include/understand That exceeds me."

The self-censorship of which proof the media made perhaps had, like claimed it some, a creditable humane reason, but such a justification is inadequate when it is a question of drawing aside from the news and the report the reaction of a good part of the company to an event whose collective direction and the social character are not any doubt. This censure - and there one is - remain a little too interested, because all the higher middle class is accessory to our middle-class in becoming. An example of the muzzle which one wanted to put on this crucial aspect of the social significance of the event, it is relative silence surrounding the suicide of at least one of the young survivors who, in spite of the benevolence of the media gained with the care of their fragile self-esteem and of "ego" of the latter, could not live any more with its remords(6). This fact had almost overlooked in the press québécoise(7).

Are our new provided education for middle-class men a so individualistic aware and one me so fragile? And would our media, from which the personnel comes from the same middle-class, have become obliging in their connection?

1. Editions du Remue-ménage, Montreal, 1990.
2. Ibid., Avant-propos, p. 13.
3. Stevie Cameron, ibid., p.167.
4. Nathalie Petrowski, ibid., p. 35.
5. Gary Caldwell, «Ce qui ne peut être dit au Québec» (L'Agora, vol. I, no 2, octobre 1993).
6. Vancouver Sun du July 17 1991 : «Three deaths tied to [the Montreal Massacre] aftermath», p. A1 et A2.
7. See on the other hand the Vancouver Sun of December 6 1991 : «The men in the middle : confused over what their role is, they meekly obeyed a gunman.»