Playing dead to live
Mosque survivor tells of massacre ordeal
A survivor of the Quebec mosque massacre said many of those attending prayer service pretended to be dead and lay still on the floor as the gunman walked among them, randomly firing.
Rachid Aouame said the shooter — allegedly Canadian student Alexandre Bissonnette, 27 — “was very calm and did not say a word” when he entered the prayer hall Sunday night and began to fire.
The 42-year-old father of three said some of the faithful, includ- ing an 8-year-old girl whose father had just been hit by bullets, tried to save themselves by feigning death.
About 15 people, including Aouame, hid on the minbar, where the imam gives his sermon.
“I have seen death closely,” Aouame told The Journal de Montreal, a French-language newspaper. “One of the fatally injured brothers was 20 centimeters from me.”
The shooter — known by fellow students at Université Laval for being an annoying “troller” on social-media Web sites — continued to spray about five minutes.
Aouame said mosque member Azzedine Soufiane, 57, tried to disarm the assailant but was shot and killed.
When the shooter finally left the room — Aouame said he believed he was trying to reload his weapon — mosque members ran to the basement, barricaded themselves in and called 911.
Bissonnette, who turned himself in after the attack and cried that he was sorry, made a brief court appearance late Monday but did not enter a plea to six bullets for counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
No terrorism charges were filed, but Canadian prosecutor Thomas Jacques said the investigation is continuing and that more charges are possible against Bissonnette, who is described as “extreme right” and “pro-Trump.”
The attack — decried by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as an act of “unspeakable cruelty” — was out of character for Quebec City, a city of just over 500,000 which reported just two murders in all of 2015.