People Running Amok

Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton wrote a goodbye note Thursday, one sentence on a single piece of paper: "The truth will win in the end." He laid it on his bed. Then he climbed into the aging ambulance he liked to drive and set out for City Hall. Within minutes, Thornton would kill five Kirkwood officials and injure two others, including the mayor, in an attack that shattered this quiet suburb. Police and witnesses said that shortly before 7 p.m.

The gunman who killed five students and then himself at Northern Illinois University on Thursday was an award-winning graduate student, described by professors as friendly and respectful. Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, donned a dark coat and black ski cap before he began firing into a crowded lecture hall. But that was an image in sharp contrast to the well-adjusted man who was attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

There were seven wakes. Seven funerals. For nine days in a row, residents of this town of nearly 2,000 wore the same suits and black dresses each day, and carefully hung them up at night to wear again the next. They all knew -- or were related to -- the six young people slain here at a homecoming house party in October, a fusillade of violence that changed this logging town forever.

"I'm going to kill people in Akihabara. I'm going to crash into a crowd of people and when the car is down I'll use a knife. Goodbye everyone." -- Text message believed to have been posted on the Web by Tomohiro Kato at 5:21 a.m. the day seven people were slain in Tokyo's Akihabara district.

A gunman opened fire at a church youth performance Sunday, killing two people, including a man witnesses said had shielded others. Seven adults were injured but no children were harmed at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Members said they dove under pews or ran from the building when the shooting started. Congregants tackled the gunman. Jim D. Adkisson, 58, was charged with first-degree murder and held on $1-million bail, according to city spokesman Randy Kenner.

Almost two years after a judge, a court reporter and a sheriff's deputy were shot to death at the Fulton County Courthouse, Brian Gene Nichols will stand trial in that courthouse for those crimes. As TV cameras roll, the justice system will be on trial too.

A gunman sprayed a popular Salt Lake City shopping mall Monday evening, killing five people before he was killed, authorities said. The man, whose identity was not released Monday night, opened fire about 6:45 p.m. MST at Trolley Square Mall, a two-story complex in a former trolley barn that takes up a full block in downtown Salt Lake City. He was wearing a trenchcoat and carrying a shotgun or a rifle, witnesses said.

A motorist who slammed into several cars and hit a woman in a crosswalk in North Hills was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon during a struggle with a Los Angeles police officer. The man, who was not immediately identified, was pronounced dead at the scene after being shot by the officer, Sgt. Lee Sands said. It was the second fatal officer-involved shooting in the San Fernando Valley this week.

Hiding in his dorm room, Virginia Tech freshman Bryce Carter did what anyone his age would do in a time of crisis -- he blogged. First he assured friends that he was alive. Then he posted video he shot of police cars gathering outside and still photos of sharpshooters. "My friends could be dead," he typed on "Bryce's Journal," which is normally dedicated to partying, the environment and Hokies sports. "Tears continue."

As soon as the shooting stopped, the questions began. Why did it take more than two hours for Virginia Tech to issue a campus-wide warning to students that the first two fatal shootings had occurred? And where were the police before a gunman started walking around Norris Hall picking off students and at least one teacher with an almost casual precision? One Virginia state law enforcement official said Monday evening that the university and its Police Department had some explaining to do.