911 Tapes Capture Mall Shooting Horror

Calls Chronicle Troubled Teen's Suicidal Shooting Spree In Omaha

(CBS/AP)  Jodi Longmeyer saw the gunman step off the mall elevator on the third floor. He was dressed in dark clothes. She saw his gun, watched him open fire.

Then she hit the floor.

Robert A. Hawkins' rampage was over in six minutes. But Longmeyer agonized with a 911 operator for almost 30 minutes while barricading herself in an employee locker room at the Von Maur store.

Of the eight people killed in Omaha, six were employees of the Von Maur department store.

Terrified, Longmeyer described the horrific scene as watched live surveillance of the department store.

She gasped.

"Oh my gosh," she told the dispatcher. "It looks like the gun is lying over by customer service. It looks like he might have killed himself," Longmeyer said as she started to cry.

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Audio Of Call To Omaha Police During Mall Shooting

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Her voice cracking, Longmeyer told the police, "I see him lying by the gun. There's blood on the floor. I don't want to look anymore. I'm not looking anymore."

She told CBS' The Early Show that she was out on the floor when she first saw the gunman.

"I only saw him shooting in the air and then he went in behind customer service area," she said. "Then I didn't see anything, but I heard gunshots at that time."

"It was difficult, but I didn't think twice about doing it because I needed to call and get help for the individuals that needed help," she told The Early Show.

The shoppers killed were Gary Scharf, 48, of Lincoln, and John McDonald, 65, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The employees killed were Angie Schuster, 36; Maggie Webb, 24; Janet Jorgensen, 66; Diane Trent, 53; Gary Joy, 56; and Beverly Flynn, 47, all of Omaha.

As the families of the dead - the eight people killed by Hawkins, and Hawkins himself - struggle with the tragedy, and police move forward in their investigation, studying evidence including over a dozen 911 calls, new details have surfaced about the gunman.

Nebraska officials say Hawkins spent four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002.

Finally, in August 2006, social workers, the courts and his father all agreed: It was time for Hawkins to be released - nine months before he turned 19 and would have been required to leave anyway.

The group homes and treatment centers were for youths with substance abuse, mental or behavioral problems. Altogether, the state spent about $265,000 on Hawkins, officials said.

Todd Landry, state director of children and family services, said court records do not show precisely why Hawkins was released. But he said if Hawkins should not have been set free, an official would have raised a red flag.

"It was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate services," Landry said. "If that was an issue, any of the participants in the case would have brought that forward."

After reviewing surveillance tape, a suicide note and Hawkins' last conversations with those close to him, police said they don't know - and may never know - exactly why Hawkins went to the Von Maur store at Westroads Mall and opened fire.

But he clearly planned ahead, walking through the store, exiting, then returning a few minutes later with a gun concealed in a balled-up sweat shirt he was carrying, authorities said.

Police say they have found no connections between the 19-year-old and the six employees and two shoppers he killed. "The shooting victims were randomly selected," as was the location of the shooting, Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren said.

The mall had received a $45,000 protection plan grant from the Department of Homeland Security two years ago for a number of anti-terror measures, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds.

Acquaintances say Hawkins was a drug user and had a history of depression. In 2005 and 2006, according to court records, he underwent psychiatric evaluations, the reasons for which Landry would not disclose, citing privacy rules.

In May 2002, he was sent to a treatment center in Waynesville, Mo., after threatening his stepmother. Four months later, a Nebraska court decided Hawkins' problems were serious enough that he should be under state supervision and made him a ward of the state.

He went through a series of institutions in Nebraska as he progressed through the system: months at a treatment center and group home in Omaha in 2003; time in a foster care program and treatment center in 2004 and 2005; then a felony drug-possession charge later in 2005. Landry said the court records do not identify the drug.

The drug charge was eventually dropped, but he was jailed in 2006 for not performing community service as required.

On Aug. 21, 2006, he was released from state custody.

Under state law, Landry said, wards are released when all sides - parents, courts, social workers - agree it is time for them to go. Once Hawkins was set free, he was entirely on his own. He was no longer under state supervision, and was not released into anyone's custody.

"When our role is ended, we try to step out," said Chris Peterson, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

About an hour before the shootings, Hawkins called Debora Maruca-Kovac, a woman who with her husband took Hawkins into their home because he had no other place to live. He told her he had written a suicide note, Maruca-Kovac said. In the note, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore.

The aftermath of Wednesday's killings, left some who knew Hawkins questioning if more should have been done.

"He should have gotten help, but I think he needed someone to help him and needed someone to be there when in the past he's said he wanted to kill himself," said Karissa Fox, who said she knew Hawkins through a friend. "Someone should have listened to him."

Hawkins had been staying with the Kovac family. His friend Craig Kovac told The Early Show he felt terrible that he didn't get to talk to his friend and talk him out of the shootings.

"He wasn't a monster. He was a good person," Kovac said. "I can't justify what he did, and I feel really sorry for the victims, but he wasn't a monster."

Meanwhile, a newspaper report says a 17-year-old high school senior has been arrested on charges of threatening a 16-year-old girl for making Internet postings with unfavorable comments about his best friend: Omaha mall gunman Robert Hawkins.

The Omaha World-Herald says police confiscated two shotguns and a rifle when they went to the home of the 17-year-old, who lives in the same Omaha suburb as did Hawkins: Bellevue, Nebraska.

He is reportedly being held at a juvenile detention center on a charge of making terroristic threats.

A Bellevue man told the newspaper that the 17-year-old had told his daughter that if she said "anything else bad about Robbie" he would "put a cap" in her head - a comment she allegedly captured on her cell phone.

The daughter, who said she used to hang out with the boys, is also quoted as saying that two weeks ago, Hawkins himself threatened to kill her after an incident in which he accused her of stealing things from his car.

She told the World-Herald that he said "I'm going to kill you, I am going to kill your family and I'm going to burn your house down."

She also reportedly claims Hawkins once tried to sell her Valium.

All three teens were students at Papillion-La Vista South High School, although Hawkins had dropped out, in the spring of 2006.

[halfcack]

Recently we had a gun tragedy in Binghamton, NY. A man went into the American Civic Association after blocking the rear entrance with his car and immediately shot two women receptionists. I am neither pro or against having a gun. If this town was in Texas, the man would have gotten off two rounds. The people who were carrying guns legally would have saved 20 some lives. The shooter would have not been allowed to kill all the people he did plus himself in less than 12 minutes. It is so hard to get a concealed weapons permit in NY that hardly anyone except the gentleman who did this had a gun, actually two. One trained person could have stopped this mayhem with one double tap to the chest. Binghamton is notorious for selling massive amount of registered handguns after a horror like this. The gun is bought, picked up, put in a lock box at home and the police know where to go for the handgun. If you carry a gun legally, it is a tremendous responsibility. You have to be ready to use it and ready to die to save others. I really don't see another way, do you?

[downrange-2009]

That is why you need Sheepdogs like me to protect you from the wolves. AGAIN, READ LARRY ELDER''S column. Bet that you did not read it? Quit thinking like a liberal insurgent! What you wrote is worth about 10 "Katie Courics" of excrement.

[dmac73ky]

All the more reason then for strict gun controls. Because, you are correct, it is idiots who carry weapons which have the potential to take lives.

[dmac73ky]

All the more reason then for strict gun controls. Because, you are correct, it is idiots who carry weapons which have the potential to take lives.

[downrange-2009]

"Why would someone need to carry a weapon?" It is to stop the other idiot that is carrying a weapon and firing at YOU!! Because there are some people in the is world that really need killing, THAT IS WHY!!! You can go hide with the sheep when the fox comes hunting for you.

[dmac73ky]

It is appauling, the extent of gun crime. Why would someone need to carry a weapon. Do we not strive for a peaceful living? The gun culture in this country is beyond belief, their use merely exacerbates problems and solves none. I expect when the constitution was written, advocating protection with the use of arms, few expected children (or idiots) to use them in this manner. So many lives could be saved with tighter controls. It''s a frightening state of affairs.

[downrange-2009]

Hey New York,

If you have never had bullets coming at you, you don''t know what you are talking about!! I have been in a gunfight and I was armed. I had bullets crashing into the car that I was using for cover and was able to return enough fire to keep his head down while we moved back to better cover positions. So if you find yourself being stalked and pinned down by a madman, and you are unarmed. How much would you give to get a gun? Or are you going to pray for someone like me to rescue your worthless ***???

[newyork10025]

Yes, let us stop these shooting by giving everyone guns. That sounds so smart. (sarcasm) lol. Are you guys effing kidding me? It sounds stupid because there is no good excuse for guns being legal in the first place. Nobody needs them. Ban them all. I understand this is a real world, and there is no "perfect" solution. But to arm everyone with guns to stop gun violence is one sad argument let me tell you.

[downrange-2009]

To all that are anti gun - read the following article from the Sage of South Central, Larry Elder.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/elder101807.php3

All of you anti gun insurgents are putting out nothing but a ton of "Courics", as they say in the South Park show.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1243593749/bctid1243715048

[kindrox]

* I''''ve still yet to read how this boy of 17 got hold of such a powerful weapon. *

This makes part of the story makes me mad. He stole it from a family member and took it to the place he was living. The woman who took him in did not have a problem with it being in the house and ignored it.

Which normally I don"t have a problem with an adult and a gun, but not a guy kicked out of his own house for threatening to kill his mother, who had several other recorded incidences of threatening to kill others, is a felon, and going to court for drug offences.

This clown is the poster child of who you don"t let have firearms, and this boob lets him have one?

I hope she is charged for her part in it.

[shamrocker6]

I''ve still yet to read how this boy of 17 got hold of such a powerful weapon. Did he steal it? SANE and DECENT citizens who own guns have their rights trampled on by INSANE and CRIMINAL-MINDED citizens (and illegals). You can''t talk a criminal out of killing you, but you can drop him first if you have a weapon of your own.

[kindrox]

* A well trained German Shepherd *

My wife runs a retail store, not a dog kennel. Any anyway she is allergic to dogs.

[danisajerk]

If people like MyIDonCBS always got their way, we would still likely be under the control of England today.
Posted by gunownerdan

This is the kind of stupid inbred white trash fu(ked up $hit this idiot comes up with in the face of a gun massacre to defend guns. What a complete idiot.

[boston1954]

What do you suggest as a more effective protection? Posted by kindrox
__
A well trained German Shepherd. They do not freeze during a crisis.

[kindrox]

DonCoward goes silent at last.

[gunownerdan]

kindrox,
If people like MyIDonCBS always got their way, we would still likely be under the control of England today.

[kindrox]

* guns in the home are NOT a good choice for protection *

Ok, let me get the advice of an expert for my wife''s safety. She runs a retail store by herself, and closes at 7PM. At 7PM it is very dark outside.

She closes up the shop and take"s the day"s money with her to her car. The walk to her car is about 300 feet through an alley behind commercial buildings. It is always deserted back there, unless someone else happens to get going to their car.

This commercial zone is next to a bad area of town.

Right now my wife carries a gun, and has her hand on it as she walks to her car.

What do you suggest as a more effective protection?

[kindrox]

*You think I''''m a liar because I quoted a study you don''''t agree with?*

It is not about agreement, it is about faking research. What if I did a similar study, then removed the people who accidentally shoot themselves? Would you just "disagree" with the study, or call b u l l s h i t.

* Keep using the NRA as your source for "information" *

Please show a single time I used the NRA for a source of information. I have used major news media, and I have used US Department of Justice crime statistics. If that is "NRA" propadanda, so be it.

* This is the NRA LIE that "waving around your gun" will "deter" a criminal. Ask yourself this: if all you had to do is wave your gun around, how much of a threat was that person, really? *

Ask the police. They pull their guns when threatened. Usually that is enough to gain the cooperation of the criminal.

Hell, a friend"s house alarm triggered accidentally. The police showed up at the door GUNS DRAWN.

[kindrox]

* You won''''t believe ANYTHING I say *

I don"t put stock in someone"s opinion on important matters like my own safety.

I don"t expect others to put stock in my opinion either, which is why I quote official statistics or real news stories.

People that make *** up to fit their opinion (like you) just contibute noise.

[gunownerdan]

MyIDonCBS,
Why do you seem so bigoted against at least 1/5 of the American population? Gun owners are your friends, your neighbors, people you deal with every day in life. Only a very tiny fraction of gun owners are dangerous criminals but you make it seems like all of us are. That''s called stereotyping and it''s very wrong. Shame on you!