The Montreal college shooter appears to have been a Punjabi Sikh Canadian:

A man whose shooting rampage in a Montreal college killed one person and wounded 19 others before he was slain by police said on a blog that he liked to play a role-playing Internet game about the Columbine shootings.

The gunman who opened fire at Dawson College on Wednesday was Kimveer Gill, 25, of Laval, near Montreal… [Link]

Eyewitnesses say they saw a tall, Goth-looking man in a long black coat drive up near the college on Maisonneuve Street in a black Pontiac Sunfire at around 12:30 p.m. He got out of his car, opened the trunk and removed a rifle. The gunman walked toward the college’s southwest entrance, firing randomly… [Link]

Here are photos of Gill posing with his gun in a Columbine-inspired fantasy.

In postings on a Web site called VampireFreaks.com, blogs in Gill’s name show more than 50 photos depicting the young man in various poses holding a rifle and donning a long black trench coat and combat boots. One photo has a tombstone with his name printed on it — below it the phrase: “Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse…”

Neighbours told CBC Radio that Gill lived with his parents in the house. In his profile on vampirefreaks.com, a website devoted to Goth culture, Gill called himself “Trench,” and wrote: “You will come to know him as the Angel of Death.” [Link]

Gill, who is known to other users on the website as Fatality666, describes himself as Indian, 6-foot-one, who was born in Montreal on July 9, 1981. Reports say Gill lived in Laval, north of Montreal, with his mother… He says he is a fan of the controversial and violent video game series Postal, which the targets are everyday human beings completing everyday errands… “But to be more specific,” he continues, he hates jocks, preps, country music, Hip Hop, “bible-thumping know-it-alls,” God and “all those who oppose my rule.” [Link]

Police said the guns found at the scene were legally registered…

… reporters who went to Mr. Gill’s house said they were met by his father, who refused comment. He returned inside, where the newspaper said he was being interviewed by police. [Link]

Initial news reports described him as a white man based on his appearance. He was reportedly born in Canada. It’s interesting how far this murderer had assimilated — as an MO, Columbine-style shootings tend to be a North American phenomenon, and his Web site sounds like a typical metal goth:

Asked to list his likes, these were some of his responses: Germany, Marilyn Manson… [Link]

‘Do you think they got beers in Hell? or in heaven? I’ll go where there’s alcohol and guns.’ [Link via Steve Janke]

And his MO — trenchcoat, wild shooting, laser sights — smacks of adolescent theatrics:

According to some of the witnesses, the gunman had a weapon equipped with laser sight, a targeting device made popular by its frequent use in action films… According to firearms experts, laser sights are most useful as psychological and preventive, rather than targeting, tools…. suspects are much more likely to do what they’re told if they see a red dot on their chest.

However, as a targeting tool, laser sights are “the worst possible thing” to put on a gun, Mr. Witton said. Unlike in movies, the bullet doesn’t always go where the red dot is, he added. Because lasers aren’t affected by gravity, distance is a huge factor in throwing off a laser sight’s aim. “They don’t work like on TV,” Mr. Witton said. “The bullet rarely goes where you want it to.” [Link]

A change in police tactics probably saved lives:

Montreal police officers are now trained - as a result of other fatal school shootings - to immediately pursue gunmen in such circumstances, rather than just sealing off the area and waiting for a SWAT team. [Link]

The deadliest school massacre in U.S. history was actually a 1927 suicide bombing committed by a disgruntled member of the Bath, Michigan school board:

The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax… [which he blamed for] foreclosure proceedings against his farm… Kehoe used a detonator to ignite dynamite and hundreds of pounds of pyrotol which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers started gathering at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and detonated a bomb inside his shrapnel-filled vehicle, killing himself and the school superintendent…

Ironically, the amount of unused equipment and materials on the farm could have easily paid off the Kehoes’ mortgage. Investigators found a wooden sign wired to the farm’s fence with Kehoe’s last message, “CRIMINALS ARE MADE, NOT BORN,” written on it. [Link]

Update: Gill apparently suffered two potentially fatal wounds:

… he is believed to have died from two bullet wounds, one to his chest and one to his head. [Link]

He seemed distraught over bullying:

On Tuesday, a day before the shootings, at 5am Gill is reported to have launched a tirade against authority figures. “It’s not only the bullies’ fault, but the principal’s fault for turning a blind eye … it’s the police’s fault for not doing anything when people complain (ooooops) my mistake, the cops are corrupt sons of whores, so it’s not like they can do anything about it. F— the police.” [Link]

Lots of desi students and teachers are being quoted in the news reports, which reflects a higher desi population in Montreal than I was aware of:

Another film studies teacher, Dipti Gupta, said her students had carried a badly wounded woman in from the hallway and rested her on a desk. [Link]

Update 2: CNN is reporting he committed suicide and was not killed by the police:

… according to the preliminary autopsy report, Gill turned a gun on himself after officers shot him in the arm, police said. [Link]

There was no apparent connection to the college:

“No connection whatsoever; he’s not a student at Dawson, he’s not a former student at Dawson,” Dore said… Dore said Gill had no criminal record and was not known to police. [Link]

“I wouldn’t call him a loner, exactly, but he dressed like a dork, like a guy whose parents dressed him to go to school…” [Link]

The large gun Gill used was a carbine, not a rifle:

[The Beretta Cx-4 Storm is] not a rifle but a semi-automatic carbine, a gun smaller than a rifle that uses pistol ammunition and is popular on Canadian shooting ranges. “It doesn’t have a huge muzzle blast… It doesn’t recoil you back into next week.” [Link]

Update 3: More on Gill’s family:

Gill lived with his twin brothers and parents, Gurinder Gill and Parvinder Sandu, in a raised bungalow in a middle-class, mostly English-speaking neighbourhood in Laval, just north of Montreal. Gurinder Gill appears to own a trucking company, according to business records. [Link]

The house in which he lived with his parents and younger twin brothers, Anmol and Balroop, is owned by Gurinder Gill and Parvinder Sandhu… Neighbours in the mature development said the family had lived in the small house on a corner lot for about 15 years, but few knew the Gills well, saying they mostly kept to themselves…

The parents’ names suggest they are of Sikh origin, but a prominent member of the Laval Sikh community said he did not know them. “It appears that the father, Gurinder Gill… rarely visited Gurdwara, Sikh Temple,” Devinder Singh Chahal of the Laval-based Institute for Understanding Sikhism, said. [Link]

His parents do not appear to be devout Sikhs. Neighbours did not see the men in the family wear turbans or beards, except for a much older man who visited them sometimes… There were signs that the occupants lived modestly. The house was valued this year at $136,100… [Link]

Gill was on the dole:

Gill worked for a company in Dorval for two years but, these past few years, had mostly been on employment insurance, sitting in his parents’ basement, becoming an “alcoholic,” watching television and playing video games… [Link]

What happened the morning of the shootings:

… [Gill] awoke Wednesday morning, listened to the music of Megadeth and guzzled whisky. He packed an arsenal of three weapons - a 9 mm Beretta semi-automatic rifle, a Glock .45-calibre pistol and a 12 gauge shotgun. All the guns were legally registered in the killer’s name.

Mr. Gill drove from the suburban Laval home where he lived with his parents to downtown Montreal, parked his Pontiac Sunfire outside a daycare centre and calmly removed the weapons from the trunk…

Inside the college, Mr. Gill shot at random, but singled out Ms. De Sousa, who was shot repeatedly at point-blank range. The killer took at least two hostages, using them as human shields as police followed in hot pursuit.

In an exchange of gunfire with police, the gunman was hit in the arm. Mr. Gill then took his pistol, put it to his chin and pulled the trigger. [Link]