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Friday, February 15, 2008
6 shot dead, including gunman, at Northern Illinois University
DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) -- 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.
Rescue workers carry a victim from Cole Hall Thursday after a gunman shot 21 people during a geology class.
Four died at the scene, including the shooter, and two later died at the hospital, he said.
At least 22 people, including a graduate student who was teaching an ocean sciences class, were shot, Peters said.
Seventeen victims were taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, its Web site said.
Of those, six 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 three others were discharged. The other five were not addressed on the Web site.
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."
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. 
See photos of the scene »
"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 a student describe the chaos at the scene »
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.
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"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 9-1-1," 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 has not been recovered, he said.
The shooter started with a shotgun, then switched to a handgun, said Grady.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives told CNN that agents were on the scene, and could help trace the weapon or weapons used. Peters said the FBI is processing the crime scene and ATF was interviewing witnesses Thursday.
Events and classes were canceled until further notice, Peters said.
Seven counseling areas were set up throughout the campus, and hotlines were established.
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. 
Learn about other recent school 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.
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.
See a map of where the shooting took place »Original here
A Pakistani view of U.S. nuclear weapons
"The [U.S.] Air Force has made substantial changes in its handling of nuclear weapons in the wake of a B-52 flight last August during which the pilots and crew were unaware they were carrying six air-launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads."
-- "Air Force Alters Rules for Handling of Nuclear Arms," Washington Post January 25, 2008.
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN, JANUARY 25--At a press conference in Islamabad today, Pakistani Brig. Gen. Atta M. Iqhman expressed concern about U.S. procedures for handling nuclear weapons. Iqhman, who oversees the safety and security of the Pakistani nuclear force, said that U.S. protocols for storing and handling nuclear weapons are inadequate. "In Pakistan, we store nuclear warheads separately from their delivery systems, and a nuclear warhead can only be activated if three separate officers agree," Iqhman said. "In the United States, almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons still sit atop missiles, on hair-trigger alert, and it only takes two launch-control officers to activate a nuclear weapon. The U.S. government has persistently ignored arms control experts around the world who have said they should at least de-alert their weapons."
Iqhman also questioned the adequacy of U.S. procedures for handling nuclear weapons. He expressed particular concern about the August 29, 2007, incident in which six nuclear weapons were accidentally loaded under the wing of a B-52 by workers who did not observe routine inspection procedures and thought they were attaching conventional weapons to the B-52. The flight navigator should have caught their mistake, but he neglected to inspect the weapons as required. For several hours the nuclear weapons were in the air without anyone's knowledge. "The United States needs to develop new protocols for storing and loading nuclear weapons, and it needs to do a better job of recruiting and training the personnel who handle them," Iqhman said.
Iqhman added the Pakistani government would be willing to offer technical advice and assistance to the United States on improving its nuclear weapons handling procedures. Speaking anonymously because of the issue's sensitivity, senior Pentagon officials said it is Washington's role to give, not receive, advice on nuclear weapons safety and surety issues.
Iqhman pointed out that the August 29 event was not an isolated incident; there have been at least 24 accidents involving nuclear weapons on U.S. planes. He mentioned a 1966 incident in which four nuclear weapons fell to the ground when two planes collided over Spain, as well as a 1968 fire that caused a plane to crash in Greenland with four hydrogen bombs aboard. In 1980, a Titan II missile in Arkansas exploded during maintenance, sending a nuclear warhead flying 600 feet through the air. In a remark that visibly annoyed a U.S. official present at the briefing, Iqhman described the U.S. nuclear arsenal as "an accident waiting to happen."
Jay Keuse of MSNBC News asked Iqhman if Pakistan was in any position to be lecturing other countries given Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's record of selling nuclear technology to other countries. "All nuclear weapons states profess to oppose proliferation while helping select allies acquire nuclear weapons technology," Iqhman replied. "The United States helped Britain and France obtain the bomb; France helped the Israelis; and Russia helped China. And China," he added coyly, "is said by Western media sources to have helped Pakistan. So why can't Pakistan behave like everyone else?"
Iqhman's deputy, Col. Bom Zhalot also expressed concern about the temperament of the U.S. public, asking whether they had the maturity and self-restraint to be trusted with the ultimate weapon. "Their leaders lecture us on the sanctity of life, and their president believes that every embryo is sacred, but they are the only country to have used these terrible weapons--not just once, but twice. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane that bombed Hiroshima, said he never lost a night's sleep over killing 100,000 people, many of them women and children. That's scarcely human."
While Iqhman glared reproachfully at Zhalot for this rhetorical outburst, Zhalot continued: "We also worry that the U.S. commander-in-chief has confessed to having been an alcoholic. Here in Pakistan, alcohol is 'haram,' so this isn't a problem for us. Studies have also found that one-fifth of U.S. military personnel are heavy drinkers. How many of those have responsibility for nuclear weapons?"
John G. Libb of the Washington Times asked if Americans were wrong to be concerned about Pakistan's nuclear stockpile given the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. Colonel Zhalot replied: "Millions of Americans believe that these are the last days and that they will be raptured to heaven at the end of the world. You have a president who describes Jesus as his favorite philosopher, and one of the last remaining candidates in your presidential primaries is a preacher who doesn't believe in evolution. Many Pakistanis worry that the United States is being taken over by religious extremists who believe that a nuclear holocaust will just put the true believers on a fast track to heaven. We worry about a nutcase U.S. president destroying the world to save it."
U.S. diplomats in Pakistan declined comment.
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