A gunman opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University yesterday shooting and injuring at least 17 students, some critically, before turning the weapon on himself.
The university was in lockdown and classes cancelled following the shooting in Cole Hall near the King Commons, a central gathering place on the 25,000 student campus.
It is believed around 140 students were attending a geology class when the gunman entered from behind a curtain holding a shotgun at around 3pm.
Kishwaukee Community hospital in DeKalb, 65 miles west of Chicago, was last night expecting to receive the victims from the shootings - including four with head wounds. Two victims were flown by helicopter to another hospital in Rockford, officials said.
Witnesses in the class described students fleeing with terror and scrambling over desks as the man, wearing a black trench-coat, began firing with the shotgun and also with a pistol. One described the gunman "nonchalantly" reloading his weapon when he ran out of cartridges.
George Gaynor, a fourth-year geography student, was in Cole Hall, and told the student newspaper the gunman "a skinny white guy with a stocking cap on." He said the class had been near its end, but had suddenly turned terrifying and chaotic: "Some girl got hit in the eye, a guy got hit in the leg. It was, like, five minutes before class ended too."
Student Edward Robinson told WLS-TV the gunman appeared to target one section: "It was almost like he knew who he wanted to shoot. He knew who and where he wanted to be firing at."
DeKalb police lieutenant Gary Spangler confirmed that afterward the gunman had turned his weapon on himself.
Jim Kayes, a retired lieutenant working for the police department, said that ambulances and police officers from across the county had been scrambled to the scene, while students had helped give first aid.
Student Dominique Broxton, 22, had been in her dormitory, watching events on campus outside the hall. She told the Chicago Tribune by phone: "The ambulance took away two students on the ground right outside my dorm. They looked bloody. Students were running. People really didn't know what was going on. There is an intercom system inside the dorm. Someone came on and stated that someone had been caught. They said they caught the shooter, and that we should remain calm and stay in our rooms. I am in my room now."
Joe King, a spokesman for the university, gave an official statement, saying: "There has been a shooting on campus. Several people have been taken away by ambulance. The DeKalb campus is shut down. We have set up several hotlines where parents can call to get information. Internally, we have used everything at our disposal to notify the students. There will be counsellors available."
Student Joe Muller said: "I am shocked that someone was able to get in a shotgun into an auditorium. But you always get one psycho in any school."
The incident is the fourth campus shooting in the United States over the past week. Northern Illinois University closed for one day in final exam week in December when campus police found threats, including racial slurs and references to shootings earlier in the year at Virginia Tech, scrawled on a dormitory bathroom wall. Police decided there was no imminent threat and the campus reopened.
On February 8, in Louisiana a woman shot and killed two fellow students before committing suicide at a technical college in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tennessee, a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and wounding a fellow student on Monday in a high school, while a 15-year-old shot at a high school in Oxnard, California, has been declared brain dead.