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UPDATE: University sources have identified the gunman as Steve Kazmierczak, 27, a onetime undergraduate and award winning sociology graduate student at NIU. more

UPDATE: 21 people shot, 7 are dead including gunman, according to police.

UPDATE: Video News Link

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A black-clad shotgun-wielding gunman opened fire in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall Thursday, wounding 18 people before killing himself, the school’s president said. Four of the victims were in critical condition.

School President John Peters said witnesses “say someone dressed in black came out from behind a screen in front of the classroom and opened fire with a shotgun.”

NIU Chief of Police Donald Grady said officials have identified the gunman, but his name is not being released.

It appears the gunman may have been a student somewhere else and acted alone, he said.

The university issued a statement on its Web site about an hour after the 3 p.m. shooting that “the immediate danger has passed. The gunman is no longer a threat.”

George Gaynor, a senior geography student, who was in Cole Hall when the shooting happened, told the student newspaper the Northern Star that the shooter was “a skinny white guy with a stocking cap on.”

He described the scene immediately following the incident as terrifying and chaotic.

Source