There are times when people who are mentally ill, take the lives of
others before taking their own. We are all familiar with large scale
events which receive national and international news coverage, such as
the 2006 Virginia Tech shootings. Many times, these events occur on a
smaller scale and receive only local coverage. In either case, those
left behind enter a nightmarish journey of guilt, blame, stigma and
intrusive media coverage. Although the grassroots suicide survivor
movement has grown steadily in the last two decades, there is still far
too little in the way of support for those who have undergone this type
of traumatic experience.
On
February 14, 2008 Steven Kazmierczak entered a lecture hall with 150 to
200 students. He fired into the crowd of students with a shotgun and
three handguns; the shotgun was smuggled in using a guitar case and the
handguns were concealed under his coat. The gunman was a former NIU
Sociology graduate student and a current graduate student in the school
of social work at the University of Illinois. NIU
Police Chief Donald Grady described him as "an outstanding student" who
reportedly stopped taking medication recently and became "somewhat
erratic." A total of 24 people were shot, six of whom died (including the perpetrator, who shot himself before police arrived