INDEPTH: TABER SHOOTING
Questions will be answered
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.
On Wednesday, April 28, the front-page story in The Taber Times was "Rain brings relief to parched fields." The weekly newspaper had already gone to press when the shots were fired in the hallway at W. R. Myers High School, killing a 17-year-old boy and seriously wounding another.
Inside, on page 13, was a story headlined, "School officer funding in doubt." It was about the economics of education, specifically whether the local school board can afford to pay a police resource officer for added security at Taber schools.
The police resources officer in question is Constable Dennis Reimer, a retired Taber police officer who checks the hallways, breaks up fights and contributes much of his time to helping out with school sports. He is very popular with the students.
As the people of Taber were reading their local newspaper, the 14-year-year former student at W.R. Myers High School entered the school with a .22-calibre sawed-off rifle under his three-quarter-length parka. It wasn't a blue trench coat as early reports said. It was the kid's normal winter parka.
At the school meeting to discuss finances, the issue was whether to cough up $4,000 for the police resource officer. The schools had been contributing two-thirds of the cost of the officer, with the remainder provided from donations. Ray Viel, principal of St. Mary's High School, the other high school in town, said, "I know it doesn't sound like a whole lot of money, but when it comes to the choice between a police resource officer or a teacher aid, I will put the money toward the teacher aid."
The two 17-year-old students, late for class, walked along the hallway to their classrooms. The 14-year-old, an "at home" student, approached them. Most reports described the lad as a loner, not popular with his schoolmates, one who had been bullied from the time he was in Grade six. A story in The Lethbridge Herald quoted a 15-year-old student, Ron Henry, as saying the 14-year-old boy was "everybody's best punching bag." He'd sometimes get bodychecked into the lockers. "They'd try to pick fights with him and he'd just take it. They knew he wouldn't fight back."
The story in The Taber Times about the meeting on school finances quoted Don Gellatly, the principal of W. R. Myers High School, as saying that "despite the shooting tragedy in Littleton, Colorado last week…it's hard to predict how parents will react to the pending cut in police presence in the school."
A .22-calibre slug hit Jason Lang, the son of an esteemed Anglican minister, in the throat. Another bullet hit his friend, whose name can't be mentioned under the Young Offenders Act. The bullet ripped into his stomach. The Lang boy died soon after.
Reimer, the police resource officer, appeared on the scene and subdued the shooter, wresting the weapon from him. It is possible - if the 14-year-old had been enacting the script from Littleton - Reimer saved other lives by his quick action. He might even have saved the life of the 14-year-old, if the script of Littleton was running through his brain.
Here is the big distinction between the events at Littleton and the events at Taber. After the Littleton tragedy, the screaming question was "Why?" Only speculation can attempt an answer, as the killers in Littleton killed themselves after their deed. In Taber, that question may be answered, when the 14-year-old comes to trial. He has been charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.
We may learn about motives, bullying in schools, video games, the Internet, television shows and movies, pop music, and media coverage of tragedies like these. We may get answers.
Another student interviewed by The Lethbridge Herald, 14-year-old Garrett Holstine, said, "This wasn't an act of senseless violence. There was sense…No one understood except for his only friends. People shouldn't be angry to him. Everybody's been angry to him for nothing his whole life."
We will be hearing more about Taber and W.R Myers High School and the peculiar torment of teenagers growing up in the wired society of the 1990s. Unlike Littleton, Colorado, there will be answers coming from Taber, Alberta.
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