Tragedy in Taber

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few months ago, he dropped out of school, stopped going to church, and began spending more and more time on his own, often at home roaming cyberspace. He had his own Web page, where he posted personal information "to show people he was not such a bad guy," says Holstine. He enjoyed role-playing video games like Mighty Magic and Zelda and the music of Nine Inch Nails, among other bands. His parents discussed his adjustment problems with their church group.

"Certainly we knew that there were some troubles in his life," said Rod Gough, head of the local Mormon temple. "But we never imagined it would come to this."

After the Littleton shooting, the boy was heard to discuss the event, mostly blaming the press for hyping the tragedy. Those who saw him in the corridor on the day of the murder say it was clear he was out for revenge. Jenine Harder, 14, came across the bloody scene just after the shooter had squeezed off four rounds. One victim was crawling in a pool of blood and calling for help. "He was pointing the gun down at the ground and laughing. He was screaming at me, but I couldn't hear anything," she said, and added, "He was laughing at everybody. It was like he was trying to prove a point: 'Nobody can pick on me anymore.'"

Soon afterward Holstine came down the stairs and saw his friend standing still with the gun lowered, gazing up and down the corridor. "I had never seen him look like that before. The look on his face was, like, 'Power, I win.' It was so weird." Holstine told the boy to run, but he said he couldn't because there were police outside. He put the gun down. The school's police liaison officer stepped in and slapped on handcuffs. Then the boy started to cry.

All of Taber and much of the province collapsed into mourning. Lang's father, an Anglican minister, spoke of his beloved son, who just a few days before had bought his first car. "May God have mercy on this broken society and all the hurting people in it," he said. Flowers and e-mailed condolences poured into Taber from as far away as Australia.

Then came the second-guessing. On television talk shows and newspaper op-ed pages, security experts raised the possibility of tighter controls at schools to keep weapons out. But Eric Roher, a Toronto lawyer who advises school boards on how to deal with violence, says he doesn't expect widespread adoption of metal detectors and armed guards, now commonly used in many U.S. schools. "It's contrary to our education culture," Roher says.

What else can be done? Debra Pepler, head of the LaMarsh Center for Researchon Violence and Conflict Resolution at York University, says administrators should be on the lookout for kids who are being unusually targeted by bullies. "Other forms of child abuse are illegal," she says. "But somehow we think that when it's children doing this to other children, it's acceptable."

In the end, the violence that shattered W.R. Myers is not amenable to prevention. The .22-cal. weapon used by the shooter is a ubiquitous hunting gun that will never be banned. The boy lived in one of the most tightly knit and cohesive communities in the country, probably in North America. His parents were caring. But there is no psychological steam gauge that blows a clear warning when the wild pressures of adolescent emotion blow a hole through their constraints.

For the grieving people of Taber, the worst had already come and gone, leaving behind death, destruction, a shattered sense of security, shattered trust. And perhaps a sense of the immense destructive power of social isolation.

"I'm never picking on anyone different from me again," says Myers student Chad Leisk, 15.