A SCOTTISH student who sat in a US classroom less than two hours before a gunman killed five people there has spoken of the devastation it has caused among the university campus's students.
Fraser Gibson, 23, who is on a football scholarship at Northern Illinois University, had a class immediately before Thursday's massacre.
By the time Stephen Kazmierczak opened fire, Gibson was back at home and only heard about the shooting when h
is panicked flatmate ran back to find out if he was okay.
Gibson, a former Dumbarton Academy pupil, said: "I was in the classroom about an hour and 45 minutes before the shooting happened. My communications class was scheduled for the session before.
"There are about 160 students enrolled in the class that the shooter opened fire on. One of my friends said that his roommate should have been in that class, but she skipped it that day.
"I'd come home after my class, and about one and a half hours later my roommate ran into the apartment shouting for me. He knew I'd had a class in that room and was worried that I might have been one of the victims.
"Nobody seems to have any idea why he did it. As far as anyone knows, it seems like he chose a totally random classroom and entirely random victims. But he made the trip back to this university just to kill others and himself.
"It's pretty sad on campus at the moment. There was a service at which the Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke. The place was packed out – I think about 500 people attended. It was a good opportunity for people to come and pay their respects."
Gibson said everyone at the university was connected to a victim in some way.
"I didn't know any of the victims personally, but I am friends with the sister of one of the girls who got shot. She was in a critical condition after the shooting – she was shot in the leg and in the torso – but she's been transferred to a hospital in Chicago and it looks like she'll pull through. Unfortunately, her boyfriend was one of the victims.
"It's not going to be easy to move on. People will be paranoid for a while, and almost every student will be linked to one of the victims, directly or indirectly."
Gibson's mother, Joan, 50, a teacher at Gavinburn Primary School in Old Kilpatrick, Dumbartonshire, was out at dinner when the shootings took place and had left her mobile phone at home.
By the time she got home, her son had already called and told his grandmother, Gwen McIndewar, 81, that he was all right.
Mrs Gibson said: "As soon as I got in the door she said, 'Fraser's okay.' I didn't have the chance to worry, as I didn't know anything had happened.
"I was absolutely shocked and obviously heartfelt for those parents who were involved, and thankful that he was not there at the time.
"When I watched the news and it hit me, I was quite emotional, but I'm just glad he is okay.
"I've spoken to him – they're all kind of reeling. It will be hard for them to go back into that place."
Gibson's grandmother had just seen the news and was about to pick up the phone to call her daughter when it started ringing.
"I was thinking: 'Please God, let it be Fraser'," she said. "Then when I lifted it up, it was him. He didn't want to hang about or say too much. He wanted to ring around and see if any of his friends had been caught up in it."
Gibson, a Rangers fan, is in his fourth and final year at Northern Illinois University, and has yet to decide whether he will return home to Scotland.
Kazmierczak, 27, who had studied sociology at the university in 2007, injured 15 other people before turning the gun on himself. Police do not know why he entered the crowded lecture theatre, armed with three handguns and a shotgun, and started firing, although his behaviour had become more erratic recently after he stopped taking unspecified medication.
Killer's MySpace picture reveals gun fetishA REMARKABLE picture of tattooed university campus killer Steven Kazmierczak emerged yesterday.
The MySpace image shows him wearing a T-shirt depicting the Stars and Stripes with a gun superimposed. A stunned community struggled to understand what caused the 27-year-old to open fire on a class at Northern Illinois University, leaving six people dead.
A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment centre said Kazmierczak was placed there after high school by his parents. She said he used to cut himself and had resisted taking his medication.
He also had a short-lived stint as a prison guard, and he was in the Army for about six months in 2001-02, but he told a friend he had been given a psychological discharge.
Exactly what set Kazmierczak off is unknown. On Thursday, armed with three handguns and a pump-action shotgun, he stepped from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on a geology class.
He killed five students before committing suicide.
The full article contains 874 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
