College gunman revealed obsession with Columbine killings on internet

The gunman who opened fire at a Canadian college, killing one student and injuring 19 others, was obsessed with the Columbine school shooting in the United States, and referred to himself as the Angel of Death on an internet website.

The gunman, Kimveer Gill, 25, had written on an online journal just hours before he went on the shooting spree at Dawson College of Higher Education in Montreal: "School sucks, work sucks, life sucks. What else can I say?"

In all, Gill had posted more than 50 photographs of himself in different poses, holding a rifle and wearing a long black trench coat and combat boots. Another image posted on the Vampirefreaks.com website showed a tombstone with his name printed on it, along with the phrase: "Lived fast, died young. Left a mangled corpse."

Elsewhere, Gill wrote that his favourite computer game was Super Columbine Massacre, an internet game based on the 1999 school shooting in Colorado in which two students killed 13 people, before taking their own lives. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wore trench coats on their rampage.

"His name is Trench. You will come to know him as the Angel of Death," Gill wrote about himself on his online profile page. "He is not a people person... I think I have an obsession with guns."

He said that he was 6ft 1in tall, born in Montreal and was of Indian heritage. He listed his weakness as being laziness, and said that he was scared of nothing.

Answering the question of how he wished to die, he wrote: "Like Romeo and Juliet - or in a hail of gunfire." Another question asked: "How truly depressed are you?" He replied: "Suicidally depressed. You are longing to kill yourself. You slit your wrists not for fun, but because the world isn't worth living in."

Gill, whose home outside Montreal was being searched by police yesterday, added elsewhere: "Anger and hatred simmers within me."

Police said the shooting had started at lunchtime outside the college building, before Gill - armed with several guns, including a rapid-fire rifle - entered the cafeteria on the second floor. Officials said six victims remained in a critical condition, including two who were described as "extremely critical".

Montreal's police chief, Yvan Delorme, said the lessons learnt from other mass shootings had taught police to try to stop such assaults as quickly as possible. "Before, our technique was to establish a perimeter around the place and wait for the Swat team. Now the first police officers go right inside. The way they acted saved lives," he said.

Andrea Barone, a student, told reporters that the police had moved cautiously because the gunman was surrounded by students. Every time police moved forward, Gill shouted: "Get back, get back". Gill was eventually killed in a volley of fire.

A neighbour of Gill, Louise Leykauf, told reporters that Gill appeared to be a loner. "There were never any friends," she said. "He kept to himself. He always wore dark clothing."