Police said the male suspect can't be named under Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Supt. Grant St. Germaine said nine people were shot in the school, including a female teacher's aide who died at the scene and a male teacher who died in a hospital. He said seven people wounded in Friday's shooting at the school are hospitalized.
Two brothers, 17-year-old Dayne Fountaine and 13-year-old Drayden, were shot and killed in a home before the gunman headed to the grade 7-12 La Loche Community School, police said. Police responded to a call of shots fired at the school shortly after the lunch hour.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commanding Officer Brenda Butterworth-Carr said when officers arrived at the school they saw the front door had been shot open. They entered the school, spotted the suspect and gave chase before apprehending him. He is due in court next week.
A resident of La Loche, Saskatchewan, pays his respects on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016 to the victims of a Friday school shooting. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)
Police said Saturday that they were not aware of a motive and declined to say what type of gun was used.
The school is in the remote Dene aboriginal community of La Loche in Saskatchewan Province. La Loche is a community of less than 3,000 where just about everybody knows everybody else.
"This is a significant event for Canada," St. Germaine said. "It's a huge impact on the community of La Loche. It's a part of changing times. We are seeing more violence."
Residents lighted candles and placed flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the school.
Shootings at schools or on university campuses are rare in Canada. However, the country's bloodiest mass shooting occurred on Dec. 6, 1989, at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique, when Marc Lepine entered a college classroom at the engineering school, separated the men from the women, told the men to leave and opened fire, killing 14 women before killing himself.
The educational assistant killed at the Saskatchewan school was identified as 21-year-old Marie Janvier. Deegan Park, her boyfriend of three years, said he would have given up the rest of his life just to spend another year with her.
"I grew up not a good guy, but she turned me right," Park told The Associated Press. "She was that much of a great person to turn me right from all the wrongdoings I used to do. ... She was a fantastic person."
"I loved her, I really did," said Park, who remembered her smile and how she would blush when she was happy.
Kevin Janvier said his daughter was an only child. "I'm just so sad," he said.
Ashton Lemaigre, a teacher at the school and friend of Marie Janvier, said she worked as a teacher's aide in his classroom. He said she was kind and patient with children and planned to get her teaching degree someday.
"The kids loved having her around," Lemaigre said. "They would just come running to her. And she was just a friend to everybody."
A second victim was identified as 35-year-old Adam Wood, a new teacher at the school. His family in Ontario issued a statement describing him as an adventurer with a passion for life who made people laugh until their stomachs hurt.
"Adam had just begun his teaching career in La Loche last September and was enjoying his time," his family said. "He was always up for a good challenge and lived each day joyously."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, called it "every parent's worst nightmare."
A student who was just returning from lunch when the shots were fired Friday said his friends ran past him urging him to get out.
''Run, bro, run!" Noel Desjarlais-Thomas, 16, recalled his friends saying to him as they fled La Loche's junior and senior high school. "There's a shotgun! There's a shotgun! They were just yelling to me. And then I was hearing those shots too, so of course I started running."
The RCMP said the first reports of shots being fired at the school came in around 1 p.m. Friday, and parents and residents were warned to stay away. Witnesses said some students hid in gym dressing rooms for hours. A nearby elementary school was also placed on lockdown as a precaution.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said he is in a state of disbelief. He planned to visit La Loche on Sunday and promised to provide crisis support and counseling services. La Loche, like a number of aboriginal communities in Canada's prairie provinces, has been plagued by high suicide rates and poverty.
Wall added that U.S. Ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman had offered the counsel of U.S. communities that have experienced school shootings.
"He noted that quite tragically the United States has more experience with the likes of what we saw in La Loche," Wall said.
Thank AOL
The Roving Reporter G.
Hello HB
ReplyDeleteThank you for continuing to cover this story. I see more facts are gradually emerging. I hear they think the weapon was an old shotgun.
What did we do to our kids to turn them into potential mass killers? Whatever we did, we should be hung for. I bet part of the conditioning was sitting them down in front of the TV or video games for hours on end and giving them access to gosh knows what on the internet. Whatever it was, we are totally responsible.
The aboriginal people up there don't have adequate clean water or sewerage facilities. They don't have enough doctors and are among the poorest in Canada,to our everlasting shame. Those living conditions are probably just right for breeding violence.
Thanks again. I have a lot on my plate right now, but I will be back soon as possible.
My love to Nee, Gil and kids and best regards to Mae.
Love and hugs
Butterfly
Hello little Butterfly,
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome , facts are coming out slowly , I will try to keep up .
I told you that you are not responsible for all the kids that go wrong in this wrong i this world , you are only responsible for the ones you raised . No more , no less .
There are good kids out there , writing about good kids do not sell papers or make the journalists any money . I am proud of the way my grands are being raised , Gil and Nee pick up on anything that seem out of the ordinary , that is the way they was raised . Teaching never stops with your kids ,teaching last a lifetime and everyone should remember that you can't buy your kids love , you also have to give them room to grow .
I hate to see you think this is your shame , you have no control over what your government does . We can do one thing , we voted them in , we can get enough votes to throw them out . Good luck with that , people who say they are with you are mostly arm chair politicians any way . They can talk a good game and when you call on them they are playing hide and seek (laughing my butt off).
Violence among kids come in all status of life , rich or poor .
I will give your love to Nee,Gil and my grands and thank you for including my dear sister .
Take care of your affairs and hopefully things turn out well .
Hugs and love
HB
PS: Nee said she hope your dear daughter and your twins are doing good . Nee also said the last comment she got , you said that you , Nana was doing good and that your husband had a cold but was fine . She said she has an idea and her feeling is getting stronger , as you know Nee has started meditating again .
HB