NIU Shooting

[DuFresne]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/14/uni...ing/index.html

DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) -- A gunman dressed in black walked from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall Thursday at Northern Illinois University and shot 22 people, four fatally, then killed himself, authorities said.

Rescue workers carry a victim from Cole Hall Thursday after a gunman shot 22 people during a geology class.






Four of the wounded were in critical condition, eight in stable condition; and six in fair to good condition, a hospital Web site said.
The shooting occurred shortly after 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) in Cole Hall. The class runs from 2 p.m. until 3:15 p.m., University President John Peters said.
"It started and it stopped very quickly," said Police Chief Donald Grady. The gunman, whose identity has not been revealed publicly, was not a student at the NIU campus in DeKalb, west of Chicago, but "may have been a student somewhere else."
Police do not have an apparent motive now, Grady said.
Kevin McEnery said he was in the classroom when a man 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." Watch McEnery describe the chaos at the scene »
There are about 162 registered students in the class, which met in a large lecture hall.
"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.
The gunman fired from a stage at the front of the classroom, Grady said.
At 3:03, NIU police responded and, four minutes later, the campus was ordered into "a lockdown situation," he 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 at 2:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. ET) when she heard shots coming from the classroom she had intended to enter.
The shot was followed by "a lot of people screaming," then people ran out the doors yelling, "He's got a gun, call 9-1-1," she said.
"It was complete chaos ... it's very scary here right now."
By 4 p.m. police had swept the area "and determined there was only one gunman" and that he was dead.
Grady said the gunman used three guns during his rampage -- a shotgun, a Glock and a small-caliber handgun -- and was still on the stage when he turned one of the guns on himself. The small-caliber handgun has not been recovered, he said. He said the shooter started with a shotgun, then switched to a pistol.
It appears that he acted alone, said Grady.

Let the gun control and video game violence flame wars commence!