10-27-75 St. Pius X High School, Ottawa, Canada

10-27-75 St. Pius X High School, Ottawa, Canada

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1,399160

    Oct 30, 2011#1

    10-27-75 St. Pius X High School, Ottawa, Canada Robert Poulin, 18 3 dead, 6 wounded


    On A Monday afternoon at about 2:20, Robert Poulin, 18, kicked open the door of a classroom at his high school and started firing with a sawed-off pump-action shotgun firing birdshot rounds. Eventually dying of his wounds was Mark Hough, 18. Wounded were:

    Barclay Holbrook, 17
    Terry Vanden Handenburg, 18
    Mark Potvin, 18
    Benggawan Kurniadi,18
    Renzo Catana, 18
    Mark Holleran, 17

    After firing just four rounds, he walked into the hallway and killed himself with a final shot to the head.

    Earlier that morning he had lured an acquaintance--Kim Rabot, 17--into his basement bedroom, handcuffed her to his bed, and raped and then stabbed her to death. He then tried to burn down his house(though only the basement ended up being burned).

    Among the possessions found in Poulin's room were a vibrator, a box of woman's underwear, a copious collection of pornography, an inflatable sex doll, a list of the names of girls he was obsessed with, multiple sets of handcuffs, the sawed-off shotgun barrel, a one page 'diary,' extra shotgun and rifle rounds, and a .38 cal snub-nosed revolver. He had purchased the shotgun just four days before.

    Poulin is also suspected of several incidents of sexual harassment or attempted sexual assault along paths and the grounds of an apartment building near his home. Some victims described being approached by a man dressed only in a 'balaclava'-a cloth draped around his head. After he had murdered Kim Rabot, he went upstairs to eat a sandwich his mother prepared for him and then sat down to watch a TV show. So it appears Poulin was definitely a true psychopath(though this of course is not the same as motive).


    The book "Rape of a Normal Mind," by Christopher Cobb and Bob Avery, was written about the shooting, and includes the following quotes:

    pg19
    "...(responding)officers were told that two gunmen had been on a shooting rampage at St. Pius X High School. The gunmen, the message said ominously, were still in the school grounds."

    pg23
    "Detective Sergeant Bob Kelly was walking through the office when he heard the call. There had been a shooting at a high school and two armed men were still on campus, shooting students."
    [There is no evidence adduced as to why early reports claimed two gunmen.]

    pg21
    Robert's father was related to Liberal MP(Member of Parliament) Hugh Poulin.

    pg24
    A blood-stained knife was strapped across his chest during the rampage.

    pg25
    "Anyone who had seen Robert during the shooting spree said he had had a distant look in his eyes. One student said Robert was grinning from ear to ear."

    pg33
    "Also found in the hallway at St. Pius, around Robert's body, were four empty shotgun shell casings and there was still a live shell in the chamber of the gun."
    [There should have been an expended shell in the chamber of the pump-action gun(in which the rounds are chambered and extracted manually) if Robert's last act had been shooting himself in the head. If there was still a live shell in the chamber then this suggests Robert was shot by someone else. No one actually saw Poulin shoot himself, though many heard the final shot. The authors of the book don't address this obvious discrepancy.]

    pg33
    "In the diary, Robert had mapped out a plan to have intercourse with a girl, burn his family's house down in the hope they'd suffer, and then kill himself. He added he didn't want his family to get 'one red cent' from him when he died."
    [Like many another diary or manifesto, it does not actually mention the school as a target.]

    pg41
    "...Robert had followed his April 7 diary plan to the letter, but there was nothing in that diary about going to St. Pius and shooting anyone."

    pg36
    The coroner hired two psychiatrists to help him evaluate Robert Poulin. They were the same ones who had evaluated Michael Slobodian in the Brampton Ontario shooting at Centennial HS just months earlier.(They concluded Poulin was a 'perverted sadist who had been suffering from a schizoid personality disorder.')

    pg38
    "The detectives found that wargames were Robert's main recreation."

    pg50
    "Wargames had been a passion with Robert. He had played them continuously for the three years preceding his death."

    pg53
    No mention is made of what Poulin was wearing in the attack, though that morning he was seen leaving the house in blue jeans, white t-shirt, and a jacket.

    pg38
    Poulin had suffered a crushing disappointment when he was turned down for officer training in the Canadian military the summer before. He thereupon joined up with a armed forces 'militia' group named the Cameron Highlanders, and received training with other young men on an army base. (The Canadian Militia is apparently similar to the National Guard here in the US.)
    "...but Robert Poulin had gotten more than just standard training. He had gotten a little unauthorized commando training on the side after hours, given by a militia corporal who has since volunteered to serve with British Forces in Northern Ireland."

    pg114
    "The commando training he had taken was given after hours and was technically illegal. It had been unauthorized, and militia officials had agreed it was wrong."

    pg115
    "The man training the commandos was a danger, as far as Hamill*(a fellow militia recruit) was concerned: 'He was really fanatical, he said war is hell and all this but he really enjoyed it.' On maneuvers his teeth would grind, his eyes would get wild, and his features take on a sadistic look."

    pg116
    "But the corporal had picked who he wanted for his commando squad. Why had he picked quiet and shy Robert Poulin, a boy who was timid and aloof when he had first walked into that drill hall? Hamill's answer was 'He(the corporal) wanted guys for his commando training who didn't look like killers.... he wanted to turn them into fighters, start with the tame ones and turn them into killers.' "
    [This mysterious mentor to Poulin is never identified, nor is it explained how this person was able to do all this 'unauthorized' training without interference from the command. Frankly I do not believe the officers of the base were unaware of what was going on. Nor was the corporal ever called to testify at the official inquest, nor asked where he was on the day of the killings. He reminds me of the mysterious 'green beret' who allegedly mentored Montreal school shooter Marc Lepine.]

    pg122
    A militia friend gave Poulin the nickname of "Grunt." (You may remember TCM leader Chris Morris was also nicknamed 'Grunt.')

    pg160
    "...most crimes are committed with a motive in mind, and in Robert Poulin's case, there did not seem to be one."


    -------------
    *In a bizarre postscript, fellow militia member(and tent-mate to Poulin) Bruce Hamill killed a 58-year-old women by stabbing her 36 times less than two years later. He was declared not guilty by reason of insanity.








    -----------

    Comparing Robert Poulin and Eric Harris, by Peter Langman, PhD

    --Both had fathers who were retired air force pilots who had started second careers

    --Both had military aspirations that were thwarted.

    --Both were born with chest deformities. Eric's was pectus excavatum, which gave him a concave chest. Robert's was pectus carinutum, which gave him a convex chest.

    --Both had fantasized about raping girls they knew.

    --Both were good students and enjoyed fantasy/science fiction.

    --Both had worked in a pizza shop.

    37876
    Registered User
    37876

      Oct 31, 2011#2

      Comparing Robert Poulin and Eric Harris, by Peter Langman, PhD
      --Both had fathers who were retired air force pilots who had started second careers
      --Both had military aspirations that were thwarted.
      --Both were born with chest deformities. Eric's was pectus excavatum, which gave him a concave chest. Robert's was pectus carinutum, which gave him a convex chest.
      --Both had fantasized about raping girls they knew.
      --Both were good students and enjoyed fantasy/science fiction.
      --Both had worked in a pizza shop
      This is a very interesting case.  I've never heard of this before but will try to dig up more information.

      12615
      Registered User
      12615

        Jun 30, 2012#3

        "Ontario chief coroner Dr. H.B. Cotnam and Ottawa police superintendent Tom Flanagan spoke out strongly Wednesday in favor of gun controls in the wake of Monday's tragic shooting at St. Pius X High School." - Ottawa Citizen (10/30/75)

        [Comment: Interestingly, this was the same coroner who investigated the Michael Slobodian case in Brampton. In the article he mentions that the Slobodian case had already initiated calls for gun control legislation, and that they were already in motion weeks ago. Convenient that a follow-up event occurs to speed things up.]


        "The next effort at tightening [gun] controls was Bill C-83 in 1976, but it died when that session of Parliament was ended (in Canada, all bills are terminated when a parliamentary session or sitting ends and must be reintroduced in the new session). The government introduced a new package of criminal code amendments in 1977 (Bill C-51) that tied together gun control with greater police powers to fight crime. (Wiretaps, for example, were made much easier.) The bill passed the commons, 95-40, but 150 MPs did not vote. ... The issue had been debated the year before, however, because of two gruesome killings that had captured national attention. On May 28, 1975, a sixteen-year-old boy named Michael Slobodian killed a teacher and a student and wounded thirteen others. This led Solicitor General Warren Allmand to launch a departmental review of possible new gun control legislation. Then, on October 27, 1975, an eighteen-year-old Ottawa student named Robert Poulin shot and wounded six students at St. Pius X High School before killing himself. He also handcuffed a girl to a bed in his basement, who then died in the fire he set." - The Government Taketh Away: The Politics of Pain in the United States and Canada by Leslie Alexander Pal and R. Kent Weaver
        http://books.google.ca/books?id=wfta6JK ... 22&f=false



        And guess who the parliamentary secretary to Solicitor General Allmand was? Hugh Poulin. There aren't records on who voted for Bill C-38, but something tells me he did. 
        http://newspaperarchive.com/brandon-sun ... 26/page-2/


        http://www.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/Files/Pa ... ection=ALL