A 19-year-old school dropout who shot and killed eight people at a shopping mall had lost both his job and girlfriend and believed he was worthless, according to a report published today.
"I'm a piece of sh*t," said a suicide note left behind by Robert Hawkins who killed himself after murdering five women and three men in the mall, "but I'm going to be famous now," the Omaha World-Herald reported.
A police car sits in front of the Von Maur store at the Westroads Mall, Omaha, where Robert Hawkins opened fire on shoppers. Photograph. Getty Images
Police said the rampage appeared to be part of a premeditated suicide by Hawkins, who turned his SKK assault rifle on himself after a midday bloodbath at Westroads mall yesterday that also left five people wounded. Hawkins had been living since last year with the family of a teenage friend.
He dropped out of high school in 2006 during his senior year. He had also had a some minor scrapes with the law and was fired from a fast food restaurant for allegedly stealing $17.
Some of those who died were waiting in line to have Christmas presents wrapped at the Von Maur department store. "It was horrible, just horrible," one woman told local television station KETV, saying she hid under a clothes rack.
The Nebraska shooting was the latest in a series of mass killings that have shocked the United States, where gun ownership is widespread and the right to possess arms is a fiercely contested constitutional issue currently on the agenda of the Supreme Court. The White House said it was a "terrible tragedy."
Hawkins shot one man in the head from a third-floor balcony and others at point-blank range, witnesses said. People said they hid in bathrooms and closets, some praying. Local media said it was the worst single day of violence in Nebraska history.
"We're a family business," said Jim Von Maur, chief executive of the chain of 22 department stores. "This is just devastating." "He wanted to go out like a star," said Andrew Bigler, who described himself as a friend of Hawkins. "He had a rough life. He was a good guy. I loved him."
Jeff Schaffart, an attorney who was shot in the arm, said he hid in a women's bathroom, using his tie as a tourniquet. "Finally after what seemed like an eternity ... the sheriff came in and was basically guarding the door with his shotgun," Schaffart said. "I was obviously very fortunate. A lot of people were not so fortunate today."
The Omaha rampage came eight months the deadliest shooting spree in modern US history when a student killed 32 people and then himself at Virginia Tech university.
In October 2006, a milk truck driver tied up and shot 10 Amish schoolgirls in their classroom in Pennsylvania, killing five of them before turning the gun on himself. In another infamous shooting, two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher in April 1999 at their high school in Columbine, Colorado, before committing suicide.