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Gunman's Struggles Were A Mystery

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By MONICA DAVEY, The New York Times

Published: February 16, 2008

DeKALB, Ill. - Steve Kazmierczak, the man who walked silently into a classroom here Thursday and opened fire, was not seen as struggling in college. He was not an outcast. And until recently, at least, he was not brooding.

In a stark, puzzling contrast to the usual image of a rampage gunman, the 27-year-old Kazmierczak, whose father resides in Lakeland, was described Friday as a successful student - "revered," authorities said, by his professors - who had served as a teaching assistant and received a dean's award as an undergraduate at Northern Illinois University, the campus to which he returned Thursday, killing himself and five students and injuring 16 others.

Here, he had campaigned for a leadership post in a student group devoted to studying the failings of the prison system, an issue he was passionately concerned about, and had apparently won. He was a co-author of an academic paper called "Self-Injury in Correctional Settings: 'Pathology' of Prisons or of Prisoners?" which examined why prisoners might injure themselves with behaviors such as cutting.

He was personable, easy to converse with and an excellent student, said his professors at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 130 miles south of DeKalb, where he was working on a master's degree in social work. The specialty he selected was in mental health.

"In this case, I was overwhelmed," said Jan Carter-Black, Kazmierczak's adviser and an assistant professor in the school of social work at the University of Illinois, after learning Friday that Kazmierczak had been named as the gunman. "I was amazed. I was shocked. I was overwhelmed."

Family Noted Erratic Behavior
Officials said the only hint of trouble from Kazmierczak, who fatally shot himself moments after barraging a large class with rounds from some of his four guns, had come in the past few weeks.

Family members told authorities that Kazmierczak had stopped taking his medication. Law enforcement authorities would not say what the medication was for, but said that Kazmierczak had grown erratic, according to his family, in the days after he quit taking the drugs.

The gunman bought his weapons legally from a Champaign gun dealer, officials said. He also bought some accessories from the Internet dealer that sold a gun to the gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre last year.

In Champaign, neighbors of a modest apartment Kazmierczak had moved into not long ago said they, too, sensed that something was not quite right. The look on his face suggested he had "a lot on his mind," said Martha Shinall, 78, who lived across the hall from Kazmierczak's apartment, where he sometimes blared his music and spent time with a girlfriend.

But beyond the recent changes and some glimpses of inconsistency through the years - a quick end to a stint in the military, a prison job he left with no explanation - authorities at Northern Illinois said they knew nothing of signs, overlooked warnings or known grudges when it came to Kazmierczak, who said nothing when he burst into an ocean sciences lecture on Thursday afternoon and started firing.

He left no known notes behind, said Donald Grady, police chief at the university. He had no known relationships with any students or teachers inside the class. He had no previous run-ins with police.

"He was an outstanding student, revered by faculty and staff," said Grady, acknowledging how that increased the mystery of the violence.

Kazmierczak grew up the Chicago suburbs with a sister and parents, who retired to Lakeland. His mother, Gail, died in 2006 at age 58.

In Champaign, at the home of his sister, Susan, this message was taped to the door:

"We are both shocked and saddened," the note said. "In addition to the loss of innocent lives, Steven was a member of our family. We are grieving his loss as well as the loss of life resulting from his actions."

Authorities on Friday identified the dead as Daniel Parmenter, 20; Catalina Garcia, 20; Ryanne Mace, 19; Julianna Gehant, 32; and Gayle Dubowski, 20. All were from towns in Illinois.

Professors Laud His Work

As an undergraduate and then a graduate student at Northern Illinois, Kazmierczak began focusing on sociology, a field that led him to his particular interest in prisons, prisoners and their re-entry into society.

"He was an exemplary student and a nice guy," said Kirsten Myers, one of Kazmierczak's professors at Northern Illinois. "Something dreadful must have happened to him."

In 2006, he won a dean's award for his work at an annual awards ceremony. He became a leader in the university's Academic Criminal Justice Association chapter, a group that saw its mission as helping the community understand the criminal justice system, especially corrections and juvenile justice, according to its Web site.

Despite a a glowing outward portrait of Kazmierczak, a few indications emerged of inconsistencies in his life.

In September 2001, Kazmierczak enlisted briefly in the Army, a spokeswoman said, but he was discharged in February 2002 before he had completed training. The spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, said she did not know the circumstances of his discharge.

And Kazmierczak was hired last September as an officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana, but he barely lasted two weeks there and failed to complete training, said Randy Koester, chief of staff for the Indiana Department of Corrections.

Late Friday, a former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center told The Associated Press that Kazmierczak was placed there after high school by his parents. She said he used to cut himself and had resisted taking his medications.

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