James Gamble, dead teen in alleged Halifax shooting plot, was bullied, says friend
'People would always ignore him or tell him that he was weird and strange,' says Maggie Gagnon
A childhood friend of James Gamble, who is linked to the mass shooting plot in Halifax that police revealed last week, says Gamble was ostracized and mocked by his peers for years.
Gamble doesn't deserve to be vilified in death, says Maggie Gagnon, who met him in Grade 6.
"It's kind of sad that he was bullied his entire life, and now that he took his life before he had to partake in that kind of a criminal act, that he's still being hated for it," she said.
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The funeral for the 19-year-old will be held on Saturday. In an obituary published Thursday in The Chronicle Herald, his family remembered him as an affectionate boy who loved music, movies and the family's cats.
They asked for donations to be made in his name to animal shelters.
"No longer will we able to physically hug him, hear his awesomeness while playing his drums, witness his excitement at having purchased that coveted and rare action figure, or hear him say, 'I love you too!'" they wrote.
Guns seized
Gamble killed himself last week as police surrounded his home in Timberlea, responding to a tip about a planned mass shooting at the Halifax Shopping Centre. Police also seized three long-barrelled guns from the home.
Two others are facing charges in the same alleged shooting conspiracy, including Randall Shepherd, also a former classmate of Gagnon's at Sir John A. MacDonald High School in Upper Tantallon.
Both Shepherd and Gamble were bullied by peers, said Gagnon. When she moved to Halifax she befriended Gamble, but also realized he had been "shunned" for years.
"He was really chatty and upbeat and he talked to everybody constantly, and people would always ignore him or tell him that he was weird and strange and to go away," said Gagnon, 20.
"To me, I really liked him. I thought yes, he was different, but he had that positive demeanour and that positive outlook on life.… I was like, why is everyone so mean to this kid?"
'He started to change a bit'
Gagnon and her best friend started talking to Gamble and he "cliqued up" with them, she said. He dated her friend, and the group went to junior high graduation festivities together.
"Then he started to change a bit come high school, so we drifted apart and he made new friends," she said.
"He kept to himself and he hung out in the library with his two or three other friends, Randy being one of them. And he became more depressed, almost. He wore black all the time and he just had this grumpy, moody face.… I don't know what changed him."
Gagnon said it's hard to believe the boy she knew was capable of murder. When he had a bad day at school, he would sometimes hole up in his room. But Gamble usually wanted to socialize, and whenever he came over he asked to walk her dog.
"He loved animals," she said. "You hear a lot of the time of [violent] people starting off by hurting animals and hurting people and everything like that, and that was never his style."
'I wish he could have gotten more support'
Back then, Gamble had no interest in guns and would challenge Gagnon's boyfriend about why he went hunting with his family.
"He hated that he wanted to go out and kill animals for sport," recalled Gagnon.
Gagnon said she was taken aback to hear federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay call the alleged plotters "murderous misfits."
"I just find it interesting that he never comments on the fact that the school system did nothing to help Jamie with his bullying," said Gagnon.
Gamble barely passed his classes but was full of trivia about his hobbies, including movies, she said.
"How do you make a kid like that feel like they're dumb? Because he was very intelligent, just not in the way that society wanted him to be," she said.
"I wish he could have gotten more support."
Gagnon said Shepherd was home-schooled before Grade 10, and she was told it was because he had been bullied when he was younger.
During the middle school years, however, Gagnon knew Shepherd because they attended the same youth group at the Timberlea Baptist Church, she said.
In Grade 8 or 9, she started bringing Gamble to the youth group, where he was "never bullied" and made new friends, including Shepherd, she said.