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NIU Releases Final Report on Shooting

By: Alex Shabad
Updated: March 18, 2010
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The 322 page report begins with five smiling faces, Catalina Garcia, Julianna Gehant, Ryanne Mace, Daniel Parmenter, and Gayle Dubowski, all lives cut way too short."I came back to geography and found out that one of my group members Gail Dubowski was dead it was biggest shock to me" says NIU student, Alex Wohead"I have a lot of plans for the future its just really sad to think what they're plans would of been" says NIU student, Andrea Kovalsky.          Two years later, NIU is now releasing details of the shooting.          Here's a timeline of what happened as Steven Kazmierczak opened fire on 120 students at the Cole Hall auditorium.          At 3:10pm, there was a campus alert of a gunman.          By 3:20pm, some of the 21 injured arrived at health services.          And at 4:00pm, police determined the crisis on February 14th was over."The actual 2-14 event was a very short and very violent duration" says NIU President John Peters."This gives us an account of what happened minutes days weeks after the incident i think it reduces the uncertainty" says NIU support and advocacy, Scott Peska.The report also looks into mental illness and try to answer why a former student would commit such a horrific act."It's almost a Greek tragedy the shooter was horribly mentally ill at least on the record for 9 suicide attempts and hospitalizations” says Peters.          But the university president says at the time there was no way of knowing about Kazmierczak’s mental history, because federal law doesn't allow those records to be shared.          Something university officials think should be looked into.          Meanwhile students say no matter how painful, they plan on reading the report."I haven't read it but i probably will" Wohead.And although they can't turn back time, the school hopes this tragic report will offer insight in the future.

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