Threat hits close to home with fear, helplessness and, finally, relief

It’s 4:20 p.m. last Friday and I’ve just filed my column when my phone rings.

It’s my colleague, Stephanie, in Ottawa. Odd, she usually texts.

“Have you talked to Sarah?” she asked.

I hadn’t.

“There’s an active shooter at the University of Ottawa,” she said. “Find her.”

It’s impossible to describe what it’s like to realize your child is in life-or-death danger.

It’s even more difficult to explain how it feels when that child is more than 2,000 kilometres away.

Fortunately — perhaps, unfortunately — I am well versed in handling trauma. I know, for example, that until you know what to do, you have to turn off the heart while keeping the mind on.

I dial my daughter’s phone number.

After one ring, I get a vision.

What if she is hiding and the shooter is nearby?

I hang up and text: “Are you OK. Where are you? I’ve heard there is a shooter on campus.”

Nothing.

My mind races, calculating as many possibilities as I can.

“Turn your phone on silent. Find a room and lock the door if you can. Barricade yourself in with whatever you can. Text me.”

Nothing.

I scan social media and discover Ottawa police have arrived and are setting up a blockade, stopping anyone coming in or out of the centre of campus — precisely where my daughter would be at this time.

I wait. Ten minutes feels like 10 hours.

I know she doesn’t need a distraction right now but I text anyways: “I love you. So much. Please text when you can.”

I stare at the screen when suddenly, three blinking dots appear.

That’s when the tears start.

She says she is in a room in the basement of her building with a handful of classmates. They’ve barricaded the door using tables and a music stand to cover the window. They’re sitting in the dark, whispering and trying to stay as quiet as possible.

“I’m OK,” she texts. “One of us freaked out so we sat together and talked. We don’t hear anything. We are locked in. We feel safe.”

I text that I will find out what I can.

I send her screenshots of news I find via growing waves of panicking parents posting horrified messages.

Police aren’t saying much, for obvious reasons. Still, I deduce from multiple accounts that the shooter is one individual and that he or she is in the union centre, five buildings over from my daughter.

I scan more message boards and join every chat group I can find. One parent posts that her son is hiding under a table in the library where the shooter is. A dozen responses say posting that isn’t a good idea.

It’s at this point I feel helpless. It’s now 5:30 p.m. — one of the longest hours of my life.

My daughter was rehearsing for an orchestra concert she was going to perform in at 7 p.m. Ottawa time when she found out, about 10 minutes before I did.

If this had been a normal day, she would be warming up as hundreds of audience members find their seats.

“I guess there’s no concert tonight,” she texts me, in an attempt to make me laugh.

I send a laughing emoji back but I ain’t laughing.

I find myself looking up school shootings in Canada. Sick and twisted, I know.

I learn there’s been 45 incidents at educational institutions in this country since 1902 and two in 2026.

Those two this year have been terrible. There was the tragedy in February in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., where a former student killed eight people and wounded 27 others.

The other took place the night before in Sarnia, Ont., when one man was killed and two injured at a bar on the campus of Lambton College.

Comparatively, there have been 21 school shootings in the United States this year, with eight on college campuses.

I’ve always been an advocate for gun control, but on days like these the facts are obvious.

It’s also odd what one finds comfort in during times of helplessness.

Another hour passes.

I find out that Ottawa police have apprehended the shooter. He was later charged with carrying a replica firearm. Thankfully, there were no injuries.

Breathing a sigh of relief and composing myself, I call her.

“I know, dad. We are heading to the concert.”

“It’s still on?”

“Yes. The audience arrived and never left. They’re waiting for us.”

It’s then that I realize that this is a part of this generation’s experience.

At my daughter’s high school, she practiced “code red” drills — when a person with a weapon enters the building — all the time.

“I’m shocked,” I tell her. “I don’t know if I could have done anything after an experience like that.”

“We are tough,” she says.

She then laughs: “And, the show must go on.”

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca