Posted on 02/19/2008 10:39:43 AM PST by Esther Ruth
Gunman's Contradictions Confound Police
By ASHLEY M. HEHER and CARYN ROUSSEAU –
DEKALB, Ill. (AP) — Steven Kazmierczak had the look of a boyish graduate student — except for the disturbing tattoos that covered his arms. Professors and students knew him as a bright, helpful scholar, but his past included a stint in a mental health center.
Many saw him as happy and stable, but he had developed a recent interest in guns and was involved in a troubled — possibly abusive — on-again, off-again relationship.
What people initially told police about the Northern Illinois University shooter didn't add up, and now investigators are searching for answers to what triggered Thursday's bloody attack, in which five students were killed and several more injured before Kazmierczak committed suicide.
While searching for a motive, authorities questioned family and friends and tried to determine whether he had recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend.
One person who knew the couple, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, said the couple's relationship was on-again, off-again and "really rocky." Kazmierczak was controlling, she said.
"He was abusive, had a temper," she said. "He didn't actually hit her; he would push her around."
The 27-year-old Kazmierczak also had a history of mental illness and had become erratic in the past two weeks after he stopped taking his medication, said university Police Chief Donald Grady.
A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak had been placed there after high school by his parents. He used to cut himself and had resisted taking his medications, she said.
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" at home, she said.
Gbadamashi couldn't remember any instances of him being violent, she said.
"He never wanted to identify with being mentally ill," she said. "That was part of the problem."
Jason Dunavan, a tattoo artist in Champaign, said he spent hours as recently as last month creating tattoos for Kazmierczak. His work included an image of the macabre doll from the horror movie "Saw" riding a tricycle through a pool of blood with images of several bleeding cuts in the background.
Dunavan said he was so proud of the tattoo that he enlarged a photo of it and placed it on a wall in his shop — a move he is now rethinking.
"I don't know if I still want that picture on my wall," said Dunavan, who also described Kazmierczak as timid and apologetic.
"He was really, really mousy."
excerpt from article
Jason Dunavan, a tattoo artist in Champaign, said he spent hours as recently as last month creating tattoos for Kazmierczak. His work included an image of the macabre doll from the horror movie “Saw” riding a tricycle through a pool of blood with images of several bleeding cuts in the background.
“A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak had been placed there after high school by his parents. He used to cut himself and had resisted taking his medications, she said.”
How in the world did he get his FOID?
All kids today have weird tattoos. what does that have to do with anything?
How many times have we seen this in the recent shootings?
Anybody else think it was taking the meds that messed him up in the first place?
Too many people murdering and committing suicide while/after taking this stuff, IMO.
“He never wanted to identify with being mentally ill,” she said. “That was part of the problem.”
I do not blame him there. Metally illness has a stigma in our society. People think you can just “snap out of it” not realizing it is an illness just like coming down with cancer, you have to treat it. You don’t “snap out of it” you recover or go into remission from depression.
From earlier radio report earlier this week, the files were sealed, report did not go into why they had been sealed. I suspect that he was a juvenile when he was released.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-niu_service_18feb18,0,907134.story
excerpts...
Jessica Baty said Kazmierczak, who killed himself with the last of 48 shots fired in the lecture hall Thursday, seemed only slightly changed after he stopped taking his medication a few weeks ago.
“He wasn’t erratic. He wasn’t delusional. He was Steve; he was normal,” Baty said in an interview Sunday on CNN.
Baty said Kazmierczak, 27, called her the night before to say goodbye.
“He called me at midnight and told me not to forget about him,” said Baty, 28.
==>> She is among many who describe Kazmierczak as a man with some demons, but ones he appeared to control as he applied himself as a curious and disciplined student.
He was in for over a year after high school. He should have been 18 when he got out.
Yes, GDan, meds seem to be often implicated in these things. They haven’t mentioned WHAT he stopped taking, either. And it is pretty unruly if you cannot be at home, imho. A whole lot of unruly is dealt with by parents.
If he was intelligent as they say, may have graduated early. Would also account for his parents being able to commit him, if he had his majority they would have not been able to commit him for so long.
There are unconfirmed reports it was Paxil, an SSRI drug somewhat similar to eg Prozac.
Illustrates that the law revisions to cover these cases of mental instability have to be done with EXTREME care. The American Medical and Psychiatric Associations have statements and advice out to doctors which seem to suggest that gun ownership is evidence of some sort of mental problem.
How many of us who own guns have been called at various times “gun nuts”? I work in a university and I get that a lot.
I’ve never been into cutting myself, but I do have tattoos. No demons here...<p.
No drugs either. If you need to hunt demons, do so in this kids doctors drug cabinet...
Friends trying to deal with the death of a loved-one get convinced they need some drug.
While on the drug they have incredible emotional side-affects, sleeping walking & talking, bizzare dreams, mood swings, suicidal thoughts.
When they quit taking the drugs they same problems get incredibly worse, until it is out of their systems.
I abhor what it has done to my friends.
As a diagnosed depressive myself, I thank God for my meds. These medicines do a world of good when used as prescribed, but can result in extremely unpredictable physical and psychological effects when users fail to follow prescribed instructions exactly. Withdrawal from their use can be especially tricky, and must be done carefully and under medical supervision — it can be a rough couple of days. I can vouch for the unpleasantness of cold-turkey withdrawal from SSRIs. (I’ve unexpectedly run out a couple of times and had to do without for short periods as a result.) One should NEVER go off one’s meds except when advised to do so by a licensed and certified physician.
I am grateful that SSRIs and other drug-based mood-disorder therapies are available, but people should always keep in mind that these are not candy, asprin, or magic feel-good pills. They are powerful psychoactive medicines and should be given the respect they deserve.
It's called "projection". Their abhorrence of anything remotely resembling self sufficiency, or the will power to discern right from wrong, lies at the heart of their own mental disorder.
According to Fox News it was PAXIL.
No. They put him on meds for a reason ... and he didn't kill anybody until he stopped taking them.
None of my kids have tattoos, wierd or not.
Yes, VPC is dangerous, but they are a private advocacy group, and what they “think” is not a big worry, at least for me. OTOH, the medical associations are powerful and advocate policies which, if passed into law, could adversely affect all of us. (I’m thinking, for example, of the recent reported questioning of a child by a psychiatrist (IIRC, it may have been a pediatrician) about whether the child’s parents owned firearms).
My kids don't have any tattoos. You are making an unsubstantiated generalization.
“Dunavan said he was so proud of the tattoo that he enlarged a photo of it and placed it on a wall in his shop — a move he is now rethinking. “
I don’t have a problem with the tatoos today. I do think it’s a little strange that everyone want’s/needs one. When growing up, the only people that ever got tattoos were military and bikers. Heck, I got one in the Marine Corps.
However it is the tatoos themselves. They worship blood and death. Same as a lot of these music groups out there. It’s also the same as a lot of these video games and slasher movies.
I’m not blaming any of these current cultural influences. They are the symptom, not the problem. I’m just wondering why the younger generation has such fascination with death??
I wonder about the timing of these massacres in relation to gun grabbers and election cycles. (But maybe my tinfoil hat is on too tight.)
I tend to be a broken record. I think the answer to every problem is Jesus Christ.
They are wasting their time trying to make every criminal fit into their profile. The can't prevent these things, because the next one won't fit their mold exactly either. The only sure way to mitigate this stuff is to encourage and enable people to defend themselves.
It makes sense that the “gun grabbers” are being influenced by the election cycle, since they are clearly hoping the dems will win and advance their gun-control agenda.
But that does not explain why there has been a jump in these shootings, not to mention somewhat of an increase in crime in general. According to police friends, the crime increase can be attributed in part to an increase in gang violence. This problem is ignored by the media because it would force them to discuss either black or (illegal-immigrant) Hispanic gangs such as MS13, and the media don’t want to go there. (There are of course a few white gangs as well, but these are not the main source of the problems).
I wonder if there is a more subtle effect here. My wife, who works in a Latin American country, noted that in the run-up to, and after the election of, a leftist president, the crime rate spiraled up. She thought part of the reason was that the politicians were engaged in a game of heightened expectations, and some of the citizenry were “upset” when the discussions before the elections (not to mention the fact that the politicians could not deliver on their promises afterward) did not lead to any improvement in their situation. I suppose people who are engaged in “social justice” issues, such as the fellow at NIU, and who may already be not totally mentally healthy, might not react well to these “social tensions”.
Pity not everyone thinks so, one day they will, either happily or otherwise.
With the current GOP front-runner, I think the grabbers are all dancing in the streets.
This dude was a fruitcake from the beginning.
No, they don’t.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/798150,021708niu.article
excerpted
Peter Rachowsky, 27, a former Elk Grove Village resident, described Kazmierczak as “pretty much my first and only friend” during junior high and their first two years of high school.
==>> Around their junior year, he said, Kazmierczak began exploring satanism and white-power movements, leading Kazmierczak’s parents to take him to specialists who put him on drugs that caused his weight to fluctuate greatly.
“He started to identify more with hatred-type stuff,” Rachowsky recalled. “It seemed like the medicine made the whole situation worse.”
Nice analysis and I thank you for it.
How many times have we seen this in the recent shootings?
Interestingly, at least one of the chemist researchers who developed Prozac for Eli Lily committed suicide. By going into the Hoosier National Forset, building a ceremonial bonfire in which he burned his company ID card, driver's license and other wallet contents, and then hanged himself.
Perhaps he was the last Eli Lily employee with a conscience.
I suppose the alternative would be to see them hanging from the lampposts and utility poles.
Ummm... did you see this?
NIU grad recalls shooter as inquisitive, smart, nice
Snip:
Our topics of choice: foreign policy and the Middle East. He would especially enjoy practicing his Arabic on me. In 2004, NIU decided to offer a year’s worth of Arabic classes. Steve took both classes without hesitation, excited as could be.
“Assalamo Alikum,” he would say to me, which means “peace be with you” in Arabic. He would proceed to ask me how I was doing and what I was up to, all in Arabic with a thick accent and a huge, excited smile.
Sometimes I was his walking dictionary and he would ask me, “What does this word mean in English?” or “What is this word in Arabic?”
We would debate on issues, sometimes argue, but he would always back his arguments with facts. It was about logic and things adding up to him.
Once we took a course called “The Politics of the Middle East.” At the beginning of the course, our instructor informed us a research paper would be due by the end of the semester. Steve decided on Hamas, which is known mainly to the world as being a Palestinian terrorist group, which was the first thing that interested Steve about the group. But he also heard Hamas funded many social services, which also interested him. How could one group be put into two completely different categories, Steve would ask.
Unlike most of us, Steve started his research from day one, reading every book he could find on Hamas. He’d give me a status report when we saw each other in class. Steve said that his perception of Hamas changed with all the research he did.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/801984,niugrad021908.article#
Now the question is, what else did he mail to his girlfriend besides books (The Anti-christ was one), a new cell phone and weapon accessories?
Just like everyone forgot about the Talovic Salt Lake City Murder Spree (Utah)... muslim:
Sudden Jihad Syndrome
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=256521423294106
It sure looks like that.
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