Another Kimveer Gill in the making?
Kimveer Gill opened fire on students at Dawson College in Montreal. He and one of his victims are dead, while others are in hospital. Gill's background is being carefully examined. I've decided to look at people in his orbit.
Kimveer Gill spent a lot of time playing "Super Columbine Massacre RPG," an online role playing game in which players can relive the events of April 20, 1999. There is a forum associated with the game, and Gill's actions are being discussed:
Just 1 shooter and 1 dead??? Not even worth a Videogame, besides, he didnt go out the way he should have.
Also, sinc ethey shot and killed him, he didnt go out the right way.
That's a cold way to see things. I decided to track down this person, and I was surprised to discover that a 16-year-old boy from Corpus Christi, Texas, wrote those words. His name is Adrian.
Here is an excerpt from Adrian's blog:
My worst enemies are those who presume me to be harmless. They cannot imagine how much I resent and disdain them, or just how great a threat they would face if I could get at them. Everything in their behavior speaks of insult and presumptuousness, and for now it is all I can do to make constructive use of my anger toward them. At this time, I just make a list of them and keep a watch on. Some day, with the help of time, space, and circumstance, I will be able to humiliate them properly - not in a manner they would enjoy, but in a style calculated to make them wish that they had never been born.
If he could get at them...presume him to be harmless...a list...make them wish they had never been born.
A promise to exact revenge but not the promise of raw violence...yet.
But a boy consumed by revenge fantasies playing an ultraviolent game that focuses on mass unfocused murderous revenge? A game played by another young man who has made that revenge fantasy come true?
Even the name of Adrian's blog, "Fhtagn!", comes from the nihilistic horrors of short story writer H.P. Lovecraft. The incantation "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" is supposed to draw the attention of Great Cthulhu, the monstrous high priest of the Great Old Ones, the true masters of the universe, worshipped as gods by early humans. Though mostly forgotten, they are destined to return to reclaim their domains in our dimension. When they do, humanity will descend into mass insanity and an orgy of wholesale slaughter. In Lovecraft's stories, gaining this knowledge of the true destiny of mankind invariably drives the character in question mad with the sheer pointlessness of it all.
No one actually believes in Lovecraft's fictitious gods, but then Adrian has some harsh words for religion:
Jesus and god are the ones idiots follow. if you follow them, then you have serious issues.
Fuck you gently with a chain saw.
This is a boy filled with a lot of anger and self-loathing and blames everyone else for his problems. Everyone else is either an idiot or is out to get him. They deserve to be humiliated by him.
One of the things you learn as you grow older is that it is impossible to humiliate anybody. You can only humiliate yourself. In other words, you have to be given the power to humiliate another person by that person, by his or her poor choices. When we talk about a sports team suffering a humiliating defeat, for example, we are really talking about the poor performance of losing team rather than the good performance of the winning team.
So our troubled teen here thinks he will "humiliate them properly." Not likely, unless each and every one of them does something excruciatingly embarassing, and Adrian somehow learns about it.
At some point he will learn that he is not likely to be able to humiliate any of the people on his list.
What will he do then? Will he abandon his dreams of revenge? Hopefully, but he is playing this game. A game that shows another path to revenge, one he can follow if he chooses to take it.
Actually, he's already thinking it. When others took him to task over his comments about religion, he made his feelings quite clear:
Welp, it was people liek you that caused Columbine.
And im outta here.
Adrian blames the carnage at Columbine not on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, but on alleged bullying. Not holding Harris and Klebold responsible is disturbing, especially since he plays a game in which he can do what they did that day. He stops just short of justifying their actions.
His parents have separated or divorced, and he has recently moved out of his mother's house and moved in with his dad. Can his dad help him through his anger? Not likely. People who have tried to help become the target of yet more paranoid rage:
to each one of my fathers friends who are looking at my blog, and my myspace and telling him the thinsg you tell him:
The part about how i was hungry was when i was visiting my mother, as was the one where i was saying to get me the hell out of here.
Dont call my father about what i write here.
Because you dont know shit.One final thing, Why the hell are you guys looking at my profile anyway? does a 16 year old boy turn you on you perverts? you guys shouldnt even be looking for teenagers to add as friends you fucking Child Molesters. i ought to report you.
It's hard to be appreciative when people are trying to help. It's especially hard when you are young. Accepting help is fundamentally a humbling experience. But Adrian's anger against those who have talked to his father is especially nasty. He doesn't just not want any help, he wants to hurt those who have tried to help. Humility is not part of this boy's mental makeup. I wonder if empathy is.
In any case, I suppose those people who talked to his dad are on his list too.
Should we be worried? Back to those people who gave him a rough time over his comments about religion:not much though, just some bitch asking if anyone knows some guy.
Either way, even theese fucks cant bring me down, and this is my week.Besides, theese jerks will get whats coming to them, soon.
Sounds like a promise. Why is this his week? And what, exactly, is going to happen to the "jerks"? How soon is "soon"?
He posted that promise on September 12.
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Comments
There are a few things we know. Most importantly the overwhelming majority of shooters, gang members and recruits to terror are young men with valid grievances who ARE NOT HEARD and ARE NOT HELPED.
We could cut violence by a massive amount by taking some time to listen to and help young men. Oh I know ... we're not going to do that. The "all males are scum" feeling in Canada is FAR too powerful; the joy in discrimination is far too overpowering.
Yet, one would be a fool to think that we could not cut much of our violence off by simply being fair and reasonable to our young men.
Bullying is a serious problem which results in many ruined lives. The solution, in Canada, is to put in place programs designed by females and run for female benefit. Yet, it is the males who have the greater need at the violent end of the spectrum.
The whole thing is really quite sad. We know the solution, but refuse to get involved, refuse to say "my son is sufficiently human to deserve decent treatment."
Posted by: jw at September 15, 2006 04:19 AM
Nice defamation, Janke.
If there is any justice in this world, this kid will sue your fat ass into the next century.
Posted by: thickslab at September 15, 2006 10:00 AM
jw: What do you specifically suggest? Do we send a social worker to go talk to any and every kid who has an angry blog?
You can only be helped if you want to be helped.
Posted by: Jonny_eh at September 15, 2006 10:05 AM
Justice?
this kids talking about revenge on his peers and youre saying he should sue the author for bringing up these writings? i think youre an idiot
Posted by: Justice? at September 15, 2006 10:11 AM
Steve,
Long-time reader, first-time poster. The dissection you've done here is interesting, but ultimately fruitless.
I think trying to dissect the online ramblings & (maybe) empty threats of every single teenager on the continent is a task that simply can't be completed. We can one-shot them the best we can (as you've done here), but frankly this kind of thing falls on the responsibility of the parents.
This angry kid mentions his dad's friends are reading his blog and filling him in on its contents - why in the hell is the father not reading it himself?? Is this (can I rightly assume?) ignorant twit not aware of the seething hatred in his mist?
I mean, come ON people, there are lots of frustrated teens out there, and no-one can tell which one(s) will eventually snap and appear on the evening news; the least we can do, as a society, is make it unacceptable for parents to go on ignoring these things in their own children...
Glad to get that out.....
Posted by: CalgaryChris at September 15, 2006 10:47 AM
This is a much larger situation than some angry kid. Our society is set up to create these situations. We tell our kids not to bully, but look at our all-consuming economic system, built completely around the idea of bullying. We tell our kids that violence is not the answer, and we're sending armed citizens to other countries to try and accomplish things with violence. There is a vicious, hypocritical cycle here, that is not going to be solved by looking at kids at an individual level and trying to find out "what's wrong". Many things are broken at a much larger level.
Posted by: Mike at September 15, 2006 11:28 AM
Mike:
An all-consuming economic system causes bullying? I suppose less bullying goes on in China or North Korea?
I would suggest the hypocrisy lies in thousands of years' worth of genetic moulding forged in violence only to be told now we can fix everything with a warm hug and a hot orange toddy. As long as humans exist with one another, some will always attempt to cheat their way through a social system (economic or otherwise) by use of violence. It's the quickest path to getting what you want without having to work too hard.
We need to realize that violence is an inately human trait and that appropriate sanctions are needed to curb same. My two year old is grappling with the fact that he can't simply hit someone to get his way. Surely all parents should take it upon themselves to teach the children that they saw fit to bring into this world that violence is not acceptable. But by the same token, we also need to teach them that there are others that will use violence against them given the opportunity for gain.
Economics aren't the problem - people are. If anything, the capitalist system you so deride has curbed some of the violence via creation of a prosperous middle class.
Posted by: at September 15, 2006 11:52 AM
Very thoughtful analysis, Steve. The problem facing us is not that parents make a mess of their lives and transfer the problem to their kids, it's that the "social workers" in our midst don't recognize where this goes:
"The solution, in Canada, is to put in place programs designed by females . . ."
Hello! Where's this person at?! Has she forgotten that the young rebels are going to fight back when we try to help them? The Old Master (whose name we dare not mention in the media) said that the truth will make us free, and this is exactly what he was talking about. If we dwell in BS and PC-rubbish, we will be enslaved by our ignorance and perpetually puzzled by these young rebels.
We must become willing to say what the problem is in the first place: divorced, angry parents, drugs, and alcohol. If you look behind the curtains of every one of these fucked-up rebels, that's what we will see. If we continue to pretend it's not, then we will continue to be surprised. Until we get the balls to speak out publicly against divorce, alcohol, crack, hookers, public atheism, and porn we're going to continue being enslaved by lunacy. For example, in the case of the Montreal shootings, nobody yet has discussed this boy's family - the root of all this crap.
Can we solve this problem with little social worker platitudes and committee meetings? No - until we can beyond the PC restrictions, this problem is just going to get worse.
Posted by: RJ Burke at September 15, 2006 11:58 AM
Until we get the balls to speak out publicly against divorce, alcohol, crack, hookers, public atheism, and porn we're going to continue being enslaved by lunacy.
Blah, blibbity blah. It's blowhards like you who screech and scream into the void while doing nothing concrete to enrich the lives of younger people.
The best thing you could do is shut the fuck up.
Posted by: Angry on Great White Toilet at September 15, 2006 02:29 PM
I kind of liked the Goths in high school, to be honest. They were really just nerds in funny clothes, but they did find security and comfort in their group identity (which was important since they had almost always been bullied in the past). And once you got past the make-up, they were usually pretty down-to-earth.
Not to minimize this post (I liked the passage on humiliation quite a bit), but what you've really found is just another angry kid from a broken home. There's more and more broken homes and therefore more and more angry kids. But a minute number of them will go on to do what Gill did.
Posted by: Peter at September 16, 2006 01:23 PM
"The solution, in Canada, is to put in place programs designed by females . . ."
take a closer look. programs are designed by men and woman. if anything the boys get a bigger break from councillors, group home leaders etc.. depression manifests itself (usually) in boys as external action (vandalism, violence) yet these kids are usually very hospitable and more social , making a councillor's job easier.
girls however usually manifest their depression in moodiness and what some would call 'bitchiness', making them more difficult to deal with, in fact, most don't want to.
as stated by many here, a person has to be willing to receive help, most teens are not receptive.
there's so many ills to society that the system perpetuates. overhaul the system and the majority of troubled people will be elimininated. but no no no, we keep pressing on in faux democracy pretending this, recommending that, more legislation here, less there, cuts to this program, let's take the money and put it to war.
mass murder is like the opposite of lone suicide. perhaps the govenment would be interested in recruiting 'troubled bloggers' for senseless wars. by the very standards government is setting it only perpetuates 'hopelessness' for youth. family (right, and how is government going to keep families together if it keeps cutting social programs , widending the income gap, ruling on adversarial grounds?). if you're from a broken home, can't afford to keep up with the jones', have academic troubles keeping up, are gay, non-white, non-christian, everything in the media that comes from government and corporate rule spell DOOM. congrats , government, you've just created how many troubled young minds?
get rid of the party system, let 'ridings' be determined on nature (ie forest districts and water sheds, not population), instill true representation from the people that empowers them no matter what age. our system is a sham.
Posted by: scout at September 16, 2006 02:13 PM
Responding to Mike's post September 15/2006. It sounded like you were describing Conservative ideology for governance regarding their political vision for Canada.
Posted by: at September 16, 2006 03:19 PM
Responding to Mike's post September 15/2006. It sounded like you were describing Conservative ideology in regards to how they view the future of Canada or rather the present.
Posted by: at September 16, 2006 03:21 PM
This was very interesting Steve. Some people here are saying that we should just ignore the online ramblings of any teenagers, but the average click at MySpace doesn't turn up violent and paranoid ramblings - just emotional and silly ones.
The liberal doublethink in some of the comments is pretty ironic too; in one sentence, they dismiss all of this as incoherent, harmless teenage angst (even stooping to say that they should sue Steve, HAH!), and in the next sentence they say... "but if they DO shoot someone, it's all society's fault." Not just society's fault, but particular parts of society, mainly the free parts like markets and speech. Does this thought pattern sound just a wee bit similar to what we hear about certain other hot-button issues?
While some of you are busy blaming the victims, others are looking for the warning signs and the real root causes: broken families, broken homes, broken communities, and broken values. Thank you Steve for the very well-thought-out post.
Posted by: Aaron G at September 16, 2006 04:25 PM
Who the hell are you to go talking shit about my friend here?
Adrian is lovely and sure- sometimes he gets pissed off- but don't we all?
Unless you've lived his life- you have no right to say that he is going to become a murderer. Alright?
He has a different way of expressing his emotions, and perhaps it sounds a bit weird in his blog, but he's not a fucking murderer.
do you even have permission to do this to him?
Fucking idiot.
Posted by: Miss Patricia at September 16, 2006 05:19 PM
Um, yeah, right. You don't know the half of it. He is really a very nice guy.
And no, Miss Patricia, he doesn't have permission to do this to him.
And how the crap did you track him down? It's people like you that make my parents hate the internet.
Leave him alone, jerky.
Posted by: NeeTee at September 16, 2006 05:28 PM
This sounds like the kid pretending to be other people to make him look better.
The internet is public. He is easily within his rights to do this. And it's a worthy article as well. This Adrian seems unstable, angry, and possibly homicidal. he needs help.
Good article. I hope this kid gets arrested. I have a feeling he'll be in the news someday soon. And not for a good reason.
Posted by: jhff at September 16, 2006 10:28 PM
jhff, you don't know the half of it.
That kid is REALLY unstable, or so he seems.
You're right about the internet being public, too. While I do think it's a little creepy/wrong to single him out and link to his myspace page, Janke simply pointed to something that was publicly available. There's nothing wrong or illegal about that.
Adrian (if that is his real name, he lies about everything else, perhaps he's lying about that, too) needs to learn that, when you put something on the internet, people can and will see it. If you don't want people to read your writings, don't put them on the internet (or on paper).
Posted by: TC at September 17, 2006 01:33 AM
put the kid in jail? ya, that'll solve a lot.
>>>While some of you are busy blaming the victims, others are looking for the warning signs and the real root causes: broken families, broken homes, broken communities, and broken values. Thank you Steve for the very well-thought-out post.<<<
if this supposition were true then why are north american governments taking away funding that can aid all these items? there is conflict in the quote because government's attitude perpetuates the list of reasons. citing family, community is fine, but when the funding to assist maintaining or reperation of these pillars is reduced to almost zilch, where's the sincerity? lip service only creates a society that looks down at broken fellowships, thus causing low esteem in those who are products of broken dreams. then what happens...i think you damn well know.
society IS sick. we look for bandaid solutions, we judge, we condemn, we promote overly competitive models as definitions of success. it's a sociopathic ladder and the oligarchy are the only real 'winners'. try as some may to defend the system, the numbers prove it ain't working.
Posted by: scout at September 17, 2006 02:21 AM
Adrian is dealing with the implications of what he wrote, and doing it with a lot of maturity. To help make sure this gets resolved with as little trouble as possible, I'm going to disable comments temporarily.
Posted by: Steve Janke at September 17, 2006 09:51 AM
 
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