2008 Woodie Awards
NIU president says incident doesn't define school
Nora Maberry/News editor
Issue date: 2/18/08 Section: News
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To view information on the victims of the NIU shooting, click here.
A former student shot and killed six people, including himself, on Thursday at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb.
The shooter, Stephen P. Kazmierczak, 27, of Elk Grove, walked into a lecture hall in Cole Hall and started shooting.
Once the first 911 call was placed, it took two minutes for campus police to enter the room.
By that time, three students and Kazmierczak lay dead.
Two more were mortally wounded.
Another 16 people had been injured, and terrified students were still running for the exits.
The shooting
The Geology 104 class started at 2 p.m.
At 3 p.m., a man dressed in black carrying a shotgun and two handguns stepped out from behind a black curtain on the lecture stage and began what authorities described as a "very brief rapid-fire assault" before killing himself.
Investigators believe Kazmierczak entered the room through a back door.
Students in the class said they saw the barrel of his shotgun before they saw him.
Kazmierczak said nothing as he made his way to the front of the lecture hall stage. Students said he did not appear agitated or hurried. The instructor was lecturing with his back to the class and may not have even seen Kazmierczak as he made his way forward, witnesses said.
Kazmierczak pumped the weapon, preparing to fire, and pointed the weapon at the largest congregation of students, in the center of the room, witnesses said.
At 3:06 p.m., he fired.
Students started running from the room, some stepping over fellow students who were curled in the fetal position.
"He was shooting from the hip. He was just shooting," said John Giovanni, 20, a student from Des Plaines. "I was running, but I was hurtling over people in the fetal position."
With in two minutes of the first 911 call, 10 NIU police officers were at Cole Hall.
In that time, Kazmierczak had reloaded his shot gun, left the stage and walked up one aisle toward the back of the room, then across the room and down the other aisle. Kazmierczak then went back onstage and killed himself.
Kazmierczak had pouches of unspent ammunition around his waist and had not unholstered one of his four weapons, authorities said.
"In spite of the enormity of the tragedy, it could have been worse," said NIU spokesperson Melanie Magara.
The weapons
Kazmierczak purchased two of the three guns from a Champaign firearms dealer. He bought a pump-action Remington Shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun legally on Feb. 9, authorities said. Kazmierczak possessed a valid Firearm Owners Identification Card, which has a 30-day application period. Authorities will not release when the card was applied for. A FOID card must be issued before the purchase of a firearm. The FOID application asks questions about the person's mental health, hospitalizations, previous convictions and citizenship. Once the Illinois State Police review the application, they run a background check on the individual.
NIU Police Chief Donald Grady said investigators recovered 48 shell casings and six shot gun shells following the attack in Cole Hall on Thursday.
The time to grieve
NIU officials are telling students that now is the time to grieve for lost friends.
"We're advising students to remain calm and seek counseling and other support services that are being offered at various locations," said NIU president John Peters. "All of our personnel have spread out through the campus to help students. We've asked them to reach out to each other in this difficult time. They're doing that. I'm proud of them."
On Thursday, the university was offering students grief counseling at various locations around campus.
"We have 10 counselors in each location, working and talking with students," said Brian Hemphill, vice president of student affairs. "We need to advertise those locations for students to be able to go to and be able to connect with individuals around this unfortunate incident."
Hemphill also said community advisers and other counselors are walking around residence halls and knocking door-to-door, checking on students.
The future
Seven people remained hospitalized Saturday after the attack, with three in serious condition, one of them upgraded from critical. The other four are in fair condition.
Officials at NIU said classes will resume Feb. 25. Cole Hall will remain closed until the end of the semester.
Peters has said that an increased police presence will be seen when school resumes. Counseling will also be available for NIU students and staff.
"We need to take care of ourselves and each other, reaching out to those of us who are struggling," Peters said in a statement. "An act of violence does not define us."
The shooter
"We were dealing with a disturbed individual," Peters said of Kazmierczak during a press conference Friday.
During the press conference, Grady said Kazmierczak had recently stopped taking his medication and had become erratic in the last few weeks. Grady stressed that during Kazmierczak's time at NIU, there were "no red flags" and that Kazmierczak was "revered by staff."
Investigators said Kazmierczak did not fit the profile of a school shooter.
He was described as a happy, stable scholar by those who knew him.
Now, a different picture of Kazmierczak is emerging.
He had spent time in a mental health center after high school. Kazmierczak had become unruly at home and cut himself.
Kazmierczak had disturbing tattoos covering his arms. He had gone to a Champaign tattoo artist in recent months to receive a tattoo of the doll from the movie "Saw" riding a tricycle through a pool of blood with images of several bleeding wounds in the background.
It has also been reported by authorities he had developed a recent interest in guns. Authorities are also trying to determine if Kazmierczak had recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend.
Kazmierczak was enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Kazmierczak graduated from NIU with a bachelor's degree in sociology and pursued a graduate degree at the school through the Spring 2007 semester.
In summer 2008, he began taking classes at the U of I.
Janet Carter-Black, Kazmierczak's academic adviser at the U of I, said Kazmierczak was dedicated to his education and research, which focused on the prison system.
Others who knew him said he didn't fit the image of a loner or an outcast.
"Profiling would not have worked with Steve. People would let him into their home," said Kristen Myers, an associate professor of sociology at NIU. "People feel so bad that we didn't know he was suffering like this."
Kazmierczak had no arrest record while attending NIU, authorities said.
Kazmierczak left no suicide note, and authorities currently have no motive for the killings.
Factbox:
- Faculty and staff at NIU are asked to return to work on Tuesday for training on how to help students deal with the attack.
- All NIU classes at all locations will resume Monday, Feb. 25.
- All NIU university events, including athletic competitions, are canceled through Feb. 24.
- A memorial service will be held at the Convocation Center at NIU on Sunday, Feb. 24.
Other threats of violence across campuses in Illinois this weekend:
University of Illinois at Chicago
A 24-year-old UIC senior was arrested after she allegedly sent out emails threatening violence on the campus. The e-mails were sent to numerous people on Friday afternoon and threatened violence some time in the spring. The student, who lives in Wheaton, was arrested on Saturday and charged with disorderly conduct.
Southwestern Illinois College
Steven Ellis, 21, a student at Southwestern Illinois College, a junior college in Belleville, was arrested on Saturday and charged with falsely making a terrorist threat. Authorities say Ellis approached another student on Friday and attempted to recruit him into a plot similar to the shootings at NIU.
A search of Ellis' home found no weapons or plans. Ellis is currently being held at the St. Clair County Jail. If convicted, he could face 15 years in prison.
Southern Illinois University- Edwardsville
Police at SIUE said they arrested a student who was reportedly carrying weapons on campus on Friday. Stephen Vories, 22, of Glen Carbon, was arrested after a sergeant in the school's ROTC program reported that Vories appeared to be making threats on his Facebook account. Vories was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon on state property and unlawful use of a weapon after authorities allegedly found a Taser, a knife and two "spring guns" in his possession. Spring guns are similar to BB guns. Vories posted $100 bond and was released.
The Associated Press, The Northern Star and the Daily Illini contributed to this report.
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