Police Seeking Motive In Montreal College Shooting

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ut blogs in Gill's name posted to a website called VampireFreaks.com said he liked to play the Internet-based video game "Super Columbine Massacre," which simulates the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Col. It also shows at least 50 photos of him holding a rifle, and donning a black trench coat and combat boots, the same as Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris during the Littleton, Col., incident.

The rampage was a painful reminder to a city that has seen two similar college gun attacks, in 1989 when Marc Lépine killed 14 female engineering students before taking his own life at École Polytechnique, and in 1992 when former Concordia University professor Valery Fabrikant killed four of his colleagues. Fabrikant is serving a jail sentence of 25 years without parole.

But Gill faced a police force trained to deal with gunmen like Fabrikant and Lépine. Police Chief Yvan Delorme told reporters at a press conference last night that the 1989 massacre prompted a swift rewrite of police protocol for apprehending armed suspects.

"Until 1989, police would stay on the perimeter and wait for the SWAT team," Delorme said. "Because of the Polytechnique, they are trained to act fast. Their job was to save people's lives."

Indeed, it was lightning speed that helped to quickly "stop the problem," Delorme said.

Emergency services received the first call at 12:41 and police were dispatched. Within minutes, operators fielded more than 400 more 911-calls reporting gunfire.

But two officers investigating an unrelated drug crime nearby serendipitously spotted the gunman and followed him into the college, Delorme said. More officers arrived three minutes later and the force deployed more than 100 officers, SWAT teams and canine units, who cordoned off surrounding blocks and secured the building.

Inside the building, a fierce gun battle left the suspect with fatal multiple gunshot wounds. The shooter was found with three firearms, including one automatic gun, Delorme said.

Television footage showed police dragging the apparently lifeless suspect out of the building onto the bloodied street in front of Dawson. Shortly afterwards, a yellow sheet was place on top of the body, which remained in its place long past nightfall, as a grisly vision after the carnage that occurred yards away.

Because a municipal police officer was involved in the shooter's death, the provincial police will investigate.