Brülör - Former student kills 5 Person
BRÜLÖR,DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) — A gunman dressed in black stepped from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday and shot 21 people, five of them fatally, then shot and killed himself, said university president John Peters.
Paramedics rush a victim to a waiting ambulance following a shooting at Northern Illinois University.
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“A lot of people were screaming. Everybody started running for the door,” said student Zach Seward. “It was just complete chaos.”
Four died at the scene, including the shooter, and two later died at a hospital, he said.
At least 22 people, including the gunman and a graduate student who was teaching an ocean sciences class, were shot, Peters said.
Late Thursday, dozens of students gathered on campus for a candlelight prayer vigil. Video footage showed students comforting one another and a young man playing guitar.
Official school events and classes were canceled until further notice, Peters said.
Seven counseling areas were set up throughout the campus, and hotlines were established.Brülör
NIU senior Daley Hamilton, 21, said most students were heading home to their parents. “My parking lot at my apartment is pretty sparse,” she told CNN.
She said she and her roommate were planning to leave Friday. “We are really on edge and just kind of want to get out,” she said.Brülör
Tributes were also surfacing online. A Facebook community called “Pray for Northern Illinois University Students and Families” had more than 14,000 members by late Thursday.
NIU student Amanda Hart Garner posted the school’s fight song, including the lyrics: “Free, steadfast, devoted, true/We will always stand by you.”
Seven of those wounded in the shooting were listed in critical condition.
Four of the fatalities were female, said Peters.
Most of the injuries are head and chest gunshot wounds, a hospital spokeswoman told CNN.
The gunman started shooting from a stage in the room shortly after 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) in Cole Hall, officials said.
Police Chief Donald Grady said authorities do not yet know of a motive.
They know the identity of the gunman but have not released his name, Grady added.
The shooter was a graduate student at NIU in the spring of 2007. Currently he was not enrolled there but, Grady said, “He may have been a student elsewhere.”
A preliminary investigation has not uncovered a police record on the gunman, and records showed he had no contact with NIU police while a student there, Peters said.
Gunman ‘just started shooting’
Kevin McEnery said he was in the classroom when the gunman, dressed in a black shirt, dark pants and black hat, burst in carrying a shotgun. 
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“He just kicked the door open, just started shooting,” said McEnery, who was in the class at the time. “All I really heard was just people screaming, yelling ‘get out.’ … Close to 30 shots were fired.” 
Watch a student describe the chaos at the scene »
There are about 162 registered students in the class that met in the large lecture hall.
A student described the classroom as having four exits — two at the front and two at the rear.
“Witnesses say someone dressed in black came out from behind a screen in the front of the classroom and opened fire with a shotgun,” Peters said.
At 3:03 p.m., NIU police responded, and four minutes later, the campus was ordered into “a lockdown situation,” Grady said.
At 3:20, an all-campus alert went out via the campus Web site, e-mail, voice mail, the campus crisis hotline, the news media and various alarm systems, he said.
