The Wall Street Journal-20080215-Gunman Kills Students- Himself in Illinois

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Gunman Kills Students, Himself in Illinois

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A gunman walked into a crowded college lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University yesterday afternoon with a shotgun and two pistols, shot the teacher and then began firing into the crowd, killing five students and injuring several others before killing himself, authorities said.

The shooter, who officials said wasn't a student at the university, was described as a tall, thin, white man wearing dark clothes and a black ski hat. He entered the lecture hall from behind a screen at the rear of the stage at about 3 p.m., 10 minutes before a geology class was scheduled to end.

"I was just sitting there taking some notes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that there was another man on the stage," Desiree Smith, a student in the class, told WGN television in Chicago. "I looked up and saw he had a huge gun. The next thing I know I heard a loud pop."

Witnesses described a terrifying scene as about 100 students in the hall scrambled screaming out of the room while the gunman fired before he shot himself on the stage, according to the television station's reports. Authorities said a total 16 people were injured, in addition to the five who were killed, according to the Associated Press.

"At this point I'm being told it was less than two minutes," University Police Chief Donald Grady told the Associated Press. "This thing started and ended in a matter of seconds." Police hadn't determined a motive for the shooting.

Northern Illinois University has about 25,000 students. It is located in DeKalb, Ill., a rural town 65 miles west of Chicago. The shooting comes two months after the campus was locked down for an entire day after a student scrawled racial slurs on a bathroom wall.