But he also offered another chilling insight into the Taber tragedy. Others simply resented having their privacy invaded. A ridiculous amount of coffee was consumed in the process of writing these articles. Lang, an Anglican minister at the time, became a tireless crusader for nearly a decade against the sort of bullying and school violence that led to the shooting. " That "thing," of course, was the highly publicized shootings that had taken place at Columbine High School near Denver just eight days earlier, leaving 15 dead. Wilco Tymensen, superintendent of the Horizon School Division, says the shooting spearheaded a conversation in Canada about the mental health of students, along with needed supports and threat assessments. What they discovered was a socially awkward boy who was bullied his whole life. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. "I think the copycat phenomenon will be limited in Canada," says Raymond Corrado, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University. From the classroom window of their junior high school adjoining W. R. Myers, Drouin and her friends could witness the growing pandemonium outside, as ambulances, emergency crews and police appeared on the scene. He described the teen as a scrawny kid with a bad complexion and glasses. Court later heard the teen was the victim of bullying. And that was a moment of total blackness," he says. "We have clear blue sky, clean air and corn. I pray every day and I read scripture every day. "Educational institutions at all levels are readily accessible," Kent says, noting that they offer an easy target, with high concentrations of enclosed, unprotected people. Listen and subscribe to get a daily fix on the latest political news and issues. Taber Sport Shooting Complex in Taber, Alberta, Canada. Then, as we’ve seen in Nova Scotia this week, the killer’s life was pried open and examined under a media microscope. Just about every high-school teacher in this country has got two or three kids in each of their classes who are behaviourally difficult." But it was in the unlikely setting of Taber - a prosperous farming community of 8,000 located 200 km southeast of Calgary - that the closest thing to a so-called copycat crime was committed. Christmas, who now lives in nearby Lethbridge, says in a brief online message that he has since forgiven the gunman, who was arrested by an unarmed school resource officer that day. Mine is for Pete Snelson, who we lost earlier this year.…. ", A lot of people are feeling that way these days in Taber, a picket-fence kind of town that until now had been best known for its sugar refinery and harvests of sweet, juicy corn. So this is what it has come to for North American schoolchildren in the spring of 1999 - fear that the places where they gather daily to learn and play may suddenly turn into killing fields. "So I ran away to my classroom, crying and screaming for help." 3. Life in general is a struggle.". For those on the front lines, Taber is a clarion call to deal with violence in schools. And I ask God what's going on in the world and what I should be doing.". Garrett said he told the shooter to put down his gun because "this isn't going to solve anything.". I'm very grateful for your support and would love to send you one of my "Thank You" gifts. Although you can easily find the name of the Taber school shooter online from non-Canadian sources, the publication ban in Section 24 of Alberta’s Youth Justice Act and Section 110 of Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act prevents me from including his name in this column.
"It still affects me 20 years later," says Christmas. “I asked the kid with the gun what he was doing and he told me to get lost so I ran away to my classroom, crying and screaming for help,” said Raegan Valgardson, a grade 9 student. In, Bergman, Brian, and Patricia Chisholm, "Taber Shootings". If you enjoy my work, please buy me a coffee or two to keep me going! Stephen Kent, a sociologist at the University of Alberta, notes that the outpouring of fear and grief that accompanied the shootings in Colorado, vividly portrayed on television, shows disaffected youth that it is easy to gain the attention they crave by wreaking havoc on the objects of their anger. "He said he had a gun," said Lang, "and he thought it would be cool to see what it felt like to shoot somebody. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Mike Ridewood).
Shane Christmas, 17, was hit in the stomach. Required fields are marked *. 1:39 A look back at the shooting in Taber Alberta Jan. 23, 2016: Sarolta Saskiw speaks with Dale Lang, the southern Alberta pastor who lost his son in a school shooting in Taber … With clerical eloquence, Lang then added that his family also grieved for "the sad state of a 14-year-old boy who could come to such a place as randomly taking another person's life for no reason. The shooter entered guilty pleas to first-degree murder and attempted murder in youth court in 2000 and was sentenced to three years in jail and seven years of probation. One of the last remnants of Alberta's fabled Bible Belt, Taber boasts nearly a dozen churches of various denominations, including a strong Mormon presence. Use your credit card in my online store to support me with a one-time donation, a monthly recurring donation, or an annual donation. @ThatLibertyGuy, © 2004–2020 ChristopherDiArmani.com | All Rights Reserved. Lang remembers being called to the hospital, where doctors worked to save his son's life. "Taber Shootings". Firing four rounds, he shot them both. That is scant comfort to the likes of Brad Potiuk, a Grade 12 student at W. R. Myers, who fears that the recent school mayhem - and all the attendant publicity - will just breed more of the same. The maximum sentence a young offender can receive is 10 years, a point I discuss in my article about the Richardson Family Murders, which occurred in 2006 in Medicine Hat, just an hour northeast of Taber. This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on May 10, 1999. The suspect was later charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. "This was a random act of violence," Mar said of the Taber shootings. The 10th anniversary of the deadly Taber shooting is going unmarked but the tragedy is not forgotten. ", Der remembers how his client was locked in a school locker and beaten by a group of boys and girls while alone on a playground.
On April 28, shortly after the lunch-hour break, a 14-year-old gunman had entered W. R. Myers and opened fire, fatally shooting one 17-year-old student and critically injuring another. “He pointed the gun at my head and then at my stomach and said, ‘Get out of here’,” said Colby Cannady, another grade 9 student. For killing one young man and severely injuring another, the young offender was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by seven years of probation. Dennis Reimer, the Taber police school resource officer at W. R. Myers. He survived. Sitting next to her, Robinson's classmate, Stacey Larsen, nodded her head in agreement. Send an Interac eTransfer to author @ christopherdiarmani.net (remove spaces), 2. "It's going to happen again." Tragedy in TABER. Brian Bergman. TABER, Alta. It is the sort of place where people often leave their car doors - and even their homes - unlocked, and where they still speak proudly about being law-abiding, family-oriented Christians. Send via PayPal using this link: https://www.paypal.me/ThatLibertyGuy. where four people died and seven were injured, the memories come flooding back, says Dale Lang, Jason's father. He took his father’s .22 calibre rifle, sawed off the barrel, grabbed hundreds of rounds of ammunition and headed to his former school. The parallels between last week's shooting in Taber, Alta., and the April 20 massacre in Littleton, Colo., are chilling. The parallels between last week's shooting in Taber, Alta., and the April 20 massacre in Littleton, Colo., are chilling. As a spring snowstorm lashed against her face, 11-year-old Megan Drouin stood outside W. R. Myers High School in Taber, Alta., last Thursday and recalled the horrors of the previous 24 hours. "As long as weapons are available in society, there will be isolated individuals who, from time to time, will seek revenge in violent ways.". Learn how your comment data is processed.
"He just swung this thing out Columbine-like from that long trench coat that he had. He was later declared fit to stand trial and in September 2006 he pleaded guilty to all charges. They said simply that the suspect - whose identity is an open secret among Taber residents but who cannot be named under the Young Offenders Act - was arrested "without further incident" by an unarmed Const. He says he has talked to the shooter's mother and is long past anger. Christopher di Armani is a freedom-loving Amazon bestselling author and current events commentator from Lytton, BC, Canada, who strives to awaken the passion for liberty inside every human being.