Police first thought Dawson College rampage was terrorism

A combination of false reports and communication problems led Montreal police to initially believe they were dealing with a large-scale terrorist attack last September when a lone gunman was shooting students at Dawson College.

The commander who oversaw the police response to the rampage that left one teen dead said police were getting reports of gunfire in four downtown locations and the cellphone network collapsed at the same time.

Mario Plante, speaking at a municipalities conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, said combination appeared to be a well-orchestrated plan, the Globe and Mail reported Wednesday.

Police took40 minutes amid the chaos to realize they were only dealing with one shooter, who was firing shots in one location the downtown Montreal CEGEP, equivalent to a junior college outside of Quebec.

Kimveer Gill, 25, killed Anastasia De Sousa, 18,and injured 19 others when he stormed into the school and opened fire on students in the atrium. Gill then killed himself.

Initial reports of gunfire in nearby Alexis Nihon shopping mall and office, as well as two downtown hospitals turned out to be false.

Gill scouted out other high schools

The Globe and Mail, citing an unnamed police source, reported Wednesday thatGill had scouted out several Montreal-area high schools as possible locations for the rampage he was planning, which he reportedly hoped would be more deadly than the 1999Columbine high school massacre in Colorado, where 13 students died.

Police found floor plans of several high schools in Gill's family home in Laval, a northern suburb of Montreal, the paper said.

Plante said lives were probably saved during the Dawson College shooting because of the lessons learned from the massacre at Montreal's cole Polytechnique in 1989, when 14 female students were shot and killed.

Officers first on the scene are now trained to immediately try to take out the shooter, if possible, rather than wait for back-up.