ANother school shooting!?

[thedeadlyassassin]

I have a cold, I woke up and heard of a school shooting? Where and what happened?

[baller4life2468]

A man opened fire in Northern Illinois and killed 5 before killing himself.
RoadRunner Article Here:
http://www.rr.com/flash/index.cfm?rev=10314

By CARYN ROUSSEAU - Associated Press Writer

DEKALB, Ill.(AP) A man dressed in black opened fire with a shotgun and two handguns from the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, killing five students and injuring 16 others before committing suicide, authorities said.

The gunman fatally shot four women and a man in a "brief, rapid-fire assault" that sent terrified students running for cover, university President John Peters said. Four of the six total dead died at the scene, and the other two died at a hospital, he said.

Witnesses in the geology class said "someone dressed in black came out from behind a screen in front of the classroom and opened fire with a shotgun," Peters said.

Lauren Carr said she was sitting in the third row of the lecture hall around 3 p.m. when she saw the shooter walk through a door on the right-hand side of the stage, pointing a gun straight ahead.

"I personally Army-crawled halfway up the aisle," said Carr, a 20-year-old sophomore. "I said I could get up and run or I could die here."

She said a student in front of her was bleeding, "but he just kept running."

"I heard this girl scream, 'Run, he's reloading the gun.'"

Peters said the gunman was a former graduate student in sociology at NIU, but was not currently enrolled at the 25,000-student campus about 65 miles west of Chicago.

"It appears he may have been a student somewhere else," University Police Chief Donald Grady said, adding that police had no apparent motive.

Seventeen victims were brought to Kishwaukee Community Hospital in DeKalb, according to spokeswoman Theresa Komitas. One died, two were admitted and three were discharged; five are being evaluated and six others were transferred to other hospitals in critical condition. At least one male died at OSF St. Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, an official said.

DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) -- A gunman dressed in black stepped from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday and shot 21 people, five of them fatally, then shot and killed himself, said university president John Peters.


"A lot of people were screaming. Everybody started running for the door," said student Zach Seward. "It was just complete chaos."

Four died at the scene, including the shooter, and two later died at a hospital, he said.

At least 22 people, including the gunman and a graduate student who was teaching an ocean sciences class, were shot, Peters said.

Late Thursday, dozens of students gathered on campus for a candlelight prayer vigil. Video footage showed students comforting one another and a young man playing guitar.

Official school events and classes were canceled until further notice, Peters said.

Seven counseling areas were set up throughout the campus, and hotlines were established.

NIU senior Daley Hamilton, 21, said most students were heading home to their parents. "My parking lot at my apartment is pretty sparse," she told CNN.

She said she and her roommate were planning to leave Friday. "We are really on edge and just kind of want to get out," she said.

Tributes were also surfacing online. A Facebook community called "Pray for Northern Illinois University Students and Families" had more than 14,000 members by late Thursday.

NIU student Amanda Hart Garner posted the school's fight song, including the lyrics: "Free, steadfast, devoted, true/We will always stand by you."

Seven of those wounded in the shooting were listed in critical condition.

Four of the fatalities were female, said Peters.

Most of the injuries are head and chest gunshot wounds, a hospital spokeswoman told CNN.

The gunman started shooting from a stage in the room shortly after 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) in Cole Hall, officials said.

Police Chief Donald Grady said authorities do not yet know of a motive.

They know the identity of the gunman but have not released his name, Grady added.

The shooter was a graduate student at NIU in the spring of 2007. Currently he was not enrolled there but, Grady said, "He may have been a student elsewhere."

A preliminary investigation has not uncovered a police record on the gunman, and records showed he had no contact with NIU police while a student there, Peters said.

Gunman 'just started shooting'

Kevin McEnery said he was in the classroom when the gunman, dressed in a black shirt, dark pants and black hat, burst in carrying a shotgun.

"He just kicked the door open, just started shooting," said McEnery, who was in the class at the time. "All I really heard was just people screaming, yelling 'get out.' ... Close to 30 shots were fired."

There are about 162 registered students in the class that met in the large lecture hall.

A student described the classroom as having four exits -- two at the front and two at the rear.

"Witnesses say someone dressed in black came out from behind a screen in the front of the classroom and opened fire with a shotgun," Peters said.

At 3:03 p.m., NIU police responded, and four minutes later, the campus was ordered into "a lockdown situation," Grady said.

At 3:20, an all-campus alert went out via the campus Web site, e-mail, voice mail, the campus crisis hotline, the news media and various alarm systems, he said.


"The message basically was: There's a gunman on campus, stay where you are; make yourself as safe as possible," he said.

Rosie Moroni, a student at the school, told CNN she was outside Cole Hall near the King Commons when she heard shots coming from the classroom she was heading to.

The shot was followed by "a lot of people screaming," then people ran out the doors yelling, "He's got a gun, call 911," she said.

"It was complete chaos. It's very scary here right now."

By 4 p.m., DeKalb police had swept the area "and determined there was only one gunman" and that he was dead.

Grady said the man used three guns: a shotgun, a Glock handgun and a small-caliber handgun, and was still on the stage when he turned one of the guns on himself. The small-caliber handgun had not yet been recovered, he said.

The gunman started shooting with a shotgun, then switched to a handgun, said Grady.

Security around campus was increased in December when police found threats scrawled on a campus bathroom wall that included racial slurs and references to last April's Virginia Tech shootings. Learn about other recent school shootings ?

One of the threats said "things will change most hastily" in the final days of the semester.

Peters said there is no evidence that points to a link between the December incident and Thursday's shooting.

Grady said it was unlikely authorities could have prevented Thursday's tragedy.

"As much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning," he said.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared a state of emergency, which will open the governor's disaster fund to reimburse local government entities for "extraordinary expenses related to the response in NIU DeKalb" and will allow the state Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance, the governor's office said in a statement.

Eighteen victims were taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, its Web site said.

Of those, seven were in critical condition and were flown to other hospitals. One fatality, a male, was confirmed -- but was not the gunman, the hospital said. Two were admitted, and eight others were discharged.

The 113-year-old school is 65 miles west of downtown Chicago and has an enrollment of more than 25,000. The campus covers 755 acres.

Article here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/15/uni...ing/index.html

DEKALB, Ill. - A former graduate student armed with two handguns and a shotgun opened fire Thursday in a large lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University, killing five students and wounding 16 others before killing himself, authorities said.

University President John G. Peters said six students ? four women, the shooter and another man ? were killed in what he described as a ?very brief, rapid-fire assault.? Sixteen other students were injured by gunfire or flying glass, authorities said.

All of the victims were students, including the shooter and the instructor, a graduate teaching assistant, who survived, Peters said. Two of the survivors were in critical condition Thursday night. The gunman, who was not identified, was a former graduate student at NIU but had since enrolled at another college, Peters said. None of the victims were identified pending notification of their families.

University Police Chief Donald Grady said police knew of no motive for the shooting, which occurred about 3 p.m. CT in an introductory geology class in an auditorium inside Cole Hall. The campus is in DeKalb, a city of 40,000 in a rural area about 65 miles west of downtown Chicago. Its enrollment is more than 25,000.

Paul Sundstrom of Rockford, Ill., one of 150 to 200 students in the class when the shooting took place, told NBC affiliate WMAQ that the gunman was a thin white man wearing a black ?beanie? and a black trench coat.

The man entered the room from behind the instructor and, without saying a word, began shooting from the stage, Sundstrom and other witnesses said. Firing in the general direction of the students, he emptied a clip of ammunition and calmly reloaded before resuming firing.

?He just walked in and just started shooting at people randomly,? Sundstrom said. ?I crawled out to the main aisle, then just got up and ran and turned around and saw him shooting.?

Sundstrom added: ?I just don?t know why anybody would want to do anything like this.?

Threat closed school in December
NIU was shut down for a day in December after graffiti were scrawled on a restroom wall warning of a shooting on campus. A spokesman said the warning, which was discovered Dec. 10, made reference to the massacre of 33 people last year at Virginia Tech University. Peters said Thursday?s shootings were not believed to be connected with the threat, but he would not rule it out.

Virginia Tech?s president, Charles W. Steger, said Thursday?s events ?certainly bring to mind the hurt, pain and trauma we experienced less than a year ago.? He said he had sent Peters condolences and an offer of assistance.

?Our university community was bolstered and comforted by the outpouring of support from campuses around the nation and the world,? Steger said in a statement. ?I am sure that expressions of support from the Virginia Tech community will mean much to that now suffering campus community.?


In keeping with a new security system put in place after the Virginia Tech shootings, NIU issued an alert at 3:20 p.m. CT Thursday telling students to avoid Kings Common and buildings in the area. All activities were canceled until further notice.
Witnesses describe scene of chaos
Cell phone service in the area was overloaded. The university urged all students to send text messages to their parents to reassure them that they were safe and to aid in accounting for everyone.

David Shaffer got a call from his stepdaughter, Lisa Mikolajewski, a senior, minutes after the shooting. She told her stepfather she had not seen the shooting but was calling to let her parents, who live in Phoenix, know she was unhurt.

Shaffer passed along a Facebook message from his stepdaughter, who said she and her boyfriend were safe.

Article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23171567/page/2/

USA Today Coverage
Fox News Coverage
LA Times Coverage

It is a long read but I tried to help

Baller

[juneau]

This seems to be becoming quite the epidemic.

[nickleal98]

what kinda society r we living in I mean I'm not supppose to be afraid of sending my kid to school or even letting them play outside but it makes it hard on me every time I hear about one of these shootings I hate the world I brought my kids into.

[-IRC-MIKE]

YEP!

An epidemic indeed.

[Rokk]

imo, while concealed carry wont solve teh entire issue, I think it would at least be in teh back of the minds of these people before they do this.

you cannot depend on teh police to protect everybody all the time, at some point the general population has to be responsible for themselves, and those around them. maybe I'm crazy...

[Thrashdragon]

Time to stop procrastinating and get my CCW license.

[jaspurr]

Hey I am from over the pond where gun crime is miniscule by comaprison and all gun crime is committed by an illegal weapon due to our laws, we just get beaten to death by gangs of drunken yobs. Surely the issue is the availability of weapons, reduce the weapons = reduction in gun crimes. Simplistic view and I know the 'my right to carry arms' plea, but how else is it going to be tackled? These people don't care about CCW regulations or the punishment for breaking them so I don't see law changes on that front helping reduce such terrible crimes.

Before anyone thinks I am a liberal stick waving Brit, I own a couple of 12G shotguns and I believe in corporal punishment and I would defend my property and family to the limit but I would never vote for a relaxaton of the firearm laws. I hate to think what state the UK would be in if we had not banned automatic weapon ownership and firearms folowing such a massacre in the UK.

[-IRC-MIKE]

If teachers, who desire to do so, were licensed and allowed to carry a concealed weapon, this type of slaughtering would have been minimized if not eliminated. Teachers should be allowed to carry after passing a battery of background and sanity tests. I fully believe the same as the NRA and I believe that the more armed (competent) citizens there are, the less crime will be. It has been proven to be true.

[BKnight3]

I really don't think they'll be any real solution to this problem. Thankfully, my community college has a police station in it and I don't have that much to worry about. Either way, I'm going on Ebay and getting a vest.

[Thrashdragon]

Hey I am from over the pond where gun crime is miniscule by comaprison and all gun crime is committed by an illegal weapon due to our laws, we just get beaten to death by gangs of drunken yobs. Surely the issue is the availability of weapons, reduce the weapons = reduction in gun crimes. Simplistic view and I know the 'my right to carry arms' plea, but how else is it going to be tackled? These people don't care about CCW regulations or the punishment for breaking them so I don't see law changes on that front helping reduce such terrible crimes.

Before anyone thinks I am a liberal stick waving Brit, I own a couple of 12G shotguns and I believe in corporal punishment and I would defend my property and family to the limit but I would never vote for a relaxaton of the firearm laws. I hate to think what state the UK would be in if we had not banned automatic weapon ownership and firearms folowing such a massacre in the UK.

There's not much you can do about a nutjob like this. An armed citizen in the crowd might have prevented a couple of the deaths, but you cannot fully prevent someone that's prepared to die from doing whatever they want. The real problem with gun control, jaspurr, is that there are already millions of illegal guns out there, and our borders are so porous that even if we miraculously got rid of them, they'd be replaced in a heartbeat.

There are simple solutions to both of those problems but they are not politically acceptable.

By the way, the UK has a higher crime rate per capita than the US. We do have an edge in murders, though.

[Dr_Zoidberg]

imo, while concealed carry wont solve teh entire issue, I think it would at least be in teh back of the minds of these people before they do this.

They very often turn the gun on themselves, and so do not care about their own well-being. All allowing concealed weapons into schools would do is let people intending to shoot up the place get through security and get nice and close to where they think they can do the most damage.

[-IRC-MIKE]

imo, while concealed carry wont solve teh entire issue, I think it would at least be in teh back of the minds of these people before they do this.

They very often turn the gun on themselves, and so do not care about their own well-being. All allowing concealed weapons into schools would do is let people intending to shoot up the place get through security and get nice and close to where they think they can do the most damage.

Read this article.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15142930/


I don't think that just everyone would-should be allowed to carry, but I do think that teachers should be. You can't tell me that this guy didn't walk by at least one teacher to get where he was going to start blasting away. How'd he get a shotgun into the school in the first place? Trench Coat? That would fall back on the dress policy. They already require (in a lot of schools) that the students have CLEAR backpacks so as to visibly expose the contents. Also, if this person WAS a teacher, I'm sure there would be some questions about his mental stability if he had undergone scrutinous tests, which I think all teachers should have to do.


On a side note, there was a recent news article about a teacher who taught history for like 17 years, who was dyslexic and could not read or write at all. His teacher's aids helped him to avoid being caught.


When I worked in a nuclear plant doing some computer networking, I had to undergo a battery of psychological examinations just to be admitted on the premises, and even then I was escorted, even to the restroom, by a guard with an M16. I had to be in his plain view 100% of the time I was there for the entire two weeks. Schools should treat visitors in a similar fashion.

[Thrashdragon]

I don't think that just everyone would-should be allowed to carry, but I do think that teachers should be. You can't tell me that this guy didn't walk by at least one teacher to get where he was going to start blasting away. How'd he get a shotgun into the school in the first place? Trench Coat? That would fall back on the dress policy. They already require (in a lot of schools) that the students have CLEAR backpacks so as to visibly expose the contents. Also, if this person WAS a teacher, I'm sure there would be some questions about his mental stability if he had undergone scrutinous tests, which I think all teachers should have to do.

When I worked in a nuclear plant doing some computer networking, I had to undergo a battery of psychological examinations just to be admitted on the premises, and even then I was escorted, even to the restroom, by a guard with an M16. I had to be in his plain view 100% of the time I was there for the entire two weeks. Schools should treat visitors in a similar fashion.

This was a college campus, which are open by nature. There's really no way to lock these down or realistically enforce a dress code.

I agree with the escort policy, but again, this wouldn't work on a college campus.

Arming teachers is fine with me, but they'd have to undergo some really rigorous screening first. There are too many child molesters and felons teaching kids today as it is.

[-IRC-MIKE]

Arming teachers is fine with me, but they'd have to undergo some really rigorous screening first. There are too many child molesters and felons teaching kids today as it is.

+1