DEKALB – Brittany Czerwinski was driving near Cole Hall on the Northern Illinois University campus when she saw a group of students running past.
She didn’t think anything of it until one of them ran in front of her car.
“He had one shoe on, his head was bleeding and he was grabbing his head looking confused,” said Czerwinski, a NIU senior.
He was one of 21 NIU students that was shot Thursday afternoon, when police say a former graduate student emerged from behind a curtain onstage in the large lecture hall with a shotgun and two handguns.
Six students, including the gunman, were reported dead. Sixteen were injured.
The shooting was the largest since those at Virginia Tech last April and again raised questions about campus security – this time closer to home.
The campus, located about 90 minutes west of Evanston in DeKalb, Ill., draws heavily on students from the Chicago area, said Weinberg senior and DeKalb native Colleen Fant.
“Ninety percent of my friends go to NIU,” Fant said Thursday afternoon. “It’s pretty scary, because I don’t know who any of the people (in the shooting) are, and I probably know at least their names.”
At about 7:30 p.m., the DeKalb campus was eerily barren. Police cars lined every opening to the campus, allowing only those on foot to enter.
Yellow caution tape wrapped the perimeter of the lecture hall, which students said was “the most popular place” for classes – the NIU equivalent of NU’s Technological Institute.
A police trailer labeled “Critical Incident Response Team” was parked about 200 feet away.
Police were scattered inside the building while FBI and Crime Scene Investigation agents paced around the surrounding area.
One of the building’s glass doors was shattered. Passers-by speculated it had been shot.
“You could tell there was pandemonium,” Czerwinski said. “You could sense the chaos.”
Right after the shooting, Czerwinski stopped for two frantic students who climbed into her car to get away.
She didn’t know them, but the two students, one male, one female, had been inside the classroom when the shooting began.
The girl was hysterical, saying she couldn’t believe she was safe, couldn’t believe she was alive, Czerwinski said.
Czerwinski did know others in the class.
Her friend’s brother had been shot in the back of his head. He was in critical condition at about 9:30 p.m.
“We’re just keeping our fingers crossed,” she said.
NIU communicated with students throughout the day via e-mail and posts on its Web site.
“At 3:15 p.m., there was a report of a possible gunman on campus,” the first one began.
Though more than 3,000 students are subscribed to broadcast voicemail, NIU students said they were only aware of the Web-based communications, a system in place since before the Virginia Tech shootings.
NIU sophomore Brian Podlasek said he checked the school’s Web site but hadn’t looked at his e-mail, while junior Derrick Smith said he was aware of the university’s e-mail but found out information about the shooting from a friend and eyewitness.
Until earlier this year, NU had a similar notification system but now uses voice and text messages.
A test of NU’s emergency notification system last month, including e-mails, text messages and voicemails, was successful, with 95 percent of students receiving messages within the hour.
Phone lines at NIU were jammed, making it difficult to get messages out, even with multiple carriers, Czerwinski said.
The shooting followed a threat Dec. 10, when the university closed its campus after a racial slur and a reference to the Virginia Tech shootings were found written inside a residence hall.
Despite the shooting and the earlier incident of racial threats, Czerwinski said she “would never leave Northern because Northern didn’t provoke this.”
She stressed she does not think the two events are connected.
“In no way do I think anything that previously happened has any link to this,” Czerwinski said. “Sometimes people want answers and sometimes there are none.”
Diane Czerwinski, Brittany’s mom, said hours later she is still shocked by the shooting.
“It definitely shakes your soul, puts it into perspective for you,” Diane said.
It’s just as disturbing to imagine a shooting happening at a campus landmark, Podlasek said.
“I walked past here twice today. I had an exam Friday, an exam Monday, ” the South Side native said.
His shock was not isolated.
Later that night, about 50 students and adults gathered across the street from the university’s student center.
Students’ hands were cupped around white candles while they prayed in English and Hebrew and sang “Amazing Grace.”
“This incident was the biggest surprise,” Czerwinski said. “Having two random strangers in your car hysterically crying – it just hits home. It’s surreal – this is on a whole different level.”
Brian Rosenthal contributed to this report.
