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coochiequeens · 2 months ago

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On the 35th anniversary of The École Polytechnique massacre never forget the 14 women who were killed for being women in science

The École Polytechnique massacre (French: tuerie de l'École polytechnique), also known as the Montreal massacre, was an antifeminist mass shooting that occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec. Fourteen women were murdered; another ten women and four men were injured.

Perpetrator Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle and hunting knife, entered a mechanical engineering class at the École Polytechnique. He ordered the women to one side of the classroom, and instructed the men to leave. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. The shooter then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women, for just under 20 minutes. He killed eight more women before ending his own life. In total, 14 women were killed, and 14 others were injured.

The massacre is now widely regarded as an anti-feminist attack and representative of wider societal violence against women; the anniversary of the massacre is commemorated as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. After the attack, Canadians debated various interpretations of the events, their significance, and the shooter's motives. Other interpretations emphasized the shooter's abuse as a child or suggested that the massacre was the isolated act of a madman, unrelated to larger social issues

The incident led to more stringent gun control laws in Canada, and increased action to end violence against women. It also resulted in changes in emergency services protocols to shootings, including immediate, active intervention by police. These changes were later credited with minimizing casualties during incidents in Montreal and elsewhere. The massacre remained the deadliest mass shooting in Canada until the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks over 30 years later.[4]

Contents

Timeline

Sometime after 4 p.m. on December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine arrived at the building housing the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, armed with a Ruger Mini-14 rifle and a hunting knife.[5] He had purchased the gun less than a month earlier on November 21 in a Checkmate Sports store in Montreal. He had told the clerk that he was going to use it to hunt small game.[6] He had been in and around the École Polytechnique building at least seven times in the weeks leading up to December 6.[5]

The perpetrator first sat in the office of the registrar on the second floor for a while, where he was seen rummaging through a plastic bag. He did not speak to anyone, even when a staff member asked if she could help him.[2] He then left the office and was seen in other parts of the building before entering a second-floor mechanical engineering class of about sixty students at about 5:10 p.m.[7] After approaching the student giving a presentation, he asked everyone to stop everything and ordered the women and men to opposite sides of the classroom. No one moved at first, believing it to be a joke until he fired a shot into the ceiling.[8][9]

Lépine then separated the nine women from the approximately fifty men and ordered the men to leave.[10][9] He asked the women whether they knew why they were there; instead of replying, a student asked who he was. He answered that he was fighting feminism.[9][11] One of the students, Nathalie Provost, protested that they were women studying engineering, not feminists fighting against men or marching to prove that they were better. He responded by opening fire on the students from left to right, killing six—Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, and Annie St-Arneault—and wounding three others, including Provost.[9][11] Before leaving the room, he wrote the word "shit" twice on a student project.[10]

The gunman continued into the second-floor corridor and wounded three students before entering another room where he twice attempted to shoot a female student. When his weapon failed to fire, he entered the emergency staircase where he was seen reloading his gun. He returned to the room he had just left, but the students had locked the door; he failed to unlock it with three shots fired into the door. Moving along the corridor, he shot at others, wounding one, before moving towards the financial services office, where he shot and killed Maryse Laganière through the window of the door she had just locked.[12][11]

The perpetrator next went down to the first-floor cafeteria, in which about 100 people were gathered. He shot nursing student Barbara Maria Klucznick near the kitchens and wounded another student, and the crowd scattered. Entering an unlocked storage area at the end of the cafeteria, the gunman shot and killed Anne-Marie Edward and Geneviève Bergeron, who were hiding there. He told a male and female student to come out from under a table; they complied and were not shot.[13]: 30 [11]

The shooter then walked up an escalator to the third floor where he shot and wounded one female and two male students in the corridor. He entered another classroom and told the men to "get out", shooting and wounding Maryse Leclair, who was standing on the low platform at the front of the classroom, giving a presentation.[13]: 26–27 He fired on students in the front row and then killed Maud Haviernick and Michèle Richard who were trying to escape the room, while other students dived under their desks.[11][13]: 30–31 The killer moved towards some of the female students, wounding three of them and killing Annie Turcotte. He changed the magazine in his weapon and moved to the front of the class, shooting in all directions. At this point, the wounded Leclair asked for help; the gunman unsheathed his hunting knife and stabbed her three times, killing her. He took off his cap, wrapped his coat around his rifle, exclaimed, "Oh shit", and then killed himself with a shot to the head, 20 minutes after having begun his attack.[14][13]: 31–32 About 60 unfired cartridges remained in the boxes he carried with him.[14][13]: 26–27

After briefing reporters outside, Montreal Police director of public relations Pierre Leclair entered the building and found his daughter Maryse's stabbed body.[15][16]

The Quebec and Montreal governments declared three days of mourning.[15] A joint funeral for nine of the women was held at Notre-Dame Basilica on December 11, 1989, and was attended by Governor General Jeanne Sauvé, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, and Montreal mayor Jean Doré, along with thousands of other mourners.

The Victims

Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student

Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student

Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student

Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student

Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department

Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student

Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student

Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student

Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student

Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student

Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

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gundamthey17 · 4 days ago

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Day 5 of Payneland Promptfest 2024

I am in fact still working on the Payneland Promptfest 2024 prompts..... maybe I'll finish by December of 2025

Day 5: Snuggling (alive!au)

(the ao3 link has more info about the backstory for this au if anyone's curious. it's not super necessary for this fic, but i spent an inordinate amount of time on it because i am incapable of writing a story without context)

Summary: The Dead Boy Detectives (who are actually very much alive, thank you) find that the heat has broken in their flat-slash-office.

xxx

23 December 1990

“Charles, do stop kicking the radiator.”

"You tried your way. Now it's my turn, innit."

Edwin, who was seated at the desk and holding the phone to his ear, sighed. "If tools were ineffective, I highly doubt blunt force will do the trick."

"Won't know until we try, will we?"

Edwin rolled his eyes as Charles continued kicking.

"What did maintenance say?" he asked between kicks.

"I am still on hold."

"Bloody brills."

Edwin pinched the bridge of his nose, a sure sign of a budding headache. Charles knew he ought to stop kicking the radiator, but he needed to vent his frustration somehow.

"You are not going to accomplish anything beyond potentially hurting yourself or breaking it further. If you would just be - yes, hello." Edwin motioned for Charles to be quiet. He covered one ear as he spoke into the phone. "Yes, that is correct. No, we still have power, just no heat... I beg your pardon?"

Charles looked up at the change in Edwin's tone. 'What?' he mouthed, but Edwin shook his head and continued speaking.

"But we have no heat! It is snowing, for heaven's sake! Is there no way you can - but I - very well. We will see you then." Edwin hung up the receiver with more force than was strictly necessary.

"What did they say?"

"As it is currently after business hours, and the start of a holiday, they cannot send anyone out to fix the heat until Wednesday."

"What? Can't you try the emergency maintenance number?"

"That was the emergency number. Apparently, lack of heat in December does not constitute an emergency," Edwin said, his voice dripping with contempt.

"What a load of bollocks!" Charles looked around their flat-slash-office. He shivered. "They seriously expect us to spend three days like this?"

"Evidently so."

"Bollocks," Charles said again.

Half an hour later, Edwin was still sitting at the desk. He had put on his coat, but otherwise seemed to be steadfastly ignoring the rapidly falling temperature inside the office.

Charles, wearing two jumpers and his jacket, had other ideas. He was in the process of raiding the bedroom and the closet for every single blanket they owned, and tossing them into a growing pile on the small couch. Even the tiny, crocheted throw blanket got added to the pile. (They had received it as partial payment for a case. It was canary-yellow and supposedly enchanted to always smell good without ever needing to be washed. It was too small to really make a difference, but Charles had already committed to finding every blanket, so onto the pile it went.) He muttered a steady stream of curses under his breath as he worked. When he had gathered every last blanket, and the couch itself was hardly visible anymore, he climbed into the middle of the pile and nestled himself in. Even after all of that, Charles was still shivering.

He also hadn’t grabbed anything to entertain himself with, or turned on the telly, before settling into his blanket nest. And once he was inside, he was loath to come out again. Surely, at some point, physics would take over and the blankets would have to start doing their job. Surely Edwin would finish whatever he was working on and – and what? Talk to him? Anything to occupy his mind and distract him from both the boredom and the bloody freezing office. He tried to wait it out, to be quiet and patient and let Edwin work.

He did not last long.

“Edwin,” Charles whined.

Edwin hummed but did not look up from his writing.

“I’m still cold.”

“And what exactly would you like me to do about that?”

It was a good question, that. Charles hadn’t actually thought about it. But the answer became immediately obvious. “Come sit with me.”

Edwin’s pen stopped. He glanced up at Charles. “What?” he asked, and there was a slight edge to his voice that Charles didn’t know how to interpret.

“Please? It’ll be warmer with both of us.”

"I find it improbable that you can still be cold under all those blankets."

"I've got bad circulation. Look!" Charles held out his hand. True to his word, his fingertips were pale and bloodless.

Edwin frowned at that, but he shook his head. “I am busy. We have a case, if you recall.”

“So? It’s a holiday, and clearly no one else is working. If emergency maintenance can take a holiday, we ought to be able to.”

“I am sorry, Charles. There is simply too much to do.” Edwin started writing again.

"Edwin! If you don't come over here, I'm gonna freeze to death."

"Charles," Edwin said in a scolding tone. "Given your history, you should not joke about such things."

"Given my history, I'm allowed to joke about such things," Charles retorted. "Come on, I know you’re cold too. I can see you shivering."

Edwin sat up straighter and pulled at the collar of his cardigan. “I am perfectly fine.”

Charles sighed. He suspected now that he knew the true cause of Edwin’s reluctance, but he was unsure if he ought to press the issue. The wind picked up, rattling the window, and Charles shuddered reflexively. Abandoning caution, he said, "Look, mate, I know you don't like touching, but if there was ever a time -"

"I never said I don't like touching," Edwin said quickly.

Charles looked at him curiously. "Didn't have to say it, did you. You go stiff every time I so much as pat your shoulder."

Edwin set down his pen and pressed his fingertips together. "I... am not used to it," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "But that doesn't mean I do not like it."

“Would you be willing to give it a shot? Please?” Charles hated the note of desperation that had crept into his voice. “I’m really bloody cold, mate.”

Edwin sighed and stood up. "Let me put the kettle on, and then I'll join you."

"Aces!" Charles couldn’t keep the grin off his face.

—--

Charles made an opening in his mountain of blankets so that Edwin would be able to sit next to him on the couch. Edwin handed him a steaming mug of tea and took his seat. They wrapped the blankets around themselves, their shoulders just barely brushing together.

Charles stared pensively out the office window at the falling snow. "Do you ever think about what would happen if we got caught? Do they arrest people for truancy? Or would they just split us up and force us to go back to our parents?"

"I think the latter is the most likely, though I shudder to think of the consequences. My father would have me institutionalized."

"For reals?" Charles turned to look at Edwin, but Edwin's eyes remained focused on the opposite wall.

He nodded. "He said as much before sending me to the school." They never mentioned St. Hilarion's by name if they could help it. "Said it was my last chance to prove that I could be... normal."

Charles snorted derisively. Then, feeling like that wasn't enough to fully communicate his disgust, he added, "That's bollocks."

"That is all assuming, of course, that the demon does not find me first." They never used Sa'al's name either. Edwin was unsure whether it could hear its name being spoken, and neither of them were keen to find out.

"That thing is not gonna take you away from me. Not a chance in – well, you-know-where." He gave a crooked grin.

The ghost of a smile flitted across Edwin's face. He took a cautious sip of his tea before asking, "And what about your parents?"

With a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, Charles said, "My dad would probably just beat me senseless. He’s done it for lesser offenses." He shrugged, feigning nonchalance, and let out a single, humorless chuckle.

Edwin finally looked at him. "I will make sure that never happens again," he said fiercely.

Not quite knowing what to say, Charles nodded. "Cheers to that," he muttered, lifting his mug.

"It is irrelevant anyway. We are not going to be caught. We are presumed dead; no one is looking for us. We just have to make it for another year, and then we will be of age and we won't have to worry about the police or our parents."

"And we're gonna figure out how to undo a demon sacrifice, so we won't have to worry about that bastard anymore either."

Edwin's brow knitted. "I do not know if the ritual can be nullified without the caster. Since Simon and the others are all dead, it may not be possible."

"We will figure out a way. I promise."

Edwin suddenly pushed the blankets off and stood up. Charles’ face crumpled as he feared he’d gone too far. Edwin noticed and smiled placatingly. "It is all right. I'm just getting a book."

Charles sighed, relieved. He smiled too, a genuine one this time. "Brills! How about another one of those Poirot stories? I like him. He's a fun chap."

"He is a fun chap," Edwin agreed. He grabbed a large hardcover book from the bookshelf nearest to the desk, and returned to the couch.

Charles shifted under the mound of blankets so that he could put his arm around Edwin's shoulders. "This okay?" he asked quietly.

Edwin nodded. He cautiously leaned back against Charles' arm before opening the book. "What about The Adventure of the Clapham Cook? I do not believe we have read that one yet."

"Don't think so. Let's hear it."

Edwin cleared his throat. "At the time that I was sharing rooms with my friend Hercule Poirot, it was my custom to read aloud to him the headlines in the morning newspaper, the Daily Blare.”

—

Several short stories later, Charles had fallen asleep. His head lolled against Edwin's shoulder. Edwin was surprised to find himself feeling quite comfortable. Between the blankets and their combined body heat, he hardly noticed the frigid temperature of the room. He gently set the book aside. Then, hesitantly, he rested his head against Charles'. Charles did not stir. With Charles' comforting warmth next to him, and his soft curls under Edwin's cheek, Edwin closed his eyes. Soon, he too fell asleep.

#paynelandpromptfest2024 #fanfic #my writing #alive au #they both ran away from st hilarion's in 1989 #snuggling for warmth #charles hates being cold #edwin wasn't born in 1900 he's just Like That #payneland #edwin payne #charles rowland

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