Dawson College shooting game invites players to kill students

MONTREAL – In poor taste, but not illegal. That’s the Montreal police assessment of a controversial video game based on the shooting at Dawson College that surfaced on the Internet just days before the fourth anniversary of the tragedy.

The first-person shooter game, called Dawson College Massacre, invites players to take on the role of gunman Kimveer Gill and "storm" the college with their favourite rifle.

"Eliminate all the students, then kill any cops you can!" the game’s introduction says.

Screams are heard and blood erupts when a player shoots someone in the game. The introduction features pictures of Gill, who took his own life after killing 18-year-old Anastasia De Sousa on Sept. 13, 2006 at Montreal’s Dawson College. Twenty others were injured in the attack, including 16 who suffered gunshot wounds.

Dawson issued a terse comment Wednesday, saying it would not further play into the game creator’s hands by dignifying with a response "this misguided attempt at entertainment at the expense of people who were killed, hurt and scarred psychologically," spokeswoman Donna Varrica said.

The Dawson Student Union said it informed police about the game on Sept. 9.

"I thought it was really sad that someone felt the need to re-create this event," said Nadia Kanji, the union’s director of internal affairs and advocacy.

"I think that the video should be taken off of these sites, strictly because it’s very insensitive to members of Dawson," Kanji said. "It’s disrespectful to us."

"The way we interpret it is that it sort of glorifies the shooter."

Kanji said the game was posted on four websites. The union contacted all of them, asking them to remove it. "None of them responded to us, although one of the sites did actually take off the video game."

Montreal police aren’t investigating because, they said, there is no criminal offence.

Police plan to ask an Internet provider in the United States to remove the game because it is in poor taste. But police said they had no power in the matter and the Internet provider can decide for itself whether to take it off the site.

Police said the game is like a massacre game you can buy in any video store. For there to be an offence, the victims would have to have been identified as real people, for example, police said.

Alana Klein, an assistant professor in the law faculty at McGill University, said the Criminal Code only prohibits speech that incites hatred against an identifiable group that is likely to lead to a breach of the peace. An identifiable group is defined as any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation, Klein said.

"So those are the two main obstacles for why, for example, the hate speech legislation would be unlikely to apply here," she said.

The game was posted on newgrounds.com, a games and animation site, by a male poster named "Virtuaman," who did not reply to an interview request from the Montreal Gazette. An email response from the Pennsylvania-based website said the Montreal Gazette would have to speak to its owner, Tom Fulp, who is in Japan at a game show.

The game was still up on the website Wednesday.

In a description of the game, "Virtuaman" says: "Sorry if you are offended in some way."

An effort was made to stay true to the reality of the attack, he continues. "In the event everyone did freeze in a way and let Kimveer take target practice in the cafeteria."

If the police had not quickly engaged Gill, he would have killed more people, the author said.

"The game is made as such to follow these events and at the same time to add a little fun, but it’s mostly to relive the experience in a way . . . have fun;)," he wrote.

The 30 reviews posted on the site included some scathing comments. "Using a scenario that has made so many people suffer is DISGUSTING," wrote one poster.

"Your insensitivity is incomprehensible," said another.

Meanwhile, a report released this month said many Dawson College students suffered psychological problems after the shooting.

"A total of 30 per cent of respondents experienced a psychological disorder, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, alcohol dependence and social phobia – twice the percentage seen in a 2002 mental-health survey of the Quebec population," said Alain Lesage – research team leader from the Fernand-Seguin Research Centre of Montreal’s Louis-H Lafontaine Hospital.

Researchers drew from a questionnaire completed by 948 people, mostly students but also some employees.

The closer someone was to the shooting and the greater their exposure to it, the higher their risk was for developing a mental disorder, researchers found.