IL - Five killed, 21 injured in shooting at NIU campus, DeKalb, 14 Feb 2008

[SuziQ]

I totally agree with you. There is no civil right to be able to purchase weapons from the internet. This young man began displaying disturbing signs before he purchased the guns, and just maybe a face-to-face encounter with a gun dealer would have resulted in him being denied the weapons.

The V-tech shooter purchased a weapon from the online dealer. The NIU shooter purchased accessories. Both are bad, IMO. Just wanted to clarify.

 

[Taximom]

Someone should have red flagged this guy a long time ago. The warning signs were there. The Military knew it. His parents knew it. His friends knew it.

Why was he allowed to purchase the guns? When the Military discharged him for mental defect...he should not have been able to buy a gun after that.

It makes me so angry that people who see the signs do nothing to prevent these killings. Every story has someone saying they knew he was messed up yet nothing is being said about what anyone did about keeping the public safe from him. Our laws need to be changed as far as mental illness goes. It is ridiculously difficult to keep a person locked up where they belong. (Look at BS and her stints in the hospital)

I totally agree that he shouldn't have been able to buy guns w/the mental defect issue from the Marines. I don't know, though, how you "red-flag" anyone. There's just not much you can do with these odd individuals in real life. The police won't do anything. Parents can't really do anything. Teachers, co-workers and friends can't do anything.

Maybe we need some type of national registry for people that we think are going to blow away others at work or school.

Trouble is, I think there would be quite a few on that list with relatively few that would follow through on that.

 

[Taximom]

Oops, forgot to post this. I don't think I saw this link on this thread yet:
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080217/NEWS03/802170402/1013
(there's 2 pages)
Photographs from inside Kazmierczak's hotel room showed a bag of cotton balls on the bed, a flashlight on a night stand and empty bottles of water, Gatorade and Red Bull in a bedside drawer.
Spread around the room on counters, in drawers and in the trash were empty cartons of cigarettes, a container of first-aid cream, a box of adhesive bandages, partially filled blister packs of nonprescription pain relievers, a variety of cold medicines and decongestants, and a facial moisturizer. (more at link)

 

[shadowraiths]

Killer sent ominous note
AMMO FOUND | Girlfriend devastated, prof says
BY NATASHA KORECKI, DAVE NEWBART AND ABDON M. PALLASCH
Chicago Sun-Times
February 17, 2008

DEKALB -- Just before Thursday's shootings, Northern Illinois University killer Steve Kazmierczak sent a girlfriend a package with a note saying not to open it before Thursday, sources told the Sun-Times.

Ominously, the note said, "and you'll know why," she told authorities.

When she opened the package, she found ammunition, sources said.

As they searched for reasons Kazmierczak shot to death five NIU students and himself Thursday, authorities interviewed the girlfriend, who lived with him in Champaign, sources told the Sun-Times. She told authorities Kazmierczak had gone off his medications and had been moody, sources said.

Did they really break up?

But Jim Thomas, a professor who was a mentor to Kazmierczak and also taught the girlfriend at NIU, said he's not so sure they had broken up.

"Don't believe everything you hear. Relationships are like that. . . . [They were] two college kids in their mid to late 20s. They had the exact relationship issues everybody else has. . . . I saw nothing in their relationship I didn't see in anybody else's.''

Thomas said she's devastated by the murders.

She "is a normal, wonderful, warm human being. The press has hounded her," said Thomas, a professor emeritus of sociology. "I consider her a friend. . . . Anybody in this position would be devastated. . . . You would be devastated and confused if there was no indications."

Full article: click here

Btw, he had a website but its been hosed. If I can access it, however, I will def archive.

 

[golfmom]

Btw, he had a website but its been hosed. If I can access it, however, I will def archive.

I'm anxiously hoping you can capture it shadow!

 

[Cypros]

I have read in several reports that Kazmierczak went off of his medications about three weeks ago, but have not seen anything about why he did this. Was it because he could not afford them? Did they have side effects that he did not want to deal with any more? Was his decision to go off the meds against the advice of his doctor or were they experimenting with some new treatment?

Thanks for any information on this.

 

[shadowraiths]

Associated Press - February 17, 2008 6:44 PM ET

WONDER LAKE, Ill. (AP) - The girlfriend of Northern Illinois University gunman Steven Kazmierczak (kaz-MUR'-chehk) says the man with whom she was planning to spend her future "was anything but a monster."

[...]

She confirmed he'd stopped taking an antidepressant about three weeks ago because "it made him feel like a zombie."

Full article: click here

Comment: I'm beginning to see a pattern. To wit:

• Parents took him to see docs after highschool
• Per friend, he seemed to get worse after going on psychopharms
• Began cutting (which landed him in a MH facility for a year)
• Focus of research paper included hypothesis that SIB was a result of the way institutions implemented their programs
• Went off meds bc they "made him feel like a zombie"
• Was on more than Paxil (an SSRI) which includes, among one of its side effects, suicidality and homicidality for 1 in 12 people (see Breggin)

Since Paxil should not cause a "zombie like" effect, I'm wondering if he was also being prescribed an antipsychotic (Zyprexa or Risperdal), in which case, he would also be taking Cogenten. Among the side effects for antipsychotics, is a "zombie like" feeling. From what I've seen, psychiatrists seem to have a nasty habit of prescribing these to people who aren't exp psychotic symptomology. Also, if reports are to be believed, he had been on psychopharms for close to a decade, and studies do show that extended use of some psychopharms are contraindicated.

Anyway, just my 2cents

 

[Taximom]

Very interesting, shadowraiths.

I do hope there are no more victims, ala his girlfriend. I hope the press can leave her alone. I hope she doesn't kill herself.

 

[Taximom]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080218..._girlfriend;_ylt=Au_sRhDgrOACsGx5EUO1wVxH2ocA
Gunman called girlfriend to say goodbye
Steven Kazmierczak "called me at midnight and told me not to forget about him," Jessica Baty, 28, told CNN from her home. She said she had no indication he was planning anything. (more at link)

 

[dee10134]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080218..._girlfriend;_ylt=Au_sRhDgrOACsGx5EUO1wVxH2ocA
Gunman called girlfriend to say goodbye
Steven Kazmierczak "called me at midnight and told me not to forget about him," Jessica Baty, 28, told CNN from her home. She said she had no indication he was planning anything. (more at link)

I really feel sorry for her. Seems like she got dragged into this whole mess. I'm sure she loved him and is grieving for him. It's a shame that no one saw that he was slipping away. Even she said he was normal and nothing was apparently wrong with him, but then again love IS blind, maybe she CHOSE not to see it.

 

[Taximom]

I'm still confused about his last phone call to her. If my current bf or someone that I had just broken up with called me and said "Don't forget me", it might make me think he was going to kill himself. I know I wouldn't think "gee, he's going to go crazy on a college campus" though.

As much as I think she deserves her privacy etc., I am wondering if we know all that went on between them the last few days.

 

[PrayersForMaura]

No one has any idea why he chose that particular class to invade or why he did what he did??? That is too random.

 

[Pharlap]

I'm still confused about his last phone call to her. If my current bf or someone that I had just broken up with called me and said "Don't forget me", it might make me think he was going to kill himself. I know I wouldn't think "gee, he's going to go crazy on a college campus" though.

As much as I think she deserves her privacy etc., I am wondering if we know all that went on between them the last few days.

Maybe she didn't know he was suicidal.
He seem to fool a lot of people that didn't know of his history.
However he being a cutter, she would of seen the marks on him I would think.

 

[dee10134]

Maybe she didn't know he was suicidal.
He seem to fool a lot of people that didn't know of his history.
However he being a cutter, she would of seen the marks on him I would think.

From what I understand, he was a cutter when he was back in high school, which would have been 10 years ago or so, at the very least. Maybe he grew out of that "phase" or maybe the meds he was on helped in that respect.

He did have "sleeves" tattooed up and down his arms from what I've seen in photos and read in various articles. IDK about his legs or the rest of his body... Maybe tattooing took the place of cutting for him....

 

[dee10134]

Maybe she didn't know he was suicidal.
He seem to fool a lot of people that didn't know of his history.
However he being a cutter, she would of seen the marks on him I would think.

I got the gist that she was a psychology/sociology major (from the note he left her). She would have been able to tell if he was suicidal, especially if she's a psych major or psych grad student. I think she's telling the truth about him. Maybe he hid his true self under a carefully constructed facade...

 

[dee10134]

I'm still confused about his last phone call to her. If my current bf or someone that I had just broken up with called me and said "Don't forget me", it might make me think he was going to kill himself. I know I wouldn't think "gee, he's going to go crazy on a college campus" though.

As much as I think she deserves her privacy etc., I am wondering if we know all that went on between them the last few days.

Me too, Taxi. If someone called me at 12 am and said that to me, I'd be asking all sorts of questions, mostly "Why?", "Are you okay?", and "What's going on?"

Makes me think they did break up and she took that conversation to mean that he didn't want her to forget about him when she moved on with her life...

 

[Dryad]

I think I read in one of the articles that he stated he was leaving for a few weeks/month to spend time with his godfather in another town he hadn't seen in a long time, so that may have been the "goodbye" reason. And they did just break up, and supposedly told his godfather he had another girlfriend (which has not been proven).

 

[Taximom]

Oh, see if someone I loved were going away for a while I can see how that "don't forget me" could be taken lightly. I haven't been able to keep up with all the articles.

I feel so sorry for all those families. This is so horrible.

 

[golfmom]

The kids are all wearing black today in memory of the campus shooting.

 

[philamena]

Associated Press - February 17, 2008 6:44 PM ET
....
Since Paxil should not cause a "zombie like" effect, I'm wondering if he was also being prescribed an antipsychotic (Zyprexa or Risperdal),
Anyway, just my 2cents

I have a loved one who's taken Paxil and Risperdal for years with no harmful effects. BUT in 2007 Dr's. started questioning the effects of these combined meds. For my loved one they've worked just fine. For others the two taken together can cause sever depression and paranoia because they can cancel each other out.