Memorial unveiled at Brampton high school to mark 42nd anniversary of shooting

A sculpture was unveiled at a Brampton high school Saturday to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of a school shooting that claimed the lives of a teacher and a student.

Current and former students of Brampton Centennial Secondary School attended the unveiling ceremony at the school on Saturday morning.

In May 1975, 16-year-old Michael Slobodian shot and killed a teacher and a fellow student before turning the gun on himself.

Mary Ellen Farrow, the designer of the sculpture, said she hopes the memorial will help give members of the public  of “relief in their grief.”

Pam Hand, who was a student at the school at the time of the shooting, said although she was not physically injured during the incident, she struggled emotionally following the tragedy.

“For a 14-year-old to witness something like that… it is the flashbacks and things that happen and you didn’t understand what was happening back then. You didn’t know why you were having nightmares and why your personality changed and why no one was talking about it,” she told CTV News Toronto Saturday.

“I know someone posted, ‘Why 42 years later? What does it matter?’ It matters a lot because now we can talk about it. We just feel it being released and it’s a tremendous, tremendous, healing event.”

-With files from CTV News Toronto