Tumbler Ridge shooting victim, 12, 'loved being at school' before he was 'murdered in cold blood,' father says
A grieving father whose son was killed in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting said his 12-year-old son loved school so much he cried when his father once suggested home schooling.
“Our son went to school this morning and it happened that someone came to school with a GUN went to my kids classroom shot some kids and my son was killed too just like that,” Abel Mwansa said in an emotional Facebook tribute to his son, Abel.
Mwansa wrote that he raised his son “to respect elders, answer to one call, be strong, work hard,” focus on his studies and “never miss school.”
“One day I came up with an idea that he should do home school but he cried that I love being at school,” he said.
Mwansa said that before his son picked up his backpack and left for school Tuesday morning, he asked that his father pick him up after class at church, where he would be attending a youth meeting, “for he loved the Lord.”
Hours later, Mwansa learned that his son had been shot “like a stray dog murdered in cold blood.”
He said he treasures the “12 years and 11 months we spent with you” and said God didn’t take his son, “but death did.”
In one of the worst mass school shootings in the nation’s history, nine people were killed and at least 27 more injured in the community of Tumbler Ridge in northeastern B.C. Tuesday.
Six victims were found dead inside Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. Another died on the way to hospital.
Two more were found dead in a home nearby. Police said the only suspect was found dead inside the school from a self-inflicted injury.
National Post
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