4th School shooting in a week

[DaRock98 76]

Gunman Opens Fire on Illinois Campus

By CARYN ROUSSEAU and DEANNA BELLANDI,AP

Posted: 2008-02-15 07:26:05

Filed Under: Nation News

DEKALB, Ill. (Feb. 15) - A former student dressed in black walked onto the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on a packed science class Thursday, killing five students, wounding 16 and setting off a panicked stampede before committing suicide. Another student died overnight, bringing the death toll to seven, according to a local coroner.

Police say they have no motive for the rapid-fire assault, carried out by the gunman who fired indiscriminately into the crowd with a shotgun and two handguns as students dove to the floor and ran toward the exits. At least two of the wounded were hospitalized in critical condition.

"I kept thinking, `Oh God, he's going to shoot me. Oh God, I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead,'" said Desiree Smith, a senior journalism major who dropped to the floor near the back of the auditorium.

"People were crawling on each other, trampling each other," she said. "As I got near the door, I got up and I started running."

University President John Peters said four people died at the scene, including three students and the gunman, while the other two died at a hospital. The teacher, a graduate student, was wounded but was expected to recover.

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. Authorities did not release any other details about the gunman or identify the victims.

Witnesses said the skinny gunman, dressed in black and wearing a stocking cap, emerged from behind a screen on the stage of 200-seat Cole Hall and opened fire just as the class was about to end around 3 p.m.

Officials said 162 students were registered for the class but it was unknown how many were there Thursday.

Lauren Carr said she was sitting in the third row 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!'"

Student Jerry Santoni was in a back row when he saw the gunman enter a service door to the stage.

"I saw him shoot one round at the teacher," he said. "After that, I proceeded to get down as fast as I could."

Santoni dived down, hitting his head the seat in front of him, leaving a knot about half the size of a pingpong ball on his forehead.

Eighteen victims were brought to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, where one died, according to the hospital's Web site. One male was transferred in critical condition and died at OSF St. Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, an official said.

Dan Parmenter, a 20-year-old sophomore from Elmhurst, Ill., was one of those killed, his stepfather, Robert Greer, told the Chicago Tribune.

"I'm not angry," Greer said. "I'm just sad, and I know that right now what I need to do is comfort my wife."

Minutes after the shooting erupted, students phoned each other and sent text messages even before school officials could warn them, many said. The school Web site announced a possible gunman on campus within 20 minutes of the shots and locked down the campus, part of a new security plan created after a student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people last year.

"This is a tragedy, but from all indications we did everything we could when we found out," Peters said.

Michael Gentile was meeting with two of his students directly beneath the lecture hall when the shootings happened. He could hear the chaos a few feet above his head.

"The shotgun blast must have been so loud," said Gentile, a 27-year-old media studies instructor. "It sounded like something was dropping down the stairs... We had no idea what this was."

Then, shorter, sharper noises he recognized as handgun shots.

"There was a pretty quick succession ... just pow, pow, pow," said Gentile, who didn't leave his office for about 90 minutes. He used a surveillance camera just outside his office to confirm that the people knocking on his door were police.

George Gaynor, a senior geography student, who was in Cole Hall when the shooting happened, told the student newspaper the Northern Star that the shooter was "a skinny white guy with a stocking cap on."

He described the scene immediately following the incident as terrifying and chaotic.

"Some girl got hit in the eye, a guy got hit in the leg," Gaynor said outside just minutes after the shooting occurred. "It was like five minutes before class ended too."

Witnesses said the young man carried a shotgun and a pistol. Student Edward Robinson told WLS that the gunman appeared to target students in one part of the lecture hall.

"It was almost like he knew who he wanted to shoot," Robinson said. "He knew who and where he wanted to be firing at."

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms sent 15 agents to the scene, according to spokesman Thomas Ahern. He said information about the weapons involved would be sent to the ATF's national database in Washington and given urgent priority. The FBI also was assisting.

All classes were canceled Thursday night and the campus was closed on Friday. Students were urged to call their parents "as soon as possible" and were offered counseling at any residence hall, according to the school Web site.

The school was closed for one day during final exam week in December after campus police found threats, including racial slurs and references to shootings earlier in the year at Virginia Tech, scrawled on a bathroom wall in a dormitory. Police determined after an investigation that there was no imminent threat and the campus was reopened. Peters said he knew of no connection between that incident and Thursday's attack.

The shooting was the fourth at a U.S. school within a week.

On Feb. 8, a woman shot two fellow students to death before committing suicide at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tenn., a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a fellow student Monday during a high school gym class, and the 15-year-old victim of a shooting at an Oxnard, Calif., junior high school has been declared brain dead.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2008-02-14 17:10:43

[ONEEYEDMIC 68]

Another Tradegy. How long before it hits in our backyard? I think sooner than later.

[DaRock98 76]

Another Tradegy. How long before it hits in our backyard? I think sooner than later.

Sadly I have to agree with you. Stay safe out there guys.

[x129K 1,393]

Certainly time to reevaluate letting legal gun owners carrying legal guns at schools.....

[MELILLO719 30]

Thats terrible my thoughts and prayers are with the victim's family's god forbid if something like that happens around here.

[27east 19]

Certainly time to reevaluate letting legal gun owners carrying legal guns at schools.....

As the saying goes, "better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it!"

However, with the laws we have here in this great state, it'll be a long, long, long time if things ever change here.

[unleashedff248 3]

Something's gotta give here. Even if a police officer was posted inside the building, the perp still would have gotten a good number of shots off by the time it was reported and responded to. Short of arming every teacher and setting up metal detectors at every door, what are our viable options?

It makes me sick to hear about these shootings over and over again.

Edited February 16, 2008 by unleashedff248

[ONEEYEDMIC 68]

Something's gotta give here. Even if a police officer was posted inside the building, the perp still would have gotten a good number of shots off by the time it was reported and responded to. Short of arming every teacher and setting up metal detectors at every door, what are our viable options?

It makes me sick to hear about these shootings over and over again.

It would be nice to have metal detectors at every entrance to every dorr at every school or college but it just isn't practical. Who is going to pay for that? Maybe if you included that in the Tuition or taxes it would work. Then you need to have at least 1 person stand at the door to monitor what is coming in.

Let's start by putting metal detectors in all the local courts in the area. I know some are just wide open and anyone can walk in. Especially on Court Day with all the criminals in there. Shocking that nothing has happened in Westchester. Did happen in Rockland though.

The first line of Defense in a School shooting is a Police/Resource/Security Officer. Depending on what kind of school you are in. I know that Yonkers, Mt Vernon, New Ro have them. Not sure of WP or Peekskill or any other school in the areas. After Elem, Middle, or High school has started, all doors should AUTOMATICALLY lock from the OUTSIDE. If you are late then you need to hit a button and have somebody come and confirm who you are. A camera system would be great also but schools don't want to spend the money. I say take it out of teachers pay. They want to be safe as well.

You would think that this would be a Federal Law after all the shootings in the past 10+ years. I got an Idea for Congress. How about you leave STEROID use in SPORTS to the SPORT it pertains too and PROTECT THE CITIZENS and NON CITIZENS of the UNITED STATES.

[DOC22 1]

ONEEYEDMEDIC

The first line of Defense in a School shooting is a Police/Resource/Security Officer. Depending on what kind of school you are in. I know that Yonkers, Mt Vernon, New Ro have them. Not sure of WP or Peekskill or any other school in the areas. After Elem, Middle, or High school has started, all doors should AUTOMATICALLY lock from the OUTSIDE. If you are late then you need to hit a button and have somebody come and confirm who you are.

I know in Northern Westchester, North Salem School has one in the Middle/High School. He is a Trooper from SP Somers.

[JM15 386]

The Somers middle and high school also have a resource officer from the troopers barracks. Somers High school also has security cameras the the front entrances and all of the doors are locked from the outside.

[Guest feraldan]

What happened to the days when the first line of defense was a well trained and armed citizen?

[CAM502 6]

Another Tradegy. How long before it hits in our backyard? I think sooner than later.

This got way less press then most of these type situations but: Journal News

How serious were these kids? I'm glad we won't find out.