jack
The Legendary Troll Kingdom
OMAHA, Neb. - Robert Hawkins had been kicked out of his family’s house, had broken up with his girlfriend and was recently fired from his job at McDonald's, where he had been accused of stealing $17.
Hawkins called Debora Maruca-Kovac, the woman whose home he was living in, about 1 p.m. on Wednesday "very upset," telling her that he had left a note for her in his bedroom, she said.
She tried to get him to explain, but he hung up after telling her "I love you, and I’m sorry for any pain I’ve caused you," she told a local television station.
Maruca-Kovac found what the 20-year-old had left in the home: A suicide note, in which he said he was "going out in style," and that he'd never been anything in his life but after Wednesday he would be famous.
Armed with a rifle, Hawkins went to the sprawling upscale Westroads Mall, filled with shoppers three weeks before Christmas. The Omaha World-Herald reported that he had a military-style haircut, a black backpack and wore a camouflage vest.
Witnesses said Hawkins then fired down on people from a third-floor balcony of the Von Maur department store. Eight people were killed. Five were wounded, two critically. Hawkins then apparently turned the rifle on himself, ending his own life.
Chaotic scene
Police received the first 911 call at 1:42 p.m. from someone inside the mall, and shots could be heard in the background, police Sgt. Teresa Negron said.
"We sent every available officer in the city of Omaha," Negron said, adding that by the time officers arrived six minutes later, the shooting was over.
The gunman was found dead on the third floor with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his victims were discovered on the second and third floors, Negron said.
It was Nebraska’s deadliest shooting spree since January 1958, when Charles Starkweather killed 10 people in that state and another in Wyoming in one of the country’s most notorious murder cases.
Authorities gave no motive for the attack and said they did not know if Hawkins said anything during the rampage at the mall, in a middle-class neighborhood on the city’s west side.
Police closed the mall after the attack, and officials interviewed many witnesses in the facility.
Von Maur corporate headquarters in Davenport, Iowa, released a statement to the media. "We are deeply saddened by the horrific shooting at our Omaha store this afternoon," it said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this tragic event, as well as their families. We are cooperating fully with the Omaha and Nebraska state police departments."
Woman: He looked like he was improving
Maruca-Kovac, a surgical nurse whose family took in Hawkins after her 17- and 19-year-old sons befriended him, said she saw the victims of the mall shooting being brought in to the hospital where she works.
By then, she had already read a suicide notes that Hawkins had left behind. “I had a feeling it could be him,” she said.
She said she and her husband let Hawkins stay with them after he was kicked out of his family’s house but would not say why his family had kicked him out.
“He was depressed, and he had always been depressed,” Maruca-Kovac said. “But he looked like he was getting better.”
Hawkins started working at a McDonald’s restaurant about five months ago after moving in with Maruca-Kovac's family in a middle-class neighborhood in Bellevue, Maruca-Kovac said.
Two employees of the McDonald’s who were eating there Wednesday said they had been told not to talk to anyone about Hawkins.
Hawkins was not on any medication for mental illness, but he had been treated in the past for depression and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Maruca-Kovac said.
Though he had his troubles, Hawkins was gentle and loved animals, Maruca-Kovac said.
“He was a very helpful young man, but he was quiet,” Maruca-Kovac said. “He didn’t cause a lot of trouble. He tried to help out all the time. He was very thankful for everything. He wasn’t a violent person at all.”
Hawkins lived with several friends for a couple days at a time before landing at Maruca-Kovac’s house last year, she said.
“He was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted,” she said. “I felt sorry for him. I let him stay, and we tried to get him on his feet.”
Contents of suicide note
Maruca-Kovac said she found the handwritten note on the floor by his bed. She then called Hawkins’ mother, whom she said she knows only as “Molly.” The woman went to Maruca-Kovac’s house, retrieved the suicide note and took it to authorities.
In the note, Maruca-Kovac said, Hawkins said “how sorry he was for everything.” He wrote that he loved his mom and dad and other family members and said he wasn’t “going to be a burden anymore.”
At the top of the note was his “will,” which said that his green Jeep Cherokee was to go to his mother, and that “my friends can have whatever they want.” He ended the note by saying that now he would be famous.
“I wish we could have done something more for him. We were just trying to help him get on his feet,” Maruca-Kovac told WOWT-TV. “He was very troubled, very troubled — very confused, I imagine.”
At the mall during the attack, terrified shoppers and workers ran, some of them barricading themselves in dressing rooms.
'My knees rocked. I didn't know what to do...'
"My knees rocked. I didn't know what to do, so I just ran with everybody else," said Kevin Kleine, 29, who was shopping with her 4-year-old daughter. She said she hid in a dressing room with four other shoppers and an employee.
"Everybody was scared, and we didn't know what was going on," said Belene Esaw-Kagbara, 31, a Von Maur employee. "We didn't know what to do. I was praying that God protect us."
Mickey Vickory, who worked at Von Maur's third-floor service department, said she heard the shots.
She and her co-workers and customers went into a back closet behind the wrapping room to hide, then emerged about a half-hour later when police shouted to come out with their hands up. As police took them to another part of the mall for safety, they saw the victims.
"We saw the bodies and we saw the blood," she said.
Shortly after the shooting, a group of shoppers came out of the building with their hands raised. Some were still holding shopping bags.
Police told people to park their cars at businesses across from the mall and to wait for their loved ones, then directed them to an Omaha hotel to await information.
Grenade found last week
WOWT-TV reported that authorities removed what officials described as a live grenade from the mall’s parking lot Friday night. The circumstances of the case are under investigation. There was no indication that incident was related to Wednesday's shootings.
The shooting happened as President Bush was leaving Omaha, where he attended a fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Mike Johanns.
"Having just visited with so many members of the community in Omaha today, the president is confident that they will pull together to comfort one another," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.
The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants, according to the Web site for General Growth Properties, the manager of the mall. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to the Web site.
It was the second mass shooting at a mall this year. In February, nine people were shot, five of them fatally, at Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City. The gunman, 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, was shot and killed by police.
Hawkins called Debora Maruca-Kovac, the woman whose home he was living in, about 1 p.m. on Wednesday "very upset," telling her that he had left a note for her in his bedroom, she said.
She tried to get him to explain, but he hung up after telling her "I love you, and I’m sorry for any pain I’ve caused you," she told a local television station.
Maruca-Kovac found what the 20-year-old had left in the home: A suicide note, in which he said he was "going out in style," and that he'd never been anything in his life but after Wednesday he would be famous.
Armed with a rifle, Hawkins went to the sprawling upscale Westroads Mall, filled with shoppers three weeks before Christmas. The Omaha World-Herald reported that he had a military-style haircut, a black backpack and wore a camouflage vest.
Witnesses said Hawkins then fired down on people from a third-floor balcony of the Von Maur department store. Eight people were killed. Five were wounded, two critically. Hawkins then apparently turned the rifle on himself, ending his own life.
Chaotic scene
Police received the first 911 call at 1:42 p.m. from someone inside the mall, and shots could be heard in the background, police Sgt. Teresa Negron said.
"We sent every available officer in the city of Omaha," Negron said, adding that by the time officers arrived six minutes later, the shooting was over.
The gunman was found dead on the third floor with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his victims were discovered on the second and third floors, Negron said.
It was Nebraska’s deadliest shooting spree since January 1958, when Charles Starkweather killed 10 people in that state and another in Wyoming in one of the country’s most notorious murder cases.
Authorities gave no motive for the attack and said they did not know if Hawkins said anything during the rampage at the mall, in a middle-class neighborhood on the city’s west side.
Police closed the mall after the attack, and officials interviewed many witnesses in the facility.
Von Maur corporate headquarters in Davenport, Iowa, released a statement to the media. "We are deeply saddened by the horrific shooting at our Omaha store this afternoon," it said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this tragic event, as well as their families. We are cooperating fully with the Omaha and Nebraska state police departments."
Woman: He looked like he was improving
Maruca-Kovac, a surgical nurse whose family took in Hawkins after her 17- and 19-year-old sons befriended him, said she saw the victims of the mall shooting being brought in to the hospital where she works.
By then, she had already read a suicide notes that Hawkins had left behind. “I had a feeling it could be him,” she said.
She said she and her husband let Hawkins stay with them after he was kicked out of his family’s house but would not say why his family had kicked him out.
“He was depressed, and he had always been depressed,” Maruca-Kovac said. “But he looked like he was getting better.”
Hawkins started working at a McDonald’s restaurant about five months ago after moving in with Maruca-Kovac's family in a middle-class neighborhood in Bellevue, Maruca-Kovac said.
Two employees of the McDonald’s who were eating there Wednesday said they had been told not to talk to anyone about Hawkins.
Hawkins was not on any medication for mental illness, but he had been treated in the past for depression and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Maruca-Kovac said.
Though he had his troubles, Hawkins was gentle and loved animals, Maruca-Kovac said.
“He was a very helpful young man, but he was quiet,” Maruca-Kovac said. “He didn’t cause a lot of trouble. He tried to help out all the time. He was very thankful for everything. He wasn’t a violent person at all.”
Hawkins lived with several friends for a couple days at a time before landing at Maruca-Kovac’s house last year, she said.
“He was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted,” she said. “I felt sorry for him. I let him stay, and we tried to get him on his feet.”
Contents of suicide note
Maruca-Kovac said she found the handwritten note on the floor by his bed. She then called Hawkins’ mother, whom she said she knows only as “Molly.” The woman went to Maruca-Kovac’s house, retrieved the suicide note and took it to authorities.
In the note, Maruca-Kovac said, Hawkins said “how sorry he was for everything.” He wrote that he loved his mom and dad and other family members and said he wasn’t “going to be a burden anymore.”
At the top of the note was his “will,” which said that his green Jeep Cherokee was to go to his mother, and that “my friends can have whatever they want.” He ended the note by saying that now he would be famous.
“I wish we could have done something more for him. We were just trying to help him get on his feet,” Maruca-Kovac told WOWT-TV. “He was very troubled, very troubled — very confused, I imagine.”
At the mall during the attack, terrified shoppers and workers ran, some of them barricading themselves in dressing rooms.
'My knees rocked. I didn't know what to do...'
"My knees rocked. I didn't know what to do, so I just ran with everybody else," said Kevin Kleine, 29, who was shopping with her 4-year-old daughter. She said she hid in a dressing room with four other shoppers and an employee.
"Everybody was scared, and we didn't know what was going on," said Belene Esaw-Kagbara, 31, a Von Maur employee. "We didn't know what to do. I was praying that God protect us."
Mickey Vickory, who worked at Von Maur's third-floor service department, said she heard the shots.
She and her co-workers and customers went into a back closet behind the wrapping room to hide, then emerged about a half-hour later when police shouted to come out with their hands up. As police took them to another part of the mall for safety, they saw the victims.
"We saw the bodies and we saw the blood," she said.
Shortly after the shooting, a group of shoppers came out of the building with their hands raised. Some were still holding shopping bags.
Police told people to park their cars at businesses across from the mall and to wait for their loved ones, then directed them to an Omaha hotel to await information.
Grenade found last week
WOWT-TV reported that authorities removed what officials described as a live grenade from the mall’s parking lot Friday night. The circumstances of the case are under investigation. There was no indication that incident was related to Wednesday's shootings.
The shooting happened as President Bush was leaving Omaha, where he attended a fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Mike Johanns.
"Having just visited with so many members of the community in Omaha today, the president is confident that they will pull together to comfort one another," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.
The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants, according to the Web site for General Growth Properties, the manager of the mall. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to the Web site.
It was the second mass shooting at a mall this year. In February, nine people were shot, five of them fatally, at Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City. The gunman, 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, was shot and killed by police.
