The announcement of University graduate student Stephen Kazmierczak’s role as the gunman in Thursday’s shootings at Northern Illinois, came as a shock to the School of Social Work.

The 27-year-old took the lives of six before turning one of three guns used in the attack on himself.

“This is an absolutely unbelievable event,” said Janet Carter-Black, Kazmierczak’s academic adviser and an assistant professor in social work, speaking on behalf of the school. “We’re going to do everything we can to move through this.”

Carter-Black said this announcement came as a total surprise, adding that Kazmierczak was just like the other students she works with and that he showed dedication to his education, which largely focused on the prison system.

Kazmierczak graduated from Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor’s degree in sociology and pursued a graduate education there through the spring semester of 2007.

Starting in the summer of 2007, Kazmierczak, who lived at Country Fair apartments in Champaign with an unidentified woman, began taking classes at the University, and did so up until Thursday’s incident.

Kazmierczak’s sister, Susan, also lives in Champaign and works for the Rural Champaign County Special Education Cooperative, a service organization which primarily plans, advises, recommends and provides special education services for children who have special needs.

Susan could not be reached at her home Friday afternoon.

Chancellor Richard Herman notified the University community through a mass e-mail Friday morning.

Located a little more than 170 miles northwest of Champaign-Urbana, Northern Illinois University went on alert Thursday afternoon as reports of a gunman opening fire in the school’s Cole Hall flooded DeKalb, Ill.

Seventeen patients, all believed to be students, were transported to area hospitals, where five were reported dead. Kazmierczak reportedly died at the scene of self-inflicted wounds.

“I really didn’t know what was going … it was unexpected,” said Darren Demill, a freshman engineering student at Northern who witnessed the immediate aftermath of the incident. Following the shootings, Demill said students were unable to make phone calls or send text messages because of the overload from everyone trying to call their loved ones. “Our phones were not working for a good half an hour to 45 minutes.”

Kazmierczak purchased two of his three guns from a Champaign firearms dealer. He bought a pump-action Remington shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun legally less than a week ago, on Feb. 9, authorities said.

Kazmierczak possessed a valid Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) Card. There is a 30-day application period for the card, but the Illinois Police Department will not release when Kazmierczak obtained the FOID card.

A FOID card must be issued before the purchase of a firearm. The FOID application asks questions about the person’s mental health hospitalizations, previous convictions and citizenship. Though Kazmierczak was treated for a mental illness, he had never been hospitalized. Once the Illinois State Police review a FOID application, they run a background check on the individual.

Master Sargeant John Coffman is the Bureau Chief at Fire Service for the Illinois State police.

“The FOID system is nationally revered as one of the best ways to determine eligibility in the country,” Coffman said. “But I think we’re constantly looking for ways to improve upon that.”

Before the purchase of a firearm, the gun dealer must notify the State of Illinois and ask them to run another background check.

“I think that, so far, records have shown that we’ve done a pretty good job of making sure that eligible people can get a gun and those who are not eligible are disqualified,” Coffman said.

Once the dealer receives an approval from the state, the buyer must abide by the state’s waiting period before taking posession of the firearm. The waiting period is 24 hours for a long gun and 72 hours for a hand gun.

Kazmierczak had been a graduate student in sociology at Northern Illinois as recently as spring 2007, Peters said. He also said the man had no record of police contact or an arrest record while attending Northern Illinois, a campus with 25,000 students about 65 miles west of Chicago.

Campus Police Chief Donald Grady said investigators recovered 48 shell casings and six shotgun shells following the attack in Cole Hall. The gunman paused to reload his shotgun after opening fire on a crowd of terrified students in a geology class, sending them running and crawling toward the exits. He shot himself to death on the stage of the hall. Sixteen people were injured.

Kazmierczak, whose first name was earlier listed as Steven, was taking some kind of medication, Grady said.

“He had stopped taking medication and become somewhat erratic in the last couple of weeks,” Grady said, declining to name the drug or provide other details.

The motive of the killer, who graduated from NIU in 2006 but was a student there as recently as last year, was still not known. Grady said Kazmierczak was an “outstanding” student while at NIU and authorities were still trying to determine why he would kill. There was no known suicide note.

“We were dealing with a disturbed individual who intended to do harm on this campus,” Peters said.

Witnesses said the gunman, dressed in black and wearing a stocking cap, emerged from behind a screen on the stage of 200-seat Cole Hall and opened fire just as the class was about to end around 3 p.m. Officials said 162 students were registered for the class but it was unknown how many were there Thursday.

John Giovanni, 20, of Des Plaines said the gunman calmly fired at the greatest concentration of students.

“He was shooting from the hip. He was just shooting,” said Giovanni, who turned and ran so fast that he lost a shoe. “I was running but I was hurtling over people in the fetal position.”

Peters said four people died at the scene, including three students and the gunman. The other died at a hospital. The teacher, a graduate student, was wounded but was expected to recover.

DeKalb County Coroner Dennis J. Miller released the identities of four victims: Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Westchester; Catalina Garcia, 20, of Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; and Julianna Gehant, 32, of Meridan.

Another victim, Gayle Dubowski, a 20-year-old sophomore from Carol Stream, died at a Rockford hospital, Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said.

The gunman’s father, Robert Kazmierczak, briefly came out of his single-story house in Lakeland, Fla., to talk to reporters.

“Please leave me alone. I have no statement to make and no comment. OK? I’d appreciate that. This is a very hard time. I’m a diabetic and I don’t want to go into a relapse,” he said before breaking down crying.

He then went back inside his house, which has a sign on the front door that says “Illini fans live here.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report