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Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois (February 14, 2008)

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Daily Chronicle, February 15, 2008 Newseum Image

February 15, 2008: An excerpt from a story in the DeKalb County, Illinois newspaper, the Daily Chronicle:

Campus Horror
Former student kills 5 students, then himself at NIU

By KEVIN P. CRAVER and BENJI FELDHEIM

DeKALB - Northern Illinois University students and staff are shocked and looking for answers after a lone gunman killed five students and wounded 16 others Thursday before shooting himself.

Shortly after 3 p.m., a man dressed in black entered an auditorium in Cole Hall and began firing a shotgun at students toward the end of a geology class, according to university officials and eyewitness accounts.

Three victims and the gunman died at the scene, and two others later died: one at Kishwaukee Community Hospital in DeKalb and the other at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, NIU President John Peters said.

Peters did not reveal the identities of the victims late Thursday, pending notification of families, but said four of the victims were women.

One of the dead has been identified as Dan Parmenter, a sophomore from Westchester and a staff member of the NIU school newspaper, an adviser for the paper said Thursday night.

"He was a wonderful young man, just very nice, very easy to work with. (He was) somebody who was part of our family," said Maria Krull, business adviser for the Northern Star newspaper.

What is known about the gunman late Thursday is that he was an NIU sociology graduate student in spring 2007, said Peters, who added that the gunman apparently has no police record and there was no known motive for the shootings as of Thursday evening. Peters also said the gunman was currently enrolled at another school.
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Northern Star, February 15, 2008 Image from newspaper's Web site

February 15, 2008: An excerpt from an editorial in the Northern Illinois University school newspaper, the Northern Star:

NIU has lost members of family

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

On Thursday afternoon NIU was attacked by a gunman who selfishly killed himself after reaping the kind of terror we could only have hoped we would never know.

But now we do know that terror, and the pain and questions wrought from it are as perplexing as trying to figure out how or why someone could ever do such a thing in the first place. The range of emotions the NIU community will experience and will continue to cycle through is difficult to control, but a few come to mind before anything else.

Anger, pain, fear, frustration and disbelief were all in abundance among the NIU family on Thursday as news of the tragedy spread. As the police took control of the situation, students, faculty members, parents and spouses were left to begin the overwhelming process of coping with this attack on our community, on our family.

(See also: "Covering a Tragedy: NIU."
Fresh Cut video magazine, Feb. 17, 2008.)
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Chicago Sun-Times, February 15, 2008 Newseum Image

February 15, 2008: An excerpt from a story in the Chicago Sun-Times:

Wounded prof tells his story

BY ANDREW HERRMANN

Northern Illinois University grad student Joseph Peterson was about ten minutes from finishing a geology class he was teaching, lecturing from a stage. Suddenly, a tall white man dressed in dark clothing appeared about 40 feet away from him.

And "just started firing away," Peterson told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The man had pulled out what appeared to be a shotgun and fired from the stage at about 150 students, Peterson said Thursday from a hospital, where he was being treated for a shoulder wound.

"He must have come from a back door," said the shaken, 26-year-old Peterson. "He was right there on stage."

Some students "ran and screamed" from Cole Hall, others crawled out on their bellies while still others ducked for cover, he said.

The gunman "just shot randomly," said Peterson. Students said the shooter said nothing as he opened fire.

Then, in what seemed like a matter of seconds, the horror got worse: the gunman turned his attention on Peterson.

Apparently out of ammunition in his shotgun, the gunman "pulled out a handgun and began shooting at me," said Peterson.
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Chicago Tribune, February 15, 2008 Newseum Image

February 15, 2008: An excerpt from a story in the Chicago Tribune:

NIU students hold vigils on shaken campus

By JOSH NOEL

Students gathered on a corner of the Northern Illinois University campus late Thursday night to comfort each other after the day's deadly shooting shattered the school's usual collegiate calm.

Around 200 students and faculty huddled together to say prayers, sing "Amazing Grace" and light candles in the cold night. During the ceremony, law enforcement officials carried bags of evidence in and out of the student center behind the courtyard where the vigil participants stood.

Dan Betts, 26, a geology student from Downers Grove, carried a sign reading "NIU Let's Stay 2gether." He said the shootings had unified students all across campus.

"It's everyone coming together and seeing friendly faces they haven't been able to get in touch with during the day," Betts said. "Even people who didn't know someone in there has been touched by this."

Jokela High School, Tuusula, Finland (November 7, 2007)

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Iltalehti, November 8, 2007 Newseum Image

November 8, 2007: The Helsinki, Finland newspaper, Iltalehti, reports on the school shooting at Jokela High School. Here is an excerpt from a story on the BBC Web site:

Finland mourns shooting victims

A national day of mourning is being held in Finland after an 18-year-old man went on a gun rampage at his school and killed seven pupils and a teacher.

The gunman, reportedly identified as Pekka-Eric Auvinen, shot himself in the head and later died in hospital.

The shooting happened in Tuusula, some 50km (30 miles) north of Helsinki, and officials have set up a crisis centre to help those affected by the tragedy.

The gunman gave a warning of the attack in a video posted on the internet.

The home-made film called "Jokela High School massacre 11/7/2007" shows a young man pointing a gun and declaring himself a "social Darwinist" who would "eliminate all who I see unfit".

Correspondents say the video is similar to the one made by Cho Seung Hui, who sent a recording of himself to the US NBC television network before killing 32 students at Virginia Tech University in April.

Announcing a national day of mourning on Thursday, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen described Wednesday's shooting in Tuusula as a "great tragedy".

SuccessTech Academy, Cleveland, Ohio (October 10, 2007)

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The Plain Dealer, October 11, 2007 Newseum Image

October 11, 2007: An excerpt from a story in the Cleveland, Ohio newspaper, The Plain Dealer:

Four shot at school, gunman kills himself
Students and staff ran, hid in restrooms, closets

By MICHAEL O'MALLEY and GABRIEL BAIRD

SuccessTech Academy, one of Cleveland's best public high schools with a 94 percent graduation rate, seemed a highly unlikely place for a Columbine-type outburst of gun violence.

But, suddenly, that all changed Wednesday when a student with black-painted fingernails and wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt opened fire in the downtown high school, injuring two teachers and three students. Police said he appeared to be targeting both teachers.

Asa Coon, 14, who had been suspended from school for a fight on Monday, then turned the gun on himself, unloading a fatal shot.

Students Michael Peek, 15, and Darnell Rodgers, 18, and teachers David Kachadourian, 57, and Michael Grassie, 42, were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds.

Trinnetta McGrady, 14, injured her knee and back falling down a staircase and was trampled by other students fleeing the gunfire.

She was hospitalized, but was expected to be released late Wednesday.

Virginia Tech University (April 16, 2007)

Coverage of the Virginia Tech Shootings (April 16, 2007)
By Pat Walters and Ellyn Angelotti, Poynter Online
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=121499

Virginia Campus Shootings: Coverage Resources (April 16, 2007)
Poynter Online and NewsU
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=121505

Front Pages about Virginia Tech Shootings (April 17, 2007)
Page One Today, Poynter Online
http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=49&aid=121556

Massacre on a Managing Editor's First Day (May 22, 2007)
By Joe Grimm, Poynter Online
http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=123404

The Roanoke Times, April 20, 2007 Newseum Image

April 20, 2007:The Roanoke Times:

Virginia Tech Shooting Victims
By JOHN CRAMER

A Holocaust survivor. A Christian teenager.

Engineers and artists, animal lovers and bookworms.

Quiet scholars and quirky class clowns.

American natives and foreign nationals.

The victims of the massacre at Virginia Tech were a cross-section of the human condition.

They were as different as the school's two trademarks -- the gaudy maroon and orange that flash across the gridiron each autumn and the dignified Hokie limestone that has formed the bedrock of the school for more than a century.

But they were alike, too -- all going about their lives on what started as another ordinary Monday, alike in their fate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a gunman came along.

They were teenagers away from home for the first time, professors in the twilight of their careers.

Some were Facebook devotees who shared their lives on the Internet; others were devoted Bible readers whose inner thoughts were known best by God.

By God's grace and their own academic interests, they came from across the world and from across town to attend Virginia Tech.

Some came to spend four years getting a degree, others came to spend their entire careers.

In the end, they shared a common fate: Lives cut short on a spring morning when a cold wind filled with snowflakes and tree blossoms formed the backdrop for the deadliest shooting rampage in the nation's history.
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Newsday, April 19, 2007 Newseum Image

April 19, 2007: An excerpt from a story in Newsday:

Va. Tech stunned by images of gunman

By JOHN RILEY

Virginia Tech mass killer Seung-Hui Cho reached out from his grave to lament that "this didn't have to happen" and warned that "I will no longer run" in a bizarre multimedia package received by NBC News Wednesday that he apparently mailed in the two-hour interval between two sets of slayings that took 32 lives and his own on the college campus Monday.

"When the time came, I did it. I had to," said an angry, sneering Cho, who railed about the "debaucheries" of the rich and described the two Columbine High School killers as "martyrs."

He also compared himself to Jesus and flaunted two handguns in a variety of bad-dude poses in a package that included an 1,800-word manifesto, 28 video and audio clips, and 43 still pictures.

The words and images stunned Virginia Tech students.
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The Virginian-Pilot, April 18, 2007 Newseum Image

April 18, 2007: An excerpt from a story in The Virginian-Pilot:

Tech victims remembered at local and state vigils

By JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE and AARON APPLEGATE

BLACKSBURG -- Thousands of Virginia Tech students stood in the center of campus Tuesday evening holding candles in outstretched hands, bathing Drill field in a light that grew stronger as dusk turned to night.

After a half-hour vigil organized by student leaders, they had been told they were free to go home, but the mourners stood silent and still.

After about 10 minutes, the students began to chant, "Let's go Hokies!" reaching a roar that echoed across the campus.

"Hokie Nation is an attitude and a mentality and this put a face to it, several thousand actually," Kacey Morasch, a 27-year-old graduate student, said.

During the vigil, two buglers on opposite sides of Drill field did a call-and-response version of Taps in a moving tribute to the 32 victims of Monday's shootings.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and several university officials attended the event.

"I want America and the world to see this outpouring on the Virginia Tech Drill field this evening," Zenobia Hikes, vice president for student affairs at Tech, told the students. "This is love. We will move on from this but it will take the strength of each other to do it."
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Collegiate Times, April 17, 2007 Image from newspaper's Web site

April 17, 2007: An excerpt from a story in Virginia Tech's newspaper, the Collegiate Times:

Our Sorrow, Our Resolve

Surreal.

For an event that has touched so many lives and will define the year 2007 for generations, there are only a handful of individuals who were able to directly influence yesterday's tragedy.

For most students, whether isolated off campus or huddled in their residence halls, responding to worried parents and concerned friends came in futile sound bites.

As numbers continued to rise, totals became more and more unbelievable to everyone around the country: The whole situation was especially exasperating to all those here at Virginia Tech.
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The Roanoke Times, April 17, 2007 Newseum Image

April 17, 2007: An excerpt from a story in The Roanoke Times:

Panic, chaos grip campus
Police are searching for a link between two shooting incidents at Tech that left 33 dead.

By DONNA ALVIS-BANKS

Time stopped in Blacksburg Monday.

For two Virginia Tech students, it stopped shortly before 7:15 a.m. in the West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one of the largest halls on campus with 895 residents. The unidentified students -- one male and one female -- were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman.

As events of the day unfolded, time stood still for students and professors, for school administrators and school janitors, for police officers and rescue personnel, for parents far from Blacksburg and for ordinary residents close to home.

In disbelief and horror, people around the nation learned of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history as the national media spread the news and descended on the small college town.

Amish School, Lancaster County Pennsylvania (October 2, 2006)

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15105305/
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/02/amish.shooting/index.html
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5401418.stm
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-02-amish-shooting_x.htm
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100300229.html

 

Intelligencer Journal, October 3, 2006 Newseum Image

October 3, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania newspaper, the Intelligencer Journal:

 

By COLBY ITKOWITZ

 

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA -- A stranger entered a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday morning where 24 students ages 6 to 13 had settled in their desks for a German lesson.

 

The man wore glasses, a baseball cap and jeans, probably blue.

 

He asked a question, but Aaron Esh, 13, can't remember what it was.

 

The man then left.

 

Aaron, sitting at his desk, saw the man walk to a truck backed up to the front of West Nickel Mines School, a small, beige building protected by a white picket fence.

 

Aaron could hear the man outside loading a gun. He knew then, he said, something was terribly wrong.

 

About five minutes later, a man identified by police as 32-year-old Charles Carl Roberts IV stormed the classroom brandishing the gun and demanding all the students lie down in the back of the classroom, Aaron said.

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The Patriot-News, October 3, 2006 Newseum Image

October 3, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania newspaper, The Patriot-News:

 

AMISH SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
'ANGRY AT GOD'

 

By CHRIS A. COUROGEN

BART - Charles Carl Roberts IV was angry and armed to the teeth when he arrived at the West Nickel Mines Amish School yesterday morning, intent on avenging a wrong that state police said dated back 20 years.

 

He took out that anger by shooting girls execution-style after binding their legs and lining them up in front of a chalkboard in the front of the one-room school in rural Lancaster County.

 

Two girls died at the scene, one in the arms of a state trooper. A third was dead on arrival at Lancaster General Hospital.

 

Three girls were admitted to Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, four to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and one to Christiana Hospital in Delaware, state police said.

Platte Canyon High School, Colorado (September 27, 2006)


CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/27/school.shooting/index.html
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5387062.stm
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-09-29-colorado_x.htm
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com

Rocky Mountain News, September 28, 2006 Newseum Image

September 28, 2006: An excerpt from a story in Denver's Rocky Mountain News:

 

Gunman kills girl, himself as police raid room; some hostages were sexually assaulted

 

By JAMES B. MEADOW

 

BAILEY -- A gunman invaded Platte Canyon High School on Wednesday, killing one student and taking his own life as SWAT officers used an explosive to breach a classroom door and end the siege.

Emily Keyes, 16, died from a gunshot wound in the head at 4:32 p.m. at Denver's St. Anthony Central Hospital, after a desperate transfer on a Flight For Life helicopter.

 

The gunman remained unidentified Wednesday night but was said to be a former Bailey-area resident who was living in the Denver area. He was described as bearded, wearing a hooded sweat shirt and carrying a backpack.

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The Denver Post, September 28, 2006 Newseum Image

September 28, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Denver Post:

 

 

By JOHN INGOLD

 

Bailey -- Sean Hagen was sitting in his English class Wednesday at Platte Canyon High School when a voice boomed over the loudspeaker.

 

"Code white! Code white!"

 

The students in his class looked befuddled, not knowing what the term meant. But, Hagen said, the teachers sprang into action, recognizing the term school officials use for an urgent lockdown.

 

His teacher tried to move the students in the classroom away from the door.

 

Moments later, he said, he heard a gunshot.

 

Students from the room where the shot was fired, which Hagen said was next door, ran to his room and knocked on the door.

 

"They told us there's a guy in there shooting at the wall and that he's yelling these things like 'Get up against the wall or I'll shoot,"' Hagen said.

Dawson College, Montreal, Canada (September 13, 2006)

CNN
http://www.cnn.com
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5343714.stm
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-09-13-montreal-shooting_x.htm
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com

Le Soleil, September 15, 2006 Newseum Image

September 15, 2006:
The Quebec City newspaper, Le Soleil, reported on the gunman who went on a shooting spree at Montreal's Dawson College, killing an 18-year-old female student and wounding 19 others.

Red Lake High School, Minnesota (March 21, 2005)

Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com
NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4555788
Minnesota Star-Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/stories/156/
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com
An Insider on the Inside
Jodi R. Rave, Poynter Online (April 18, 2005)
Looking Like a Local, But Being an Outsider
Mark Edwin Boswell, Poynter Online (March 30, 2005)