Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Eddy Montville — The Rockford Register Star Kahlia Lofquist, a Northern Illinois University freshman, makes a phone call to her sister to let her know that she is OK after a shooting, Thursday, on the DeKalb, Ill., campus. A man opened fire with a shotgun and a handgun wounding several people Thursday afternoon before apparently killing himself, authorities said. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Eric Sumberg- ASSOCIATED PRESS A man grieves outside the scene of a shooting at a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill., Thursday. A man dressed in black opened fire with a shotgun from a stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University before he killed himself, the school's president said. [Click to enlarge]

DEKALB, Ill. - A man dressed in black opened fire from the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, killing at least 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 of the six total dead died at the scene, 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.'"

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 did not know what the motive was for the attack.

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.

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."

Jillian Martinez, a freshman from Carpentersville, told the Chicago Tribune she was in the auditorium when the gunman entered through a door to the right of the lectern and opened fire about 3 p.m. "He just started shooting at all the kids," she said. "He just started shooting at people, and I ran out of there as fast as I could. I ran all the way to the student center; when I got there I could still hear shooting [from the classroom."]

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.

Some Texas A&M students said they were concerned about whether the attack would inspire more violence.

"I would be slightly worried that it is related to the Virginia Tech schooting and is becoming an epidemic," said Josh Flowers, a sophomore sociology major.

"It makes me wonder if these situations are becoming more common. It could happen to us," said Alma Lahnum, a computer engineering major.

Staff writer Nick Badger contributed to this story

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