Sixth victim dies after US campus shooting
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A victim is taken to a waiting ambulance after a shooting at Northern Illinois University on February 15 (Australian time), 2008. (BBC World)
A sixth shooting victim has died following a massacre in a university lecture hall in suburban Chicago, bringing the toll to seven including the gunman.
"The DeKalb County Coroner's office has confirmed a seventh fatality from the shootings that took place on campus yesterday," said a notice on the website of the Northern Illinois University.
Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, the man calmly stepped out from behind a curtain at the front of an auditorium on Thursday afternoon just minutes before the end of a geology class, officials and witnesses said.
He sprayed bullets into the auditorium filled with dozens of students. The assailant then turned the gun on himself.
Four people died at the scene, while two others died in hospital. Sixteen others were wounded.
Police were in the room within two minutes of getting a call but did not have time to fire a single shot as the gunman was already dead on the stage.
Law enforcement sources have tentatively identified the gunman as a 27-year-old graduate student in social work at another area university but have not yet released his name.
"We have no apparent motive at this time," University Police Chief Donald Grady said.
- AFP
