Armed with three handguns and a pump-action shotgun, Kazmierczak stepped from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on the class. He killed five students before committing suicide.
A total of 22 people were shot. Four people, including the gunman, died at the scene; two others died later at area hospitals. Sheila Cosgrove was taking notes in the fifth row when the gunman opened fire. This is how she described the tragedy:
"I just heard shots, boom, boom, boom, and then I just kept going, I kept going. I saw blood dripping on the aisle and I just got up towards when I got to the end of the chairs because I couldn't crawl anymore. I was right by the door. I stood up and looked behind me and he was still shooting; he was shooting towards the other side of the aisle and I kind of felt his glare kind of looking at me and I just turned around really fast and kept going."
Investigators have no clear motive for the shooting. There are signs that Kazmierczak had a troubled past. He was discharged from the Army after only a few months when he could not adapt to military life. He had a short-lived career as a corrections officer at the Rockville County Correctional Facility. He lost that job when, as one supervisor said, "He just did not come back to work."
In my update for December 10 of last year, I wrote, "Once again, tragedy has come to our nation in the form of mass murder. Robert A. Hawkins opened fire with a rifle at the Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska, killing eight people before taking his own life." I knew when I wrote the article that it would only be a matter of time before I would be addressing another high-profile mass murder event. I would have never guessed that the time span would only be a couple months.
The reason I knew this tragedy would soon come our way is because of the acceleration factor Bible prophecy predicts. Jesus said the tribulation hour would be preceded by birth pangs, and we are certainly seeing them.
God is slowly lifting His hand of protection from this world. As the process continues, the forces of darkness will be allowed to inspire more horrific acts of violence.
It hasn't even been a year since the Virginia Tech massacre. In that event, Gunman Seung -Hui Cho opened fire at the Virginia university, killing 33 before committing suicide. Of course, that event was the largest shooting incident of its type in US history.
Gun violence has become so common, the level of shock required to capture national attention has been steadily rising. Just this past month, two other shootings have only received brief coverage by the major news media. Last week, a nursing student shot and killed two women and then herself in a classroom at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. On February 2, five women were shot to death inside a suburban Chicago clothing store in what appears to be an armed robbery turned deadly.
The secular world is at a total loss to explain why mass murder is on the rise. We've always had people with emotional troubles, but they've never committed acts of this magnitude.
Mankind could avoid this heartache by realizing that these events are driven by a rejection of God. I’m afraid we will only see worse things to come. Unless the Lord comes to yank me away from my keyboard, I expect to post future reports on the mass murder on a whole new level. One only needs to look at Iraq to see where the mass murder trend is headed.
In Matthew 24, verse 37, Jesus prophesied that "as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days just before He returns." Well, how were things in the days of Noah?
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Earth also was corrupt before God, and the Earth was filled with violence" (Genesis 6:5,11).