Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

CBC news..

Six people, including the gunman, died in the shooting.

Investigators are continuing to scour the campus of Northern Illinois University Friday, a day after a gunman shot and killed five students and took his own life.

Police say they have found no motive for the shooting, which happened Thursday afternoon in a university lecture hall as students were attending an oceanography class.

Sixteen other people were injured, but their conditions are not known.

The university website said the gunman, who shot and killed himself, was a graduate student in sociology who last enrolled in spring 2007. Police said he was armed with a shotgun and two handguns.

Four people died at the scene, including three students and the gunman, while two other students died at hospital, university president John Peters said Thursday.

Authorities did not release any other details about the gunman or identify the victims.
Peters told a news conference Thursday evening that witnesses said "someone dressed in black came out from behind a screen at the front of the classroom and opened fire with a shotgun."

He called it a "brief, rapid-fire assault."

"This thing started and ended in a matter of seconds," university police Chief Donald Grady said.

About 200 students and other mourners gathered on the campus around midnight for a candlelight vigil for the victims. Some cried and hugged, while others prayed.

The school will remain closed Friday and all weekend activities on campus have been cancelled.

Students fled in panic

"People were crawling on each other, trampling each other," said student Desiree Smith, who lay down and worked her way toward the back of the lecture hall.

"As I got near the door, I got up and I started running."

Student Jerry Santoni said he saw the gunman shoot at the teacher.

"After that, I proceeded to get down as fast as I could," he said.

The teacher was wounded but is expected to recover, Peters said.

A student who was in the lecture hall when the shooting began told the university paper that the scene was chaotic.

"Some girl got hit in the eye, a guy got hit in the leg," George Gaynor told the Northern Star.

The university, which has about 25,000 students enrolled, is about 100 kilometres west of Chicago.

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

Is this becoming some kind of new trend or something?

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

As much as I hate to say it, it certainly appears that way. Wtf is wrong with these kids?

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

I think a more important question would be what makes something be so wrong with these kids?

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

Thanks to the media it's a sure way of getting noticed...

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

Bit killing yourself afterward I mean, if you wanted attention for a brief moment and are prepared to end your life as the price for it, wow.

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

I'd think wanting to end their lives is not so much the price as the main reason they plan something of the sort. If you're dead anyway, you needn't worry about consequences so you might as well strike back at whomever you think made your life so miserable in the process, whether that's one or more individuals or the system.

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

Yeah, seems like people are getting the idea of, "Hey, they can't punish me if I'm dead."

Kinda makes you hesitate about the idea of college anymore, don't you think?

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

I just heard an update that one of the injured students died in hospital.. :(

Re: Police find no motive for Illinois campus shooting
 

That's the difference between rational thinking peeps and nutters. Instead of beating their asses with a big stick and live to tell the tale and laugh about it, they close the book with a big bang. I choose the stick any day of the week.