Posted on 02/16/2008 10:53:04 AM PST by Petruchio
DEKALB, Ill. — Steven Kazmierczak checked into a hotel near Northern Illinois University three days before his deadly shooting spree at the campus, paying cash and signing in under only his first name, the hotel manager said Saturday.
Kazmierczak was last seen at the Travelodge on Tuesday, hotel manager Jay Patel said. Cigarette butts, empty energy drink and cold medicine containers littered the room Friday.
Authorities found a duffel bag, with the zippers glued shut, that Kazmierczak had left in the room, DeKalb police Lt. Gary Spangler said. A bomb squad safely opened the bag Friday, he said.
The Chicago Tribune reported Saturday that investigators found ammunition inside the bag, citing law enforcement sources. Spangler would not comment on what was in the bag.
Kazmierczak also left a laptop computer, which was seized by investigators, Patel told The Associated Press.
"It's scary," said Patel, adding that he called police when he found the laptop and clothes.
The discoveries added to the puzzles surrounding Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old graduate student some called quiet, dependable and fun-loving. He returned to his alma mater on Valentine's Day and killed five people before turning a gun on himself.
A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak's parents placed him there after high school. She said he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications.
He had a short-lived stint as a prison guard that ended abruptly when he didn't show up for work. He also was in the Army for about six months in 2001-02, but he told a friend he'd gotten a psychological discharge.
Exactly what set Kazmierczak off — and why he picked his former university and that particular lecture hall — remained a mystery.
On Thursday, Kazmierczak, armed with three handguns and a pump-action shotgun, stepped from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on a geology class. He killed five students before committing suicide.
University Police Chief Donald Grady said Friday that Kazmierczak had become erratic in the past two weeks after he stopped taking his medication.
Kazmierczak spent more than a year at the Thresholds-Mary Hill House in the late 1990s, former house manager Louise Gbadamashi told The Associated Press. His parents placed him there after high school because he had become unruly, she said.
Gbadamashi said she couldn't remember any instances of him being violent.
"He never wanted to identify with being mentally ill," she said. "That was part of the problem."
The attack was baffling to many who knew him.
"Steve was the most gentle, quiet guy in the world. ... He had a passion for helping people," said Jim Thomas, an emeritus professor of sociology and criminology at Northern Illinois who taught Kazmierczak, promoted him to a teacher's aide and became his friend.
Kazmierczak once told Thomas about getting a discharge from the Army.
"It was no major deal, a kind of incompatibility discharge — for a state of mind, not for any behavior," Thomas said. "He was concerned that that on his record might be a stigma."
Kazmierczak enlisted in September 2001, but was discharged in February 2002 for an unspecified reason, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said.
He worked from Sept. 24 to Oct. 9 as a corrections officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Rockville, Ind. His tenure there ended when "he just didn't show up one day," Indiana prisons spokesman Doug Garrison said.
On Friday, investigators interviewed Kazmierczak's father in Lakeland, Fla., and his former girlfriend in Champaign, the Chicago Tribune reported. Investigators provided no details about what they may have learned.
Authorities were looking into whether Kazmierczak and the woman recently broke up, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation.
On Feb. 9, Kazmierczak walked into a Champaign gun store and picked up two guns — a Remington shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun. He bought the two other handguns at the same shop — a Hi-Point .380 on Dec. 30 and a Sig Sauer on Aug. 6.
All four guns were bought legally from a federally licensed firearms dealer, said Thomas Ahern, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. At least one criminal background check was performed — Kazmierczak had no criminal record.
Kazmierczak had a State Police-issued FOID, or firearms owners identification card, which is required in Illinois to own a gun, authorities said. Such cards are rarely issued to those with recent mental health problems.
NIU President John Peters said Kazmierczak compiled "a very good academic record, no record of trouble" at the 25,000-student campus in DeKalb. He won at least two awards and served as an officer in two student groups dedicated to promoting understanding of the criminal justice system.
Kazmierczak (pronounced kaz-MUR-chek) grew up in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village. He was a B student at Elk Grove High School, where school district spokeswoman Venetia Miles said he was active in band and took Japanese before graduating in 1998. He was also in the chess club.
No one answered the door Saturday morning at the Urbana home of Kazmierczak's sister, Susan. But sobs could be heard through the door, where a posted statement said:
"We are both shocked and saddened. In addition to the loss of innocent lives, Steven was a member of our family. We are grieving his loss as well as the loss of life resulting from his actions."
At NIU, six white crosses were placed on a snow-covered hill around the center of campus, which was closed Friday. They included the names of four victims — Daniel Parmenter, Ryanne Mace, Julianna Gehant, Catalina Garcia. The two other crosses were blank, though officials have identified Kazmierczak's final victim as Gayle Dubowski.
By Friday night, dozens of candles flickered in packed snow at makeshift memorials around campus as hundreds of students, mostly wearing the school colors of red and black, packed a memorial service.
"It's kind of overwhelming. It feels strong, it feels like we're all in this together," said Carlee Siggeman, 18, a freshman from Genoa who attended the vigil with friends.
___
Associated Press writers Don Babwin, Deanna Bellandi, Dave Carpenter, Tamara Starks, Carla K. Johnson, Lindsey Tanner, David Mercer, Nguyen Huy Vu, Michael Tarm and Mike Robinson in Chicago, Anthony McCartney in Lakeland, Fla., and Matt Apuzzo and Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed to this report, along with the AP News Research Center in New York.
As crazy as he was, he was certainly sane enough to pick a gun-free zone for his slaughter.
When was the last time one of these perps chose a gun range, police station or a military base for their mass shootings?
When you focus on the crazy part, there was some really wierd stuff going on.
Shootings at Virginia Tech, Omaha mall, and now Northern Illinois University highlight popular wisdom for proclaiming “gun free “ zones. Popular reticence surrounds the outcome at New Life Church where a woman volunteer (not security guard) saved lives using her pistol.
A rigorous, twenty-year study by John Lott and William Landes from University of Chicago Law School supports expanded concealed carry in public use places. Passage of shall issue laws correlates with large decreases in multiple victim shootings, and reduced harm when shootings occur.
Citizen deadly force makes startling interruptions causing assailants to abandon or improvise plans. Police respond to incidences in progress, instead of arriving for body counts and paperwork.
Also important were absences of shootings. Public shootings provide perpetrators leading roles in malevolent fantasies. Previously imagined screams and explosions suddenly penetrate their beings, embellished by intimate, self-created visual stimuli of human terror, bloody mists, broken bodies, culminating in a crescendo of butchery and suicide at their chosen moment. The latent presence of armed citizens provides disqualifying deterrents, leading prospective murderers to abandon fantasies, or to seek supportive environments of “gun free’ zones.
Officials and media choose to weave comforting security elusions around incidents such as Northern Illinois University, Omaha mall or Virginia Tech. Businesses and colleges tout disturbing protocols for evacuating, witnessing, communicating, containing, coordinating, notifying, and counseling, while not revealing minimum police response times provide murderers five to ten minutes for uninterrupted violence. Cases of armed citizens thwarting public violence remain unrevealed.
Link to Study: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=272929
Cutters should not have a firearm permit. There should be a roll up you sleeve test in the permit process.
"The massacre was the fifth school shooting in a week, following episodes in Ohio, Louisiana, Tennessee and California that left a total of five dead.
And it came 10 months after 32 students and faculty were shot down by a mentally disturbed student at Virginia Tech University in the deadliest massacre ever at a US school.
"There is a contagion effect," said James Alan Fox, an author and criminologist. "They identify with the power of the perpetrator rather than the pain of the victim."
WHAT MEDICATIONS WAS HE ON? WHAT WAS HIS DIAGNOSIS?
Time for the media to quit obfuscating about this. My guess is that it was an ADHD or SSRI type drug.
I’d like to know how a mentally ill person gets hired as a prison guard.
Here is his myspace page
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=92521053
oops nevermind. It’s not him. Sorry
My guess is that it was attention deficit or mild depression, something that HUGE percentages of college students are medicated for. And I wouldn’t be surprised if large percentages of guards were so diagnosed. Until they come out and say for sure, the kid did not stand out from the college crowd at all.
SSRIs !
At least some stereotypes come from somewhere.
I think you fall into the liberal trap regarding firearms and responsibility.
People OUT of college the same age (and somewhat older) get drunk, go out and somehow (unless they’re already criminally-inclined) avoid shooting up places, many of them even carry (or at least have something in the car.)
This idea that drunken college boys would bust shots off in the lecture hall or other stuff ignores the fact that any malevolent OR foolish person can DO THAT NOW (as doing so would be a crime, regardless of permits and it just doesn’t happen.)
For the millionth time, the streets did not run red with the blood of the innocent in all the states that have shall issue or ‘no permit required.’ Same would apply to colleges where liberal orthodoxy would be a self-policing mentality, keeping most people disarmed except the ones that might actually make a difference in the next school shooting.
The same way a mentally ill person buys firearms from a retail gunshop, it appears. As with the VA Tech shooter, this guy wasn't sent to a psychiatric hospital against his will. He voluntarily entered a "rehab" clinic, so there was no reporting involved which a background check (by either a prospective employer or a gun dealer) would've picked up.
Doesn’t sound so mild if it landed him in a group home and out of the military. People with mild depression or ADHD do not usually commit mass murder when ‘off their meds.’ Do mild depressives cut? That is pretty extreme. The concept of needing medication so badly that going off meds would be so catastrophic points to bipolar or mild schizophrenia. Just speculating. I am aware of the SSRI syndrome too. We will have to wait and see.
Kazmierczak spent more than a year at the Thresholds-Mary Hill House in the late 1990s, former house manager Louise Gbadamashi told The Associated Press. His parents placed him there after high school because he had become unruly, she said. He had a short-lived stint as a prison guard that ended abruptly when he didn't show up for work. He also was in the Army for about six months in 2001-02, but he told a friend he'd gotten a psychological discharge. Kazmierczak enlisted in September 2001, but was discharged in February 2002 for an unspecified reason, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said. He worked from Sept. 24 to Oct. 9 as a corrections officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Rockville, Ind. His tenure there ended when "he just didn't show up one day," Indiana prisons spokesman Doug Garrison said.
A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak's parents placed him there after high school. She said he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications.
Ok. He Graduated High School in 1998. That means he spent over a year in a Mental Institution sometime in the range of 1998 to 2000. Roughly one year later he enlists in the Army and is discharged 6 months later. Only 6 months after that he gets a job as a Prison Guard! Think about the time frame here. He is hired as a Prison Guard 6 months after his Army psychological discharge. AND this is roughly 2 years from his release from a Mental Institution. This alone is some spectacular weirdness in anti-gun Illinois.
Now, let's fast forward 5 years to 2007. On Aug. 6, 2007 he buys 2 handguns. In order to do that in anti-gun Illinois, he needs a F.O.I.D. card. Question #3 on the F.O.I.D. application says
3. In the past 5 years, have you been a patient in any medical facility or part of any medical facility used primarily for the care or treatment of persons for mental illness?
Hmmmmm, Looks like he Juuuuuuuust cleared that 5 year hurdle . . .
Next, in order to purchase he had to fill out a ATF F 4473 each time, and then go through the instant check.
ATF F 4473 line 11e Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?ATF F 4473 line 1f Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes having been adjudicated incompetent to manage your own affairs) or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?
Once again he skins by on a technicalities. (11e) He took (and then stopped) some forms of psychotropic medication, but they were not illegal because they were prescribed. (11f) He was not adjudicated , his own family placed him in the Institution, not a Court.
As we can see, 20,000 gun laws could not stop a deranged shooter. The only possible solution that had any chance of stopping him was if others in the immediate area were carrying concealed firearms and were in a position to return fire.
I am just sick and tired (as we all are) with these people who want to be famous on the day of their suicide. And the media feeds right into it. How about they report the story,etc. but never show the shooter’s picture, and never mention their name. How about , when they are digging into the past life,etc, they stress the cowardice. The shame that is brought onto the families, friends,etc.Remove all glory any twisted mind might perceive..
Don’t they do psychological testing for prison employment? Just curious.
My guess is that it was an ADHD or SSRI type drug.
BING- lots of these quiet types turn into psychos on this stuff.
and the cold medecine? was he self medicating? That stuff will make you crazy
The universities should place a loaded weapon behind every chair and under every desk for emergency use. Of course securely fashioned with a cord to the chair or desk to prevent thief.
Since it isn’t practicable for airlines to allow guns on their planes I think every passenger should have access to a baseball bat in case of hijackings.
I don’t know, but if they did, I bet they’d find you pretty much have to be crazy as a loon to work at a prison.
It is not so much the use of SSRIs as the rapid transition
off the mind altering drugs without supervision.
ADHD or SSRI type drug.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
My guess as well.
Unlike VA Tech where armed students may have stopped the shooter, I don’t think it would have mattered here. It sounds like he ripped off a bunch of rounds then shot himself. Perhaps in less than 20 seconds?
This guy’s actions contradict the claim that the mentally ill are harmless, misunderstood, needlessly stigmatized, etc. Anyone who suffers from a serious mental illness, which prevents him from behaving rationally and which makes him a threat to himself or to others, should either be institutionalized or forced to take medication. Anyone who goes off his meds, should be re-institutionalized as soon as possible.
It is time to stop pretending that people with serious mental illnesses are competent to decide whether or not they should receive treatment. We aren’t serving their real interests or the interests of the rest of society by pretending that they are just like everyone else.
Thanks for your post. It just doesn’t seem right that some people go thru life with this struggle. And I’m glad that you found something that works for you.
According to Fox News it was PAXIL.
2. Gee he was always nice!
3. yes, as his parents we KNEW he was a loaded gun, we just never knew his safety was off and he'd shoot!
eings Gee, could there be a common thread here?? Social outcast with bad haircut likes guns, is on psychiatric meds, stops taking meds, was always quiet, family knew he was nuts yet allowed him access to normal civilized human beings, they knew he'd explode, always chooses a school setting etc., etc., etc! Let's put the parents and pyschiatric workers in jail!
You’re very right. Virtually all the recent mass killers who weren’t Muslims were mentally ill (well, Islam may be a form of mental illness, but that’s a whole nother story...).
I remember years ago reading about someone being discharged from a mental hospital in California (and I hate to say it, but it was Reagan who emptied the mental hospitals there). He pleaded with them to keep him, told them he knew he’d do something else, and said that he felt like “a puppy on the freeway.” Sure enough, not long after that he killed a couple of people, one of them his grandmother, who he then cut up and barbecued on the backyard grill.
All of this started in the 60s with a press piece on a mental hospital on Staten Island. Some of their practices weren’t great, but a lot of them were all that could be done with the state of medication at that point. Then the cause was taken up by raving liberals, urged on by the idiot leftist shrink Lang, who declared that only the mentally ill were truly sane, and it was all a reaction to capitalism.
Meanwhile, on the right, short-sighted people thought that the state could save money by shutting down the mental hospitals. They didn’t count in the public health, police and sanitation services required by the mentally ill on the street.
Nor did the folks in charge count the enormous financial loss caused by homicide - not only the loss of the tax payments of that individual, but in many cases, the loss of income from other people who were profoundly affected by the death of this person. It is said that up to 50 people are profoundly affected by every homicide, and something like 250 in an indirect way.
It could be that the profoundly affected people were employees of a small business who were unemployed after the owner of the business was killed; spouses who were emotionally destroyed and could not work; children who could no longer stay in school; there are many possibilities. But thinking that releasing the mentally ill onto the streets was a cost-saving measure was a big and truly tragic mistake.
From the way he plucks his eyebrows, I don't think we'll be hearing from any girlfriends of his.
Just as the MSM is reluctant to report when a wrongdoer is a minority or a Democrat, you won't hear much about this psycho being an "eyebrow-plucker."
That's Irish Catholic, right? :-)
On Friday, investigators interviewed Kazmierczak's father in Lakeland, Fla., and his former girlfriend in Champaign
Apparently he did date at least one female. Maybe they broke up because his eyebrows were cuter than hers . . .
I am sure that the meds have helped you tremendously and equally, I can’t help but feel that it was something strong and good within yourself that saw you through those dark times. God bless.
Psych workers, maybe yes. I think legislators and judges more likely need it. The family has no control over nuts. I can tell you from first hand experience with a nutty family member. You simply cannot put them away anymore. They have more "rights" than you or I do.
On a guy I think those kind of eyebrows are a tip off that the guy is either a gay drag queen, or a cross-dresser on the weekends. I’m thinking maybe he would sometimes dress up as a girl, or actually wanted to be a girl.
It would be interesting to know if he had a wig and makeup in his duffel bag and/or pictures of himself dressed up as a girl on his laptop...
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