Who was Illinois school shooter?

Northern Illinois University on Friday identified the man who fatally shot five people in a classroom as Steven P. Kazmierczak, whom police described as an award-winning student "revered" by colleagues and faculty.

Kazmierczak, 27, who police said shot 21 people before shooting and killing himself, was an award-winning sociology student and a leader of a campus criminal justice group, according to school Web sites.

Concealing a shotgun in a guitar case, and tucking three other guns under his coat, Kazmierczak walked into a geology class in an NIU lecture hall Thursday afternoon and began firing, police said. The graduate student stopped to reload his shotgun before he took his own life, police said.

Kazmierczak was a student about 175 miles away at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, police said, and there "were no red flags" warning of any violent behavior.

One of Kazmierczak's advisers said that she enjoyed having him as a student and that he was "a nice person; he was a nice kid."

"I found Steven to be a very committed student, extremely respectful of me as an instructor and adviser," said Jan Carter-Black, an assistant professor in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's School of Social Work

Carter-Black was assigned to be Kazmierczak's faculty adviser when he enrolled in the school in the summer of 2007, and he was a student in her human behavior and social environment class last fall, she said


Carter-Black and Chris Larrison -- another School of Social Work associate professor who knew Kazmierczak -- described the gunman as pleasant, considerate and flexible.

"I was so surprised to see this today," Larrison said. Kazmierczak worked on a research project concerning mental health clinics under him, he said.

"It doesn't fit with the Steven" he knew, Larrison said.

The 27-year-old participated fully in the class -- which met for three hours once a week -- until he formally withdrew from it sometime before late September and became a part-time student, Carter-Black said.

He was lightening his course load so he could take on a position in the prison system, she said.

She didn't know if the position was in the federal or state system, but said he had discussed the decision with several faculty members. He later left the position at the prison, she said, but she didn't know under what circumstances.

"He was very committed to pursuing a career with prisoners," Larrison said. He said it was likely that the career interest corresponded with Kazmierczak's concentration in mental health.

Carter-Black and Larrison said Kazmierczak resumed full-time status this semester.

In 2006, Kazmierczak was a student at Northern Illinois, police said, where he worked on a graduate paper that described his interest in "corrections, political violence, and peace and social justice."

The paper said Kazmierczak was "co-authoring a manuscript on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons in the United States."

University police Chief Donald Grady said Kazmierczak "was an awarded student. He was someone that was revered by the faculty and staff and students alike."

Fellow students and faculty described Kazmierczak as "a fairly normal, unstressed person," Grady said.

People close to Kazmierczak said he was taking medication but had recently stopped, "and he had become somewhat erratic in the last couple of weeks," Grady said.

Police have found no notes that would explain the attack, and authorities have no known motive in the case, Grady said.

Kazmierczak's former landlord, Jim Gordon, said Kazmierczak moved out of DeKalb in June 2007 and left a forwarding address in Champaign.

Gordon said he didn't recognize the picture of his yearlong former tenant "at all," but his records indicated that Kazmierczak "always paid on time, never a noise problem, left the place spotless."

The university sociology department's Web site said he was the recipient of a dean's award for his graduate work in sociology in 2006. He had been accepted for the graduate program that fall, the Web site said.

Kazmierczak also was vice president of the university's Academic Criminal Justice Association, according to the group's Web site, and worked on a paper on self-injury in prisons with the group's current president.

Kazmierczak's paper, titled "Self Injury in Correctional Settings: 'Pathology' of Prisons or Prisoners?" was published in 2006, according to the university's sociology Web site.

The Academic Criminal Justice Association provides "NIU students and members of the DeKalb community with an opportunity to learn about and promote knowledge and understanding of all areas of the criminal justice system, especially corrections and juvenile justice," the Web site says.

DeKalb police asked the Polk County, Florida, Sheriff's Department to make "next of kin" death notification to Kazmierczak's father, Robert Kazmierczak, sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Rodgers said Friday.

"Please leave me alone. I have no statement to make," Robert Kazmierczak told CNN affiliate WESH from the porch of his Lakeland, Florida, home.

"It's a very hard time. I'm a diabetic," he said before breaking down in tears.

School President John Peters said Friday, without giving a name, that the shooter had graduated in 2006 with an undergraduate degree in sociology and then went on to do some graduate work through 2007.

He "had a very good academic record" and "was a very good student," Peters said, adding that there was "no indication" of any trouble involving him.

Kazmierczak had no arrest record and no known history of mental illness, and he had a valid state-required firearm ID card, so he had no problem buying the guns, one law enforcement source said.

Police said the only record of him in DeKalb County Circuit Court was a speeding ticket issued in December 2006. A police officer cited him amid snowy conditions for "failure to reduce speed -- resulting in an -- accident," in a white 2001 Honda. Kazmierczak was 6-foot-4 and 165 pounds, according to the record.

Kazmierczak pleaded guilty and paid a $75 fine. No one was injured in the accident, the record showed

Former Student KIlls 5 At Northern Illinois University

A gunman dressed in black stepped from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday and shot 21 people, five of them fatally, then shot and killed himself, said university president John Peters.

"A lot of people were screaming. Everybody started running for the door," said student Zach Seward. "It was just complete chaos."

Four died at the scene, including the shooter, and two later died at a hospital, he said.

At least 22 people, including the gunman and a graduate student who was teaching an ocean sciences class, were shot, Peters said.

Late Thursday, dozens of students gathered on campus for a candlelight prayer vigil. Video footage showed students comforting one another and a young man playing guitar.

Official school events and classes were canceled until further notice, Peters said.

Seven counseling areas were set up throughout the campus, and hotlines were established.

NIU senior Daley Hamilton, 21, said most students were heading home to their parents. "My parking lot at my apartment is pretty sparse," she told CNN.

She said she and her roommate were planning to leave Friday. "We are really on edge and just kind of want to get out," she said.

Tributes were also surfacing online. A Facebook community called "Pray for Northern Illinois University Students and Families" had more than 14,000 members by late Thursday.

NIU student Amanda Hart Garner posted the school's fight song, including the lyrics: "Free, steadfast, devoted, true/We will always stand by you."

Seven of those wounded in the shooting were listed in critical condition.

Four of the fatalities were female, said Peters.

Most of the injuries are head and chest gunshot wounds, a hospital spokeswoman told CNN.

The gunman started shooting from a stage in the room shortly after 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) in Cole Hall, officials said.

Police Chief Donald Grady said authorities do not yet know of a motive.

They know the identity of the gunman but have not released his name, Grady added.

The shooter was a graduate student at NIU in the spring of 2007. Currently he was not enrolled there but, Grady said, "He may have been a student elsewhere."

A preliminary investigation has not uncovered a police record on the gunman, and records showed he had no contact with NIU police while a student there, Peters said.

Gunman 'just started shooting'

Kevin McEnery said he was in the classroom when the gunman, 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."

There are about 162 registered students in the class that met in the large lecture hall.

A student described the classroom as having four exits -- two at the front and two at the rear.

"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.

At 3:03 p.m., NIU police responded, and four minutes later, the campus was ordered into "a lockdown situation," Grady 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 when she heard shots coming from the classroom she was heading to.

The shot was followed by "a lot of people screaming," then people ran out the doors yelling, "He's got a gun, call 911," she said.

"It was complete chaos. It's very scary here right now."

By 4 p.m., DeKalb police had swept the area "and determined there was only one gunman" and that he was dead.

Grady said the man used three guns: a shotgun, a Glock handgun and a small-caliber handgun, and was still on the stage when he turned one of the guns on himself. The small-caliber handgun had not yet been recovered, he said.

The gunman started shooting with a shotgun, then switched to a handgun, said Grady.

Security around campus was increased in December when police found threats scrawled on a campus bathroom wall that included racial slurs and references to last April's Virginia Tech shootings.

One of the threats said "things will change most hastily" in the final days of the semester.

Peters said there is no evidence that points to a link between the December incident and Thursday's shooting.

Grady said it was unlikely authorities could have prevented Thursday's tragedy.

"As much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning," he said.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared a state of emergency, which will open the governor's disaster fund to reimburse local government entities for "extraordinary expenses related to the response in NIU DeKalb" and will allow the state Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance, the governor's office said in a statement.

Eighteen victims were taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, its Web site said.


Of those, seven were in critical condition and were flown to other hospitals. One fatality, a male, was confirmed -- but was not the gunman, the hospital said. Two were admitted, and eight others were discharged.

The 113-year-old school is 65 miles west of downtown Chicago and has an enrollment of more than 25,000. The campus covers 755 acres.