INDEPTH: TABER SHOOTING
A town in grief
Martin O'Malley, CBC News Online
Shortly after the shootings in April 1999, CBC News Online's Martin O'Malley traveled to Taber. He stayed with friends while he wrote three columns on the tragedy, and the grief it left behind.
The sun broke Friday morning over this community of 7,200 after a day of snow, rain, shock and grief. The parking lot at the community centre was crammed with trucks and vans bearing television, radio and newspaper markings, some from Montana and as far away as Spokane, Washington.
Most are here only because of the high school shooting last week in Littleton, Colorado, an event that sparked the copycat killing in the hallway of W. R. Myers High School that left a 17-year-old student dead and another, also 17, seriously wounded. The shooter was a 14-year-old student who dropped out this term to be an "at home" student. The reports are that he wore a blue coat resembling the trench coats worn by the suicidal killers in Colorado.
Jennipher Grummett [digital photography by Martin O'Malley]
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Jennipher Grummett, 15, was in her gym class early Wednesday afternoon when an agitated girl ran into the room saying there had been a shooting and there was blood. Grummett and her friends thought it was a joke, then they discovered it was not. "It wasn't until I got up the next morning that it really hit me," she said, standing with friends on the periphery of a news conference held by the mayor and local police. They came to learn more of the shooting.
There was another grisly news event five years ago in Taber - the abduction, sexual assault and murder of a mother of five - but it did not receive nearly as much media fanfare as the shooting in W.R. Myers High School this week.
The victim in November, 1994 was Eileen McCoy, 46, who worked at a convenience store in Taber. Her body was found in a field 20 kilometres north of town. Eileen and her husband, David, had operated the Mac's store for three years. Their children ranged in age from four to 18.
The focus then was how something like this could happen in a place like Taber, just like in the big cities. The focus now is how something like this could happen in Taber, just as it did in Littleton.
A month after Eileen McCoy's murder, police charged a 20-year-old man from town with the killing. Jeffrey Thurston was charged with sexual assault while armed with a weapon, kidnapping and armed robbery. He was eventually found guilty and sent to penitentiary, but not until after another ordeal for David McCoy. The video surveillance in the store didn't work because a tape had been removed. It turned out one of the McCoy children had used the tape for innocent purposes, but because it was missing the police initially considered David a suspect. When the saga ended, David left Taber and returned to Ireland with his five children.
Downtown Taber [digital photography by Martin O'Malley]
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Taber is a clean, fresh town of just over 7,000 people. It has a large sugarbeet factory, tidy streets and neighbourhoods, and a large and devout Mormon population. Spring rains have brought the dry fields to life. It is a town of high school basketball and prom nights, about an hour's drive north of the Montana border.
On the outskirts of town, towards Medicine Hat, Len Ross, a former school administrator, runs a thriving bison ranch called "Prairie Buffalo." His son, Mike, has been looking after the family of one of the shooting victims, the boy who was wounded. When a reporter from The Calgary Sun kept phoning, then appeared at the door where Mike was shielding the family from the media, he exploded in anger, tears running down his face.
"It's you guys in the media who made such a huge thing of Littleton that put it in the minds of others, that made this happen," he shouted. "I have four kids at that school and I was down there counting heads."
The latest hospital report Friday afternoon was that the wounded boy still was in serious condition in intensive care, the .22-calibre bullet still lodged in his stomach.
At a second news conference at the community centre Friday, Gary Mar, Alberta's minister of education, said, "We do not want our schools to become fortresses." He was replying to questions about talk of heightened security at schools as a result of the tragedy. "Ninety-nine per cent of our students are good kids. We don't want to send out a message that we don't trust them."
T.J. Nyce, the 18-year-old president of the student council at the high school, attended the news conference. He said he expects to return to classes at W.R. Myers High School when it reopens next Tuesday. He encouraged other students to return "in order to help the healing process."
There is to be a funeral for the slain boy on Monday, also a memorial service at the school. Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is expected to attend.
Late Friday afternoon I walked up to the high school and was reading faxes sent from all over the country, other Canadians sharing their grief. One sign mentioned grief-counselling sessions Saturday at three different times, under which was written: No Media Allowed. At this point five students emerged from the front door, all arm-in-arm, some with wet faces. One looked at the sign and tapped her finger on the bit about the media. "Good," she said. "I wish they'd all go home."
This is a nice town. Drivers wave you into traffic, take time giving you directions, smile. These kids really care about Taber and each other. I got back to my friends house and almost wished to see instructions to the effect: "Come home, Martin. Leave them alone."
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