Cruel comments another wound

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/02/2016 (3532 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Social media is the place teenagers live online.

And when you’re 16 and you’ve almost died after being randomly shot, social media becomes your place to go for comfort from friends and even caring strangers. Until, that is, the local global village idiots get involved and the place you went for comfort turns cruel.

Last Friday, the Free Press first reported the lawyer representing Calli Vanderaa and the only parent she has known — her single, truck-driver father, Corey — had filed suit on the family’s behalf against Canada’s attorney general, the RCMP and the Mountie whose semi-automatic pistol was used in an attack last October in the parking lot of a Windsor Park convenience store. 

The single bullet ripped through her ribs, lung, spleen and colon. That was only the physical damage done, the suit stated.

The Free Press account went on to report the lawsuit is seeking unspecified general, punitive, aggravated and special damages as a result of “life-threatening and major injuries” that left the River East High School student with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The weapon used by the assailant, the lawsuit contends, was stolen the evening of the early-morning shooting from an RCMP cruiser that had been parked on a street in front of the southeast Winnipeg residence of the Mountie named as a defendant in the action, Sgt. Chris McCuen.

The Vanderaas’ lawyer, Robert Tapper, also made this prediction in his filing:

“She will suffer for a lifetime.” 

It was Valentine’s Day, and less than 48 hours after the story about the statement of claim broke, when Calli’s dad texted me.

“I’m NOT happy to see the comments putting down my daughter and I. Very upset You want an interview??? Oh I’ll give you one Trust me… I got something to say to those ppl. This is one of the worst things a parent can go thru To read those negative comments are (B.S.)”

I called Corey back immediately.

“She cried all night,” Corey began.

Corey said the comments that had re-injured an already emotionally fragile soon-to-be 17-year-old had been posted on one broadcast media website but were primarily on social media. The same place Calli had shared details of what she said were her 44 days in and out of hospital, and where she shared photos of her physical scar, and words that offered insight into the emotional ones.

These posts, on her Twitter account, offer a glimpse of that struggle, beginning with this tweet two months to the day after the shooting:

Jan 23: “A lot of people have been asking (about) the healing process, it’s super embarrassing but like I said before embrace it!”

That tweet includes a photo — taken while she was still in hospital — of a long zipper-line surgical scar on her belly.

Then, on Feb. 3, this tweet: “depression is eating me alive.” Two days later, on Facebook, Calli changes her profile photo with a selfie and these words: “an ugly scar; tells a story; gives personality.”

On Feb. 7, there is a Twitter exchange between a boy who has his own belly scars as a result of colitis surgery. 

“But How Did that happen?” he writes.

“I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“It’ll be Alright,” he tweets back. “You’ll see.”

Just last week, on Feb. 10, Calli retweeted the words “How anxiety feels,” along with an image of a splash and a person in silhouette falling into a deep dark ocean.

With no bottom.

Two days later, the lawsuit was filed.

And the online world began spewing pus.

Calli’s dad shared some of the personal and poisonous attacks that so angered him and his daughter, and it was apparent from what he said that he and his daughter were being judged for seeking what they may be entitled to; and what Calli may need in the long term. Damages from the damage done to them.

A judge may ultimately make a decision on the amount or the merit of that.

All Calli really wants, she would tell me when her dad passed the phone to her, is for sometime to be found guilty of firing the gun and sentenced to prison. What her dad wants most is an apology from the RCMP officer named in the suit.

“I’m just a dad protecting his daughter. I’m furious.”

“All that surgery, and all that pain.”

Only to have the haters hit his daughter in a place the bullet just missed — the heart with the scar that doesn’t show on a selfie.

But there is some good news to report from all of this. Calli has decided to follow my advice and not look at the online comments. And she is taking boxing lessons in hopes of trying to help herself recover physically and emotionally.

Yes, “Kid” Calli is fighting back.

Bless her brave and beautiful heart.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca