I Was Present at the First School Shooting in North America
Everything was perfectly normal-until it wasn’t.
On May 28, 1975, I was a student in grade nine at Brampton Centennial School in Brampton, Ontario. It was a warm, sunny day that boded well for the coming summer vacation. It would be my family’s first summer in our house and my brothers and sister and I couldn’t wait to take our first swim in our new pool.
I went to my morning classes as usual. The school was overcrowded, so there were two lunch periods. My lunch period was at 1:00, and I had French class just before. I remember being always hungry in that class, and this Wednesday was no exception.
Around the time the bell for lunch usually rang, there was an announcement. We were told to stay in our classrooms. Some students looked out the window and saw emergency vehicles in the school parking lot. The teacher looked distraught and told them to stay away from the window. A few minutes later there was another PA announcement that said there had been “a terrible accident” and we should walk single file down the hall to the nearest exit. I walked in silence down the three flights of stairs to a side door and started walking home, wondering what the accident had been.
No one who had been in that class during that fateful lunch hour knew what was going on, until a…
