U.S. woman gets life in plot for massacre at Halifax mall
Rally across U.S. on 19th anniversary of Columbine shooting
HALIFAX — She sat motionless in the wood-panelled, windowless courtroom as the judge delivered the sentence: Life in prison with no chance of parole for a decade.
Lindsay Souvannarath was then led away by sheriffs, returned to the jail cells that have been her home since 2015.
It’s been three years since the Chicago-area woman was arrested at the Halifax airport with a “death suit” and books on serial killers in her luggage.
She was planning a Valentine’s Day shooting rampage, a plot concocted online with a Halifax teen that would have seen them open fire at the Halifax Shopping Centre food court on a busy Saturday in February 2015.
The 26-year-old American pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder only after thousands of damning Facebook messages between the conspirators were deemed admissible as evidence in the case.
Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Peter Rosinski told the court Friday that Souvannarath continues to pose a threat to public safety.
The judge said she has not expressed remorse for her murderous plot, nor has she renounced her ideological motivations for the conspiracy.
In his decision, he called her prospects for rehabilitation “very questionable” and said she needs to be separated from society until safety concerns can be addressed.
Rosinski said he is satisfied that had the plot not been inter- rupted by an anonymous tip and the quick actions of police, the plan would have been carried out.
“Coming upon unsuspecting members of the public at the mall that day, what carnage would they have inflicted with a 16-gauge shotgun with 23 shells, a .308 calibre lever-action rifle with 13 shells and a knife to finish off the wounded?”
The judge added: “Ms. Souvannarath’s intention was to kill more than the 13 people who suffered that fate at the Columbine High School shooting,” he wrote, referring to her obsession with the massacre in Littleton, Colorado.
Her co-conspirator, 19-year-old James Gamble, killed himself as police surrounded his Halifaxarea home.
Kate Battan, the lead investigator of the 1999 shooting who wrote a report highlighting parallels between the school shooting and the mall plot, called it “ironic” that Friday’s sentencing took place on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting.
She spent a month combing through the private online messages between Souvannarath and Gamble and their plans to mount an attack at the mall.
Once again, they filed out of class. In a new wave of school walkouts, they raised their voices against gun violence. But this time, they were looking to turn outrage into action.
Many of the students who joined demonstrations across the U.S. on Friday turned their attention to upcoming elections as they pressed for tougher gun laws and politicians who will enact them. Scores of rallies turned into voter registration drives. Students took the stage to issue an ultimatum to their lawmakers.
“We want to show that we’re not scared. We want to stop mass shootings and we want gun control,” said Binayak Pandey, 16, who rallied with dozens of students outside Georgia’s Capitol in Atlanta. “The people who can give us that will stay in office, and the people who can’t give us that will be out of office.”
All told, tens of thousands of students left class Friday for protests that spread from coast to coast. They filed out at 10 a.m. to gather for a moment of silence honouring the victims of gun violence. Some headed to nearby rallies. Others stayed at school to discuss gun control and register their peers to vote.
Organizers said an estimated 150,000 students protested at more than 2,700 walkouts, including at least one in each state, as they sought to sustain a wave of youth activism that drove a larger round of walkouts on March 14. Activists behind that earlier protest estimated it drew nearly one million students.
Friday’s action was planned by a Connecticut teenager, Lane Murdock, after a gunman stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, leaving 17 people dead. It was meant to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado.
The focus on the November congressional elections reflects a shift after activists gained little immediate traction in Washington — and prospects for their influence remain uncertain.
The U.S. Congress has shown little inclination to tighten gun laws, and President Donald Trump backed away from his initial support for raising the minimum age to buy some guns.