WASHINGTON, February 15 - A armed gunman opened fire in a lecture hall at NorthernIllinoisUniversity, killing five people and injuring nearly 20, the university's president, John Peters said at a news conference on Friday. The shooting began on Thursday, 3.00 p.m. local time (9.00 p.m. GMT), when a former student, dressed in black and armed with a shotgun and two handguns, entered a crowded lecture hall through an emergency door, firing some 30 bullets at students and teachers before shooting himself. The attack, which is the fourth shooting in the U.S. in a week, claimed the lives of one man and four women with 17 people being rushed to hospital. Officials in the KishwaukeeCommunityHospital said that of the 18 people injured in the shooting, one had died and several were in a critical condition with six being transferred to other hospitals. A motive for the attack is still not clear, although the attacker is believed to be an ex-sociology graduate. The university was closed for a day in December after students found graffiti on a bathroom wall containing threats and references to the Virginia Tech massacre, the U.S. worst shooting rampage, which left 32 people dead. On February 8, a woman shot two students and killed herself at a university in Louisiana. On February 11, a high school student in Memphis, Tennessee was charged with shooting a fellow student during gym class.
The following day, unidentified attacker shot a 15-year-old at a junior high school in Oxnard, California. The victim was later declared brain dead.
