Denis Lortie

"Maybe I will hurt a lot of people, but what do you expect"
 

At 9.30am on Tuesday, May 8, 1984, Denis Lortie walked into the CJRP radio station in Quebec, Canada, and handed the person at the desk at sealed envelope containing an audio tape. He left the person with the instructions to play it at 10.00am. He had written "The Life of a Person" on the envelope. Since Lortie seemed like a nutter, and had a large hunting knife strapped to his leg they decided to open the envelope and listen to the tape. It contained a suicide note of sorts as Lortie told how he was about to destroy the government.

"No one will be able to stop me - not the police, not the army - because I am going to carry out destruction and then destroy myself. It will be a first for Canada."

By the time they had got in touch with the police Lortie's 'destruction' had already begun.

"I came here to kill"

Lortie had attacked the Quebec National Assembly. In the four-and-a-half-hours that followed, Lortie had killed three officials and wounded thirteen others. He held the entire hall at his will, even sitting in the Speakers chair for some time. He even spoke to the wounded, offering apologies to his victims.

"Sorry for wounding you, but that's life."

Lortie was eventually talked into surrender by one of his captives. He was originally sentenced to life in prison, but following appeal he had the charges dropped down to second-degree murder (representing himself). He came up for parole in 1994, but as far as I know he's still sitting in a cell.

THE BEST BIT

The next day, Jean-Claude Nadeau, a survivor of Lortie's attack, went off his fucking head and shot two people. Unluckily for him they both survived.

And in recent news Lortie was apparently released from prison 2 years ago. Unfortunately I can't confirm this as I haven't seen the news stories, but a few people have emailed me with the news.