Northern Illinois University shooting

The Northern Illinois University shooting was a school shooting that took place on February 14, 2008. Steven Kazmierczak shot multiple people on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, killing five people and injuring another twenty-one, before committing suicide. The incident happened at the campus's Cole Hall at approximately 3:05 p.m. local time. The school placed the campus on lockdown; students and teachers were advised to head to a secure location, take cover, and avoid the scene and all buildings in the vicinity of the area. Six people died in the incident, including the perpetrator, tying it with the University of Iowa shooting as the fifth-deadliest university shooting in United States history. After the incident, the university administration cancelled classes for the rest of the week as well as the following week. Shooting: At approximately 3:05 p.m. CST, Steven Kazmierczak entered a large auditorium-style lecture hall in Cole Hall (Auditorium 101) with approximately 120 students, where an oceanography class was in session. Kazmierczak was wearing dark brown boots with laces, jeans, a black T-shirt with the word "Terrorist" written across the chest imposed over an image of an assault rifle; a coat; a black knit hat; and a black utility belt with two magazine holsters, a holster for a handgun, three handguns (a 9×19mm Glock 19, a .380 ACP SIG Sauer P232, and a .380 ACP Hi-Point CF380), eight loaded magazines, and a knife. He also carried in a 12 gauge Remington Sportsman 48 shotgun concealed in a guitar case. Once he armed himself, he went to the auditorium, where he entered at the extreme southwest corner of the room. This led directly to the stage in front of the classroom; Kazmierczak used that position to fire into the crowd of students. He opened the door with such extreme force that many witnesses described him as "kicking the door in". He next shot at the instructor, who was standing on the east side of the stage. The instructor tried to run out the exit at the southeast corner but that door was locked. The instructor ran toward the east end of the classroom out the main exits, in which the students were trying to exit. Some students who were not able to immediately escape hid under or in between the seats. When Kazmericzak paused to reload after firing three rounds, some students shouted "He's reloading" and began to escape. Others continued to hide or were too shocked to react. After shooting all six shotgun rounds, Kazmierczak fired on the room's remaining occupants with the 9mm Glock pistol, firing a total of approximately 50 rounds. He was reported to have walked up and down the west aisle and directly in front of or on the stage, firing at people as he went. He shot and killed himself before police reached the room. The police recovered 55 un-expended rounds of ammunition from the scene, including two fully loaded magazines containing rounds for a .380 semi-automatic pistol. A total of 25 people were shot, six of whom died (including the perpetrator, who shot himself before police arrived). One witness reported that the gunman shot at least 30 rounds; police later collected 48 shell casings and 6 shotgun shells. At the time of the shootings, Kazmierczak was a graduate student in the school of social work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a former NIU Sociology graduate student. NIU Police Chief Donald Grady described him as "an outstanding student," who reportedly had stopped taking psychiatric medication recently and became "somewhat erratic". Emergency response: The first 9-1-1 call of an active shooter was reported at 3:06 p.m. Seven seconds later, NIU police officers were notified by the dispatcher. At 3:06:33 p.m., NIU police officers Ayala and Zimberoff responded and told dispatchers that they were in the area. Driving northbound on Normal Road near Swen Parson Hall, they encountered students running east from the Martin Luther King Commons area. One student shouted, "He's shooting over there", pointing west towards the MLK Commons area. Officer Hodder was also driving in the area and encountered the same frenzy. The officers proceeded in their vehicles, then on foot, joining Chief Grady, Lieutenant Mitchell, and Lieutenant Henert, who had reached the west side of the Commons area after coming directly from the Police Station. Also racing to Cole Hall from the Police Station were Sergeant Ellington and Officer Wright. Sergeant Holland was on patrol just south of the area along Lincoln Highway when he heard the call come in, and approached the area. In the MLK Commons, Chief Grady advised the officers to immediately begin attending to victims and identify witnesses and direct them to a room in Holmes Student Center, where they could be interviewed. Some of the officers began attending to injured students who were running from the scene. While Henert established perimeters around Cole Hall, Mitchell and Grady entered the building, where they met with Holland, Ellington, and Wright. Ellington, the first officer to arrive on the scene, evacuated the adjacent auditorium, and met with the other officers in the front walkway. Holland was instructed to remain in the hallway to ensure no one came into the auditorium and that the shooter did not come out. Grady, Mitchell, Ellington, and Wright entered the south auditorium, discovering a body on the stage, surrounded by guns, with a pool of blood coming from the head. Victims with varying injuries lay on the floor or were propped up against the seats. Confirming there were no immediate threats, Grady and Mitchell began attending to victims, while Ellington and Wright confirmed that the shooter was dead. At 3:11:42 (five minutes after the first 911 call), Ellington reported to the dispatcher, "Shooter's down. Shotgun's secure. We need an ambulance and the coroner at Cole Hall." At the same time that officers arrived at Cole Hall, Sergeant Rodman, who had left a meeting at the Holmes Student Center, arrived at the west entrance of that building to find a shooting victim who had been shot in the back and the head, along with another victim who had blood on the face, seeking help for his injured friend. Rodman attended to the most severely wounded victim. By 3:11 p.m., a DeKalb Fire Department ambulance was the first to arrive on the scene and was staged in a nearby parking lot. The parking lots near the Field House were used as a staging area for ambulances and fire trucks that arrived from throughout the region. At 3:13 p.m., Sergeant Ellington advised that there were at least two deaths. Officers encountered several problems, including a piercing fire alarm that had been pulled, as well as very high radio traffic and static that made it hard to hear radio calls come in. In addition, due to conflicting reports (including the presence of a shooter at Founders Memorial Library) and the multitude of injured victims at various buildings around campus, officers needed to check multiple sites to rule out the possibility of multiple shooters and multiple shooting sites. Injured victims began appearing at Neptune Hall (just north of Cole Hall) and at DuSable Hall (west of Cole). At 3:21 p.m., as personnel arrived from the DeKalb Fire Department, DeKalb County Sheriff's Office, DeKalb Police Department, and Sycamore Police Department, officers advised that the scene and perimeter of Cole Hall were secure, and that it was safe for emergency personnel to proceed to the shooting site and to the sites of the injured victims. At 3:34 p.m., after a sweep of Founders Library was conducted and officers determined that Neptune and DuSable were not shooting sites, they declared the area safe. Police officers established a reception area for law enforcement personnel at Wirtz Hall, and an investigative command center at Holmes Student Center. By 4:00 pm CST, school officials announced that there was no further danger. They said that counselors would be made available in all residence halls.