News: 2008 Northern Illinois Shooting

I was a freshman in college when I joined Central Michigan Life. During second semester, I was asked to localize the Northern Illinois University shooting. It was my first cover piece for CM Life and the first large story I only had one day to gather information and contact sources.

'Close to home' published in Central Michigan Life on February 18, 2008.
 

Last week’s Northern Illinois University tragedy hit home for Stan Shingles.

Nineteen years ago, the director of University Recreational Services taught at NIU, and he still has friends who work there. Five students were killed Thursday in a lecture hall shooting.

Shingles said it frightens people at CMU because the NIU shooting, as well as the April 16 shooting at Virginia Tech that left 32 students dead, both occurred in rural towns.

“What’s alarming to all of us is that Blacksburg, Va., and DeKalb, Ill., are very much like Mount Pleasant,” Shingles said. “They’re rural college towns, so we all have this perception of being safe because they’re not urban centered – but what happened at Virginia Tech and at Northern Illinois can happen at Central Michigan.”

At approximately 3 p.m. Thursday, Stephen Kazmierczak opened fire with a shotgun and two handguns during a Geology lecture in NIU’s Cole Hall, shooting 22 students before killing himself.


University President Michael Rao offered his condolences to the students and faculty of NIU on CMU’s Web site.

“We cannot even begin to imagine what our friends at NIU are enduring at this moment,” Rao said. “But our thoughts and prayers are and will continue to be with them.”

Sending condolences

The impact of Thursday’s shooting has been felt on CMU’s campus.

Students, faculty and others signed a condolence card throughout the weekend outside the Volunteer Center, filling the card with messages such as “God bless you” and “Stay strong.”

The card will be sent to NIU today, along with a letter from Rao.

Since Friday, CMU’s Web site also features a message from Rao, saying, “Today CMU and NIU stand united.”

Mount Pleasant sophomore Rebecca Ouvry said she thinks there should be a vigil in memory of those killed in the shooting.

“We should show them our support during this time,” Ouvry said. “We would want their support.”

Afterthoughts

Dean of Students Bruce Roscoe said he thinks the shooting will make people see how violent the world is.

“University campuses are no longer the protected environment they once were,” Roscoe said. “We’ve often thought for a long time that bad things don’t happen on university campuses, and clearly they do.”

Clinton Township junior Josh Flaugher said violence can happen anywhere.

“I think in this period of terrorist attacks, we know it could happen anywhere,” he said. “Incidents just so happened to have happened at two universities.”

Despite two college shootings in less than one year, many CMU students are not concerned for their safety on campus.

“I know since Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, they are going to take better precautions and prepare better for incidents like them,” said Walker junior Sarah DeVoe.

news@cm-life.com

Working- and middle-class

hometowns grieve NIU victims

By LINDSEY TANNER and

CARYN ROUSSEAU

Associated Press Writers

CICERO, Ill. (AP) – The sprawling Chicago suburbs that send their sons and daughters to Northern Illinois University struggled Sunday with the closeness of the country’s latest massacre – this time the gunman grew up among them.

The tragedy hung over church services throughout the region, from the university’s home in DeKalb on Chicago’s western exurban edge, to Elk Grove Village, where the gunman grew up in what one resident called “Mayberry,” to blue-collar Cicero bordering Chicago.

Parishioners at Our Lady of the Mount Catholic Church in Cicero prepared for the funeral of Catalina Garcia, the youngest of four children of parents originally from Guadalajara, Mexico. They’re longtime parishioners at Our Lady of the Mount, a tight-knit group of low- and middle-income families, many of them young, with some older Czech and other immigrants.

“Their parents are making all sorts of sacrifices to make sure the kids get into colleges. They’re selling things, they’re taking out second mortgages on their homes,” the Rev. Lawrence Collins said at the church.

Garcia, 20, followed a brother, Jaime, to NIU, choice of many working-class Chicago-area families. She was studying to be a teacher and had talked about returning to Cicero to teach first grade.

“It hits really close to home,” Collins said.