Omaha Mall Massacre
Police Say 20-Year-Old Gunman Killed 8 People, Wounded 5 Others, Before Killing Himself
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At left: a yearbook photo of the alleged gunman, Robert Hawkins; at right: shoppers and employees evacuating the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Dec. 5, 2007. (Papillion-La Vista High School/AP)
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Crime lab technicians at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Dec. 5, 2007, hours after a gunman opened fire at the Von Maur department store, killing 8 people and wounding 5 others before allegedly killing himself. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver)
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A victim is wheeled out of the Westroads Mall after a gunman opened fire at a Von Maur store in the mall and killed nine people, including himself, in Omaha, Neb., Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007. (AP)
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Larissa Starchenko, an employee who was inside the Von Maur store when a gunman opened fire, is comforted by her daughter Yara, back, in Omaha, Neb., Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007. Police locked down the Westroads mall in Omaha after nine people were shot dead Wednesday afternoon. (AP)
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Nine people were shot dead Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007 at a busy mall in Omaha, Nebraska. (CBS)
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Play CBS Video Video Mall Massacre In Omaha A gunman opened fire on holiday shoppers, killing eight and wounding 5 others before turning the gun on himself. Michelle Bandur of CBS affiliate KMTV reports
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Video Gunfire In Omaha Mall "CBS News RAW": Mary Braunger describes how she took cover behind a cosmetic counter when shots broke out in an Omaha shopping mall.
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Video Omaha Shooter's Car Searched "CBS News RAW": Police break into the car believed to have been owned by a gunman who killed himself and 8 others in a Nebraska mall, searching for a bomb and any additional harmful devices.
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Photo Essay Omaha Mall Shooting Man, 19, goes on shooting rampage in shopping mall, kills 8, then himself.
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Photos Shooting Sprees Images from some of the more notable cases in recent years.
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Interactive Guns In America State-by-state gun laws and death rates, maps of recent school and workplace shootings and facts on who's at risk.
Witnesses said the gunman fired down on shoppers from a third floor balcony of the Von Maur store. Police recovered an SKS assault rifle believed to have been used by the gunman.
The young shooter, identified by police as 20-year-old Robert A. Hawkins of Bellevue, Neb., left a suicide note which included the grim prediction: "Now I'll be famous."
Police have not said anything about the motive, if it is in fact known to them. But Hawkins had suffered a string of setbacks over the past year. A family friend says he recently broke up with a girlfriend and got fired, and a source tells CBS News affiliate KMTV that he tried, but failed, to get into the Army.
According to Sgt. Teresa Negron, police received a 911 call from someone inside the mall, and shots could be heard in the background. She says by the time officers arrived - six minutes later - the shooting was over.
"We sent every available officer in the city of Omaha," said Negron, who did not know whether the gunman said anything during the rampage to hint at a motive.
The Omaha World-Herald reported that the gunman had a military-style haircut and a black backpack, and wore a camouflage vest.
"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 at the Westroads Mall, in a prosperous neighborhood on the city's west side. She said she hid in a dressing room with four other shoppers and an employee.
Authorities say Hawkins was found dead on the third floor with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his victims were discovered on the second and third floors.
Hawkins dropped out of Papillion-La Vista High School in Papillion, Neb., in the spring of 2006 and was kicked out by his family that same year.
After staying at the homes of a number of friends for a few days at a time, he wound up moving in with the family of surgical nurse Debora Maruca-Kovac, who with her husband, took in Hawkins, a friend of her two teenaged sons.
"When he first came in the house, he was introverted, a troubled young man who was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted," Maruca-Kovac said.
Hawkins, according to Maruca-Kovac, was not on any medication for mental illness, but he had been treated in the past for depression and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
"He was depressed, and he had always been depressed," Maruca-Kovac said. "But he looked like he was getting better."
"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, she said, was gentle and loved animals, liked music and video games, but had a drinking problem and would occasionally smoke marijuana in his bedroom.
Maruca-Kovac says Hawkins recently suffered two new setbacks, breaking up two weeks ago with his longtime girlfriend, and earlier this week, getting fired from his job at a nearby McDonald's.
At 1 p.m. Wednesday, he called Maruca-Kovac, telling her that he'd left a note for her in his bedroom. She says she tried to get him to explain, but he hung up.
Maruca-Kovac then called Hawkins' mother, who went to the Maruca-Kovacs' house and retrieved the note, which she took to authorities.
In the note, Hawkins wrote that he loved his parents and other family members, was "sorry for everything," would no longer be a burden to them, wanted his mom to have his Jeep, and his friends to have "whatever they want."
Maruca-Kovac did not hear about the shooting - which a witness said began around 1:50 p.m. - until she arrived at work at Nebraska Medical Center, where she saw patients being wheeled in.
"I had a feeling it could be him," said Maruca-Kovac, who had read the note before turning it over to his mother.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 626 CommentsI send out my condolence''s to the familys that lost a loved one.
I send out my condolence''s to the familys that lost a loved one.
I send out my condolence''s to the familys that lost a loved one.
I dont think that is going to fly as they pick up his teeth off the floor. If he is famous I don''t think he knows it. Famous no way. Two weeks from now nobody will even remember his name.
I send out my condolence''s to the familys that lost a loved one.
Posted by swilke54
So you think it is all about the number of guns and that links directly to the number of crimes and deaths. You are right in that respect, but wrong in the direction.
Washington has notlegal gun ownership by law abiding citizens, but the highest crime rate in the nation.
Russia has very rare gun ownership by law abiding citizens, but their crime, murder and suicide rates have been climbing while the same rates have been dropping in America as gun ownership has risen.
Get educated and do not believe all the rhetoric the control people tell you.
Posted by georgeviv
You cannot move away from a car crashing into a crowd of people, you cannot move away from a knife if the person is too close or too big, you cannot move from a bomb made of fertilizer. Are those weapons to be blamed also, or the criminal?
Posted by ScarletPhD
Too many, but stick to the issue and stop twisting your arguements when you have not the ability to put together a sane thought with substantiation.
PHD? Like Heck!! You only have an education in being inane!!
Some random disgruntled loser who had a gun and used it instead of acting out his frustrations by swinging a stick.
Posted by ScarletPhD
So if they swing a stick, or use a knife of run a car into a crowd of christmas shoppers it is better than using a gun? You are the classic head up your butt richard cranium!!
It baffles me. You don''''''''t need them.
For me it was the thrill of the tin can hunt. I never killed a living thing. Took a couple of professional classes on the operation of various weapons and can hit that beer can from a mile and a half away. These rifles have sat silent for 10 years now. I do keep an assault weapon on standby in the slim chance that somebody wants break in and rob or hurt somebody. He won%u2019t even make it through the kitchen. It has a REAL LONG clip
Posted by lewiston14
You ask why gun owners want to have guns then you go on to say you have one for protection. Why do you want one?
Do you think if the gun control nuts get their way and take away only the guns some peopel say are not necessary, they will stop there?
Posted by umprw05
I agree with you here, why do the news media need to include his name, it is not a needed thing.
Posted by chitown639 at 09:34 AM : Dec 06, 2007
That is like saying there was a high school girl that got pregnant, so birth control will never work.
Do your homework if you want to make a statment. States with concealed carry rights have lower crime rates, overall, than non-carry states.
There is a city in the United States, almost a nation unto itself, that does not allow the citizens to have firearms. That city has the highest crime rate in the nation. Both characters of the city listed here have been so for 20 years. No gun, highest crime- Washington DC. Guns do not kill people, people kill people.
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