Gunman opens fire at IL college

[Crick]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23171567?GT1=10856

Related stories What’s this?
At least 18 shot at Illinois university: report
Shootings reported at N. Illinois University


BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and MSNBC
updated 10 minutes ago
DEKALB, Ill. - A gunman opened fire Thursday in a lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University, injuring as many as 15 people.

Police reported that the scene was secure and that the gunman was “no longer a threat” about an hour after the shooting, which occurred about 4 p.m. ET. They gave no official details, but police sources told NBC affiliate WMAQ of Chicago that the shooter may have taken his own life.

Ambulances and fire trucks raced to the scene of the shooting at Kohl Hall, and a spokesman at Kishwaukee Community Hospital in DeKalb told NBC News that area hospitals had been told “to expect up to 15 injured people from the campus.”

The university issued an alert at 4:20 p.m. ET telling students to avoid Kings Common and buildings in that area. The university was locked down, and students reportedly were calling from the library.

“We can’t leave the dorm. We can’t go outside,” a student named Jasmine told WMAQ. “The doors are locked.”

“I was in class, and everything was normal. A student from a different class came in and said there had been a shooting and everyone had to get out of here,” another student, named Noah, told WMAQ.

Noah said his professor had a student go to an administrative office and ask what was happening. The student returned and said that the shooting was confirmed and that students should leave.

The school said all classes Friday were canceled.

This breaking story will be updated.

© 2008 MSNBC Interactive

[Jolie Rouge]

( ya' scooped me ! )


Gunman opens fire at N. Illinois U. hall
10 minutes ago

DEKALB, Ill. - A gunman opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, injuring as many as 15 people, authorities said. "Campus police report that the immediate danger has passed. The gunman is no longer a threat," the school reported on its Web site at 4:14 p.m.

Kishwaukee Community Hospital said on its Web site up to 15 victims were arriving, including three to four with head wounds.

The shooting took place around 3 p.m. in Cole Hall near the King Commons, a central gathering place on the 25,000-student campus, according to the Web site.

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 Associated Press left messages for university police and police in DeKalb, located about 65 miles west of Chicago.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/niu_shooting;_ylt=AgwHluPLM7ry9gQM9XdSrgKs0NUE

YIKES ! What is wrong with people ?

[ahippiechic]

Am watching this on the news. WTF is wrong with people???

[Crick]

( ya' scooped me ! )


YIKES ! What is wrong with people ?

And you are surprised why?

The wacko at VA Tech knew what he was doing IMO and that others would copy him. After the rash of school shootings following Columbine and now shootings at malls, it appears that these sick individuals are looking for new targets and figure others with copy their actions trying to outdo them trying to gain their own notoriaty. :mad:

[Jolie Rouge]

Not so much surprised as sad. We had the funereal today for one of the girls killed last week in the shootings here.

[vicky122]

Been watching it on tv. Just so crazy.

[atprm]

A gunman opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, injuring as many as 17 people before he killed himself, authorities said.

DeKalb Police Lt. Gary Spangler told the student newspaper the Northern Star that the gunman was dead.

A statement posted on the university's Web site at 5:12 p.m. CST confirmed that the gunman had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The university had previously issued a statement on its Web site about an hour after the 3 p.m. CST shooting that "the immediate danger has passed. The gunman is no longer a threat."

Kishwaukee Community Hospital said on its Web site it received 13 victims. It said earlier three to four had head wounds.

The shooting took place in Cole Hall near the King Commons, a central gathering place on the 25,000-student campus, according to the Web site.

Paul Sundstrom said he was in geography class in the Cole Hall auditorium when the gunfire broke out, reported WMAQ-TV in Chicago.

"We were sitting in the fourth row and the guy came in from behind where the professor was speaking. He had a black beany, like a long black trench coat and a shtogun, and 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 said there were 150 to 200 students in the auditorium when the shooting started.

The Associated Press left messages left for university police and police in DeKalb, located about 65 miles west of Chicago.

Campus has been locked down, according to DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott. Students have reported police cars and ambulances on campus, with streets blocked off.

A sophomore told WBBM radio that he was sitting in geology class when a young white male took out a 12-gauge shotgun and started shooting in Cole Hall, WMAQ reported.

The student said he ran, but believes a professor may have been shot. That information has not been confirmed.

"We can't leave the dorm, we can't go outside, the doors are locked," a student named Jasmine told WMAQ at 3:55 p.m. CST.

"I was in class, and everything was normal. A student from a different class came in and said there had been a shooting and everyone had to get out of here," another student, named Noah, told WMAQ.

Noah said his professor had one student go to an administrative office and ask what was happening. The student returned and said that the shooting was confirmed, and that students should leave.

NIU confirmed the shooting in a posting on its Web site.

The university was urging people not to come to campus and all activities were cancelled at the campus for Thursday and Friday.

[pepperpot]

absolutely horrible......

[gmyers]

You can't even send kids to school or college without worrying if they'll be ok. I feel for people with kids nowadays. I'd be afraid to send them.

[Jolie Rouge]

Man kills 5, self at Northern Illinois
By CARYN ROUSSEAU, Associated Press Writer
23 minutes ago

DEKALB, Ill. - A former student 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 died at the scene, including the gunman, 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.'"

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.

The teacher, a graduate student, was wounded but was expected to recover, the school president said. He did not give details of the injuries.

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.

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. 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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/niu_shooting;_ylt=AsAOgLqAEBv91ouuPHa5ksCs0NUE

[Crick]

Not safe anywhere any more.

[Jolie Rouge]

Suspect named in N.Illinois slayings
By CARYN ROUSSEAU and DEANNA BELLANDI, Associated Press Writers
28 minutes ago

DEKALB, Ill. - The gunman who killed six people in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall before committing suicide was identified Friday as 27-year-old former student Steven Kazmierczak, according to Florida authorities and a university official familiar with the investigation.

Polk County, Fla., sheriff's officials said they were asked to notify the suspect's father — Robert Kazmierczak of Lakeland, Fla. — of his son's death. "His son, Steven, was the shooting suspect at Northern Illinois University," said Carrie Rodgers, spokeswoman for the sheriff's office.

Illinois authorities have not confirmed the suspect's identity, but a university official told The Associated Press it is the younger Kazmierczak. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the identity has not been officially released.

The motive of the killer was still not known, officials said. The gunman also wounded 15 people in Thursday's attack, which sent panicked students fleeing for the exits. "There is no note or threat that I know of," NIU President John Peters said on Friday ABC's "Good Morning America." "By all accounts that we can tell right now (he) was a very good student that the professors thought well of."

The shooter had been a graduate student in sociology at Northern Illinois as recently as spring 2007, but was not currently enrolled at the 25,000-student campus, Peters said. He also said the gunman had no record of police contact or an arrest record while attending the university, about 65 miles west of Chicago.

He was currently enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said NIU spokeswoman Melanie Magara.

DeKalb County Coroner Dennis J. Miller released the identities of the four victims who died in his county: Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Westchester; Catalina Garcia, 20, of Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; and Julianna Gehant, 32, of Meridan.

Two other victims died after being transferred to hospitals in other counties, Miller said. Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said a female victim died in her jurisdiction but has not been identified pending notification of family.

Witnesses said the 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.

Allyse Jerome, 19, a sophomore from Schaumburg, said the gunman burst through a stage door and pulled out a gun. "Honestly, at first everyone thought it was a joke," Jerome said. Everyone hit the floor, she said. Then she got up and ran, but tripped. She said she felt like "an open target."

"He could've decided to get me," Jerome said. "I thought for sure he was gonna get me."

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!'"

More than a hundred students cried and hugged as they gathered outside the Phi Kappa Alpha house early Friday to remember Parmenter, the 20-year-old sophomore from Elmhurst, who was one of those killed. "I'm not angry," his stepfather, Robert Greer, told the Tribune. "I'm just sad, and I know that right now what I need to do is comfort my wife."

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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/niu_shooting;_ylt=Ao24IGaxiZZw5ll6kanOROKs0NUE


Illinois college shooter said to be prison expert
35 minutes ago

DEKALB, Illinois (Reuters) - A man who killed six students and then himself during a shooting spree at an Illinois college was an expert on prisons whose work had drawn notice in academic circles, one report said on Friday.

The unidentified 27-year-old man grew up in the Chicago suburbs and was enrolled as a graduate student at another state school far removed from the site of Thursday's bloodbath at Northern Illinois University, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Officials at Northern, a 25,000-student school 65 miles west of Chicago, had confirmed earlier that the man who suddenly appeared at the front of a lecture hall and turned it into a shooting gallery had attended that school in 2007 as a graduate student in sociology.

The newspaper said the man had helped write papers on self-injury in prison and on the role of religion in early U.S. prisons, work that earned him a dean's award. The Tribune said he had since enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the central part of the state.

The shooter "by all accounts that we can tell right now was a very good student that the professors thoughts well of," school president John Peters said on Friday in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"There is nothing in our system that he has had any counseling," he added. "Motive is the one thing that we're trying to pin down at this point. I really at this point have no sense of that. There is no note or threat that I know of."

The DeKalb County coroner's office which confirmed six deaths in addition to the shooter said the students who died ranged in age from 19 to 32, though only four of their names had been released.

In all 21 people were either killed or wounded by the shooter. Terrified and bleeding, students fled the hall before the gunman shot himself on the stage in the latest in a series of shootings at U.S. colleges and high schools.

Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the site of the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history in April when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.

Peters in a separate interview on CNN on Friday said the university had reviewed and improved its emergency response plans after the Virginia Tech shooting.

While universities traditionally have been "some of the most open institutions," he said, "events like this and Virginia Tech and others are forcing us to reconsider how we do things. I think that is unfortunate but necessary."

President George W Bush said he had spoken to Peters and told him "that a lot of folks today will be praying for the families of the victims and for the Northern Illinois University community. Obviously a tragic situation on that campus and I ask our citizens to offer their blessings, blessings of comfort and blessing of strength."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080215/us_nm/usa_shooting_school1_dc;_ylt=Aoa_22j68IYGZvniJ38ho 6ZH2ocA

[Crick]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23171567

Gunman stopped taking meds...

College shooter stopped taking his medications
Kazmierczak, 27, was recently erratic; he had 4 weapons, including shotgun


Deadly campus shooting
Gunman kills 5 in campus attack
Feb. 15: Witnesses say an ex-student at Northern Illinois University emerged from behind a screen in a science class and, without a word, opened fire. NBC’s Kevin Tibbles reports.


Related stories What’s this?
Gunman Kills 4 And Himself At Northern Illinois University
NIU Alleged Gunman Identified
Shooting at Northern Illinois University locks down school
Shooting witnesses describe chaotic scene
Illinois University Shooter's Father Lives In Lakeland

updated 6 minutes ago
DEKALB, Ill. - The man who killed five people and wounded 16 others at Northern Illinois University in a suicidal rampage had recently become erratic after halting his medication, police said Friday.

The man, identified as 27-year-old former NIU student Stephen Kazmierczak, carried a shotgun to campus inside a guitar case and also wielded three handguns during Thursday's ambush inside a lecture hall, they said.

Two of the weapons — the pump-action Remington shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun — were purchased legally less than a week ago, on Feb. 9, authorities said. They were purchased in Champaign, where Kazmierczak was enrolled at the University of Illinois.

The other weapons were still being traced.

Gunman's father
The gunman's father, Robert Kazmierczak, briefly came out of his house in Lakeland, Fla., to talk to reporters.

"Please leave me alone. ... This is a very hard time for me," he said as he threw his arms up and wept. He declined further comment, saying he was diabetic, then went back inside his house. A sign on the front door read: "Illini fans live here."

President Bush talked by telephone with NIU President John Peters and said people will be praying for the families of the victims and for the university community.

Campus Police Chief Donald Grady said investigators recovered 48 shell casings and six shotgun shells following the attack in Cole Hall. The gunman paused to reload his shotgun after opening fire on a crowd of terrified students in a geology class, sending them running and crawling toward the exits. He then shot himself to death on the stage of the hall.

Kazmierczak, whose first name was earlier listed as Steven, was taking some kind of medication, Grady said.

"He had stopped taking medication and become somewhat erratic in the last couple of weeks," Grady said, declining to name the drug or provide other details.

Miscommunication; unknown motive
Correcting information his office released earlier Friday, DeKalb County Coroner Rusty Miller said five students, not six, were killed in the rampage, in addition to the gunman. Miller said the higher victim total was the result of confusion over the fate of a patient taken to another county for treatment.

The motive for the killings remained unknown. Kazmierczak graduated from NIU in 2006 but remained a student there as recently as last year, Grady said. Kazmierczak was described as an "outstanding" student.

The killer continued to take graduate courses in sociology at Northern Illinois as recently as spring 2007, NIU President John Peters said. He also said the suspect had no record of police contact or an arrest record while attending Northern Illinois, a campus with 25,000 students about 65 miles west of Chicago.

The gunman was currently enrolled at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Chancellor Richard Herman said. The university is about 140 miles south of Chicago.

Authorities and NIU officials continued to investigate on Friday what lead Kazmierczak to launch his deadly rampage. There was no known suicide note.

"We were dealing with a disturbed individual who intended to do harm on this campus," Peters said.

Witnesses said the 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.


Allyse Jerome, 19, a sophomore from Schaumburg, said the gunman burst through a stage door and pulled out a gun.

"Honestly, at first everyone thought it was a joke," Jerome said. Everyone hit the floor, she said. Then she got up and ran, but tripped. She said she felt like "an open target."

"He could've decided to get me," Jerome said. "I thought for sure he was gonna get me."

'Shooting from the hip'
John Giovanni, 20, of Des Plaines said the gunman calmly fired at the greatest concentration of students.

"He was shooting from the hip. He was just shooting," said Giovanni, who turned and ran so fast that he lost a shoe. "I was running but I was hurtling over people in the fetal position."

Peters said four people died at the scene, including three students and the gunman. Others died at the hospital. The teacher, a graduate student, also was wounded but expected to recover.

DeKalb County Coroner Dennis J. Miller identified four victims: Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Westchester; Catalina Garcia, 20, of Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; and Julianna Gehant, 32, of Mendota.

Another victim, Gayle Dubowski, a 20-year-old sophomore from Carol Stream, died at a Rockford hospital, Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said.

'Army-crawled'
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.

Information for families
Northern Illinois University has set up the following numbers for relatives of NIU students to call for information:
— 815-753-1573
— 815-753-6143
— 815-753-1574
— 815-753-1575
— 815-753-9564


"I personally Army-crawled halfway up the aisle," said Carr, 20, a 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!'"

More than 100 students cried and hugged as they gathered outside the Phi Kappa Alpha house early Friday to remember sophomore Parmenter. Flowers, candles and small notes were left in the snow near Cole Hall.

The campus was closed on Friday. Students were urged to call their parents and were offered counseling at any residence hall, according to the school Web site.

The school also 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.

[Jolie Rouge]

Illinois' new gun law under scrutiny
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer
55 minutes ago

CHICAGO - Illinois lawmakers moved swiftly after last year's massacre at Virginia Tech to make it harder for anyone with a history of mental illness to buy guns, fortifying what were already some of the nation's toughest weapons laws.

But the new measure does not take effect until June. And whether it would have prevented last week's bloodbath at Northern Illinois University is far from clear.

Steven Kazmierczak, the 27-year-old grad student who bought an arsenal of guns in recent months and used them to kill five people and commit suicide, had been on medication and was said to have spent time in a psychiatric center as a teen in the late 1990s.

But state Sen. Dan Kotowski, a sponsor of the law that will require more detailed reporting to state officials about those who have received mental health treatment, said the sketchy information about Kazmierczak's medical history makes it impossible to know whether he would have fallen under the law.

"This law is more comprehensive than most," the Democrat said Monday. "But everything needs to be evaluated and reviewed to address the problem so that something like this never happens again. This is the promise we have to make."

The measure, when it takes effect, will require health professionals to inform state authorities about patients who display violent, suicidal or threatening behavior. Right now, such information is reported to state officials only on people who have been institutionalized, not on those who receive only outpatient treatment.

Illinois adopted the law last June, and the governor signed it in August.

Last month, President George W. Bush signed federal legislation requiring states to provide the mental-health information they gather for use in a national background-check system.

Virginia lawmakers, meanwhile, are still considering a package of bills to change that state's mental health system after the Virginia Tech tragedy. One bill would enshrine into law an order by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine that requires names of people ordered into outpatient treatment to also be reported to state authorities.

The proposals are attempts to alter a mental health system that came under increased scrutiny since a mentally disturbed student, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech in April.

Unlike Cho, Kazmierczak showed few outward signs of trouble. He passed repeated criminal background checks and had a state firearm owner's identification card, which requires applicants to answer a series questions, including whether they have been in a mental hospital in the preceding five years. Authorities say they verify what the applicants put down.

Kazmierczak bought four guns at Tony's Guns and Ammo in Champaign. He bought a High Point .380 pistol on Aug. 6, a Sig Sauer 9 mm pistol on Dec. 30, and a Remington 870 shotgun and Glock 9 mm pistol on Feb. 9, authorities have said.

A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said last week that Kazmierczak was placed there after high school by his parents. She said he used to cut himself and had resisted taking medications. And Kazmierczak's girlfriend, Jessica Baty, told CNN on Sunday that he had been on an antidepressant but had stopped taking it about three weeks ago because "it made him feel like a zombie."

But even under Illinois' new law, it's not clear whether Kazmierczak said or did anything that would have triggered the reporting requirement and made him ineligible to buy guns.

Some argue the more stringent reporting rules could make it even harder to identify people who might be about to snap.

Gary Slutkin of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention at the University of Illinois said the rules could have the unintended consequences of discouraging people from seeking help out of fear of being reported. He said that might be especially likely to happen in the case of someone fantasizing about going on a killing spree.

Health workers may also find themselves torn over confidentiality issues, while relatives of someone who confides in them about serious mental health problems may also fear the consequences of taking action outside the family, Slutkin added.

"They may ask, 'What's left? Is there anyone I can call now who is not part of the punitive system?'" he said.

Pro-gun forces also expressed skepticism that such laws could stop someone like Kazmierczak.

John Boch, like many other gun-rights activists in Illinois, said the answer is for the state to loosen its gun laws, not tighten them, so that students might have shot back during the NIU attack. Illinois is one of only two states with an outright ban on carrying concealed weapons. Wisconsin is the other.

"This guy at NIU committed murder, for God's sake," Boch said. "What are a few more gun laws going to do to protect human life? There are a lot of laws he violated in killing those kids, but one more law won't make a difference to guys like that."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_re_us/niu_shooting_gun_law;_ylt=AtrDqKPZewxmsea7gDx6LJis 0NUE

[Jolie Rouge]

Site of NIU shooting will be demolished
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago

DEKALB, Ill. - The Northern Illinois University building where a gunman killed five students in an auditorium lecture hall, then committed suicide on the stage, will be demolished and replaced, school officials said Wednesday.

Cole Hall — a huge classroom building at the center of the 25,000-student campus — will be replaced with a state-of-the-art general classroom building to be named Memorial Hall, the university said.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich planned an afternoon news conference to announce state funding for the project. Students on campus seemed torn about the announcement.

"Some people can't stand to look at it, and others see it as a memorial as it is," 19-year-old freshman Cassie Dodd said. "Personally, I think it should stay. It's a part of us now."

Junior Jessica Burnside disagreed.

"It's a trophy of a tragic, destructive event," said Burnside, 21. "Nobody wants to be reminded of it."

Former graduate student Steven Kazmierczak burst into the auditorium on Valentine's Day, carrying at least four guns, and fired dozens of shots into a geology class, killing five and wounding at least 16 people before turning the gun on himself.

Demolition of the 40-year-old Cole Hall could begin this spring, and construction on the new building is expected to begin next summer, NIU spokeswoman Melanie Magara told The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle. Students could use the new facility as early as December 2010.

At Virginia Tech, where student Seung-Hui Cho gunned down 32 people before killing himself, officials decided to turn the classroom space in Norris Hall into a peace center and interactive learning space. Laboratories, which couldn't be relocated because of the risk of damaging expensive equipment, remain in use.

NIU resumed classes Monday after closing campus for more than a week. The school has established a memorial scholarship fund in honor of the students who died.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080227/ap_on_re_us/niu_shooting;_ylt=Ajz52XuhqNyWJWbw9emSin9H2ocA


On the Net: Northern Illinois: http://www.niu.edu/