Wednesday, October 13, 2010

WTF?! Another shooting in Dorset today!

I have moved my family to the hood. Last night or early this morning (I am very unclear about the details at this point) there was another shooting involving two grade 9 students. Thankfully they are not in my class as one was wounded superficially by the RCMP. I am getting conflicting stories, but the one that seems to pan out is that the boys were shooting at the cops who returned fire and wounded one of the kids. Classes were canceled and there is a community meeting at two in the high school gym to discuss coping strategies and such hosted by the public mental health nurse.

What a messed up situation. Yet again it was down in the valley (far below our house, near the other fatal shooting) and I can see the RCMP vehicles out my back window. I know stuff like this happens in other communities and because we are small (1200 - 3000 people depending on the source) everyone is affected and information spreads fast. But, when we lived in Calgary and Halifax I never felt scared because of the anonymity that one feels in the city, but here we are all so exposed. Everyone knows who we are, where we work and where we live. It is quite disconcerting. If this keeps up, I can see really re-evaluating how long we stay.

So, my travel tip for the day. If you are thinking about a scenic trip to Cape Dorset, stay home.

Regards,

Richard

Update:
My day started with learning that Cape Dorset has such a bad reputation that it has been called 'Cape Fear'.  Just one more thing we didn't know before moving here.
The 'community' meeting turned out to be just the staff from the two schools.  It was disappointing to not have the community rallying together.  I was also disappointed that none of the local teachers came down from the elementary school.  There is so much stuff going on it would be nice to hear more from the local people about how to handle things.  I had hoped that the meeting would provide me some insight into what to say to my children tomorrow instead it was a chance for us to talk.  I wasn't prepared for it.  Three 'incidents' in three weeks is three too many.  Everyone admits to a sense of worry about what might be coming next.  We are all hoping this is the end of it!
-Margot

1 comment:

  1. Just duck and dive to the side when you leave your house. You should be okay then.

    Sorry just a little dark humour during a dark time.

    ReplyDelete

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