NIU CAMPUS TRAGEDY | 5 students killed in shooting
DEKALB — Without saying a word, a lone gunman clad in black — and armed with a shotgun and two handguns — sneaked into a crowded Northern Illinois University lecture hall Thursday and opened fire from the stage.
When the “very brief, rapid-fire assault” was over, the gunman had fatally wounded five — four female students and one male — and wounded 16 others, including the class instructor. The gunman then shot himself, investigators said.
(Chris Sweda/Sun-Times)
(Jim Killam/Northern Star)
Campus police report that the scene is secure. Only essential personnel should remain on campus.
The following hotlines are available for students and parents.
* 815-753-1573
* 815-753-6143
* 815-753-1574
* 815-753-1575
* 815-753-9564
* 815-753-6257
Students may go to any residence hall for counseling.
Late Thursday, investigators said the gunman was a recent sociology graduate student at NIU, but they couldn’t say what prompted the mid-afternoon massacre that sent blood-spattered survivors running and crawling out of the classroom on their bellies. Investigators did not release the gunman’s name but said he attended NIU last year and then transferred to another college in Illinois.
“It’s a horrendous circumstance,” NIU Police Chief Donald Grady told reporters Thursday.
The shooter’s white Honda Civic was parked in a pay lot behind the campus library and near Cole Hall, sources said. The Kane County Bomb Squad examined the car carefully, using a robot to enter in case of explosives.
Sources said they believe the shooter was a 27-year-old man who studied criminal justice as a graduate student at NIU until last spring’s term — when he moved to Champaign and transferred to another university.
The man’s name is currently listed in the University of Illinois at Champaign directory.
In interviews with authorities, a number of witnesses positively identified the man as the shooter when they were shown a copy of his ID, the sources said.
The Chicago Sun-Times is not naming the man because he has not been officially identified by police as the suspected killer.
The university also was not releasing names of those killed Thursday, but the Sun-Times confirmed one of the dead was sophomore student Dan Parmenter, who worked on the campus newspaper and was a fraternity member.
NIU President John Peters said four people died in the lecture hall. Two more died after being taken to area hospitals. At least four of the wounded were in critical condition late Thursday, Peters said.
The gunman died on the stage.
Late Thursday, local, state and federal police continued to patrol the snow-covered campus. Many carried assault rifles and shotguns.
The introductory geology class in Cole Hall — filled with about 150 students — mostly freshmen and sophomores — was almost over when the shooting began shortly after 3 p.m.
Grad student Joseph Peterson was lecturing on stage at the time, he told the Sun-Times.
Suddenly, a tall white man dressed in dark clothing appeared on stage with him — about 40 feet away. The gunman “just started firing away,” Peterson said. Some students ran away screaming, Peterson said.
‘I thought it was a fake’
George Gaynor, 23, of Homer Glen, a geography major, said he was sitting in the back of the auditorium about 3:05 p.m. as Peterson was discussing diatoms and microbiotic animals from the deep sea.
Gaynor recalled seeing a skinny white man wielding a short-barrel shotgun burst through a door on the right side of the stage.
“The shotgun looked like an assault-style shotgun — like what a police officer would use,” Gaynor said. “Not like what a farmer would carry.”
The roughly 6-foot-tall gunman looked like “a typical college student,” Gaynor said. He pumped the gun once and fired into the middle of the crowd, Gaynor said.
Gaynor ran through the back doors of the auditorium and escaped.
Another witness said she fled without injury, but then looked down at her hands.
“I got up to run, and it must have been somebody next to me who got shot, because there was blood on my hands,” Rockford sophomore Lequisha Zackery said.
Another witness, Kristina Balluff, initially thought the gunman was playing a joke.
“I thought it was a fake,” Balluff said. “A bright light was coming out [of the shotgun], like fire. I fell to the ground. Then there were people running on top of people.”
Students and staff in nearby buildings watched from relative safety, but said they saw a chaotic, harrowing scene.
A student ran into political science professor Matt Streb’s office near Cole Hall saying he heard gunfire. Within minutes, squad cars pulled up to Cole Hall, Streb said. At least two dozen officers surrounded the building. Helicopters hovered.
“When anybody got anywhere near Cole Hall, they were screaming for them to get away,’’ Streb said. “It was pretty frightening.’’
Student Derek Walker of Berwyn said students watching from a third-floor window in another building began to cry when they saw a victim wheeled out on a stretcher. Later, one student screamed, “Oh my God, there’s a body!’’
Several students who had been in the classroom — some bleeding — ran out of Cole Hall and took refuge at Neptune Hall, a dorm nearby.
Contributing: Annie Sweeney, Shamus Toomey, Mark Konkol and Stefano Esposito