Who Was the Illinois School Shooter? [View All]

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: ABC

Stephen Kazmierczak, the 27-year-old who opened fire on a crowded Northern Illinois University lecture hall, killing five and then himself Thursday, was described as "fairly normal" and an "unstressed person" by NIU campus Police Chief Donald Grady.

But in the last few weeks his behavior had become erratic, according to Grady, and it is believed the Kazmierczak had stopped taking his medication. The chief declined to specify the type of medication the gunman was on.

Kazmierczak had served as a member of the NIU Academic Criminal Justice Association, was a teaching aid during his undergraduate years and in 2006 even received a Dean's Award from the sociology department.

In 2006 Kazmierczak was a co-author of an essay entitled "Self-Injury in Correctional Settings: 'Pathology' of Prisons or of Prisoners," in which an attached biography describes him as having just begun his graduate work at NIU.

Kazmierczak's interests are listed as corrections, political violence, and peace and social justice, according to the essay, and he had plans to co-author a manuscript on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4296984

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