Valentine's Day Massacre thwarted in Canada

[Fragile Bird]

I was going to post about this on Friday, February 13th (unlucky day for three people, lucky for a lot more) but so few details were available it would have had little else in the thread except for the news people had been arrested who had apparently been planning a mass shooting.

Some rather bizarre details have now been released by the police in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Several members of a Columbine fan group ("Columbiners")decided they would go to a shopping mall in Halifax, shoot as many people as they could, and then kill themselves. Three people were arrested, including a 23 year old woman from Illinois who flew into Halifax for the killing spree. A fourth member of the group killed himself as police were approaching his house. One of the three has been released as having nothing to do with the plan, and now there seem to be doubts about the fellow who killed himself, but eventually I guess more details will come out.

I have a lot of praise for the police and whatever agency for following up what turned out to be a Crimestoppers tip on their hotline, and prevented a deadly event from occurring. The arrests were made when the American woman flew up to Canada.

Two questions bother me. First, the idea of Columbiners is so mind boggling.

James Gamble, the 19-year-old found dead in his family's Timberlea, N.S., house, reportedly posted images of Columbine shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as well as Nazi iconography before police recovered his body and three rifles last week.

Lindsay Souvannarath, a 23-year-old American from Geneva, Ill., arrested at the Halifax airport in connection with the alleged shooting plot along with 20-year-old Randall Shepherd, of Halifax, also made references to Columbine and described security-camera stills from the 1999 shooting spree as "violent delights."

She titled her Tumblr blog School Shooter Chic.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/halifax-shooting-plot-who-are-the-columbiners-1.2959317
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/randall-steven-shepherd-lindsay-kanittha-souvannarath-charged-in-halifax-shooting-plot-1.2957685

The second question I have is, is this what you would consider a terrorist plot? The police and the federal government here have been bending over backwards to deny this would have been a terrorist act if it had occurred, because it had no political, religious or ideological purpose. Personally speaking, I think it fits the definition in our laws:

S. 83.01
b) an act or omission, in or outside Canada,

(i) that is committed

(A) in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause, and

( B) in whole or in part with the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public, with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act, whether the public or the person, government or organization is inside or outside Canada, and

(ii) that intentionally

(A) causes death or serious bodily harm to a person by the use of violence,

( B) endangers a person’s life,

© causes a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or any segment of the public,

(D) causes substantial property damage, whether to public or private property, if causing such damage is likely to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to ©, or

(E) causes serious interference with or serious disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether public or private, other than as a result of advocacy, protest, dissent or stoppage of work that is not intended to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to ©,

and includes a conspiracy, attempt or threat to commit any such act or omission, or being an accessory after the fact or counselling in relation to any such act or omission, but, for greater certainty, does not include an act or omission that is committed during an armed conflict and that, at the time and in the place of its commission, is in accordance with customary international law or conventional international law applicable to the conflict, or the activities undertaken by military forces of a state in the exercise of their official duties, to the extent that those activities are governed by other rules of international law.

Thoughts

[maarsen]

My daughter and her boyfriend just moved to Nova Scotia. My wife drove down with my daughter and had planned to do some shopping for stuff in Halifax that weekend. They could not go anywhere due to a huge snowstorm. I feel the same way that I felt when I heard, after the fact, that Paul Bernardo used to go to the same mall my daughters and their friends would go to. And then there is my brother who was part of Russell Williams' flight crew.

[Fragile Bird]

My daughter and her boyfriend just moved to Nova Scotia. My wife drove down with my daughter and had planned to do some shopping for stuff in Halifax that weekend. They could not go anywhere due to a huge snowstorm. I feel the same way that I felt when I heard, after the fact, that Paul Bernardo used to go to the same mall my daughters and their friends would go to. And then there is my brother who was part of Russell Williams' flight crew.

Wow, what a list. Good thing it was your brother and not a sister who was part of Williams' crew.

[maarsen]

Wow, what a list. Good thing it was your brother and not a sister who was part of Williams' crew.

I do have a sister and she was raised with five boys. When she was young and teased by boys, she would run them down and thrash them.