Feb 15, 2008 8:09 pm US/Central
Chicago Schools Step Up Security After NIU Deaths
UIC Among Universities Where Many Students Connected To Those At NIU
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Students in Chicago are on edge after a gunman opened fire on the campus of Northern Illinois University, killing five people before turning the gun on himself.
CBS
Condolence books are out at the campuses for DePaul University downtown and in Lincoln Park where students lined up to offer sympathy to the students at Northern Illinois University, where a gunman opened fire Thursday and killed five people during a geology lecture.
Meanwhile, at the University of Illinois at Chicago, security is more visible and increased.
CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports on the campus Friday, the tragedy that took place at NIU was foremost on the minds of many students. For some, like Lissette Soliz, the connection is personal. She knows the family of Catalina Garcia, who was among the six who were killed.
"If my heart's hurting, I can't imagine how their family is feeling and how all the families who are impacted," Soliz said.
Other students, like Alex Johnson have friends at NIU who were caught up in the chaos.
"I'm really good friends with a lot of people at NIU," he said. "It makes me feel very insecure to tell you the truth, just the fact that anyone can get hold of a gun and start shooting people."
A shaken sense of security was shared by students across campus. Campus police are trying to calm those fears.
"Last night we put our officers on alert. All of our officers made themselves very visible around campus so the students, the faculty could feel safe," said UIC police Chief John Richardson.
That alert continued Friday. With its sprawling campus, UIC is physically very similar to NIU. They're both public institutions and each has 25,000 students. Their system for communicating with students during an emergency is also very similar. An alert is immediately sent to everyone's e-mail and text messages are delivered to cell phones.
"It can give them immediate directions on what to do, immediate advice," UIC police Cmdr. Kathryn Kajari said.
Under the circumstances, Kajari thinks NIU executed its emergency plan extremely well.
"Law enforcement was wonderful," she said. "It was fast, updates were given. Unfortunately, in this situation and others there's nothing you can do against some person who is hell bent on doing harm."
Because of the connection between students at UIC and NIU, grief counselors were made available to UIC students.
The university also sent five counselors to NIU to help console those students. DePaul and Northwestern universities sent counselors to NIU as well.
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