CRISSA NELSON | editor-in-chief
Thursday Feb. 14 began a week of unrelated fatal school shootings across the country leaving 10 dead and many wounded and shaken.
At approximately 3p.m. on Thursday, a former student of Northern Illinois University opened fire in a lecture hall, killing six students and wounding over a dozen. Four female and two male students were victims of a “very brief rapid-fire assault” that lasted less than two minutes, according to University President John Peters.
The gunman was armed with a shotgun and two handguns. Four people died in the lecture hall, including the gunman. Seventeen others were rushed to Kishwaukee Community Hospital where two died later that day. The motives of the shooter are still unknown.
That same day, a classmate shot 15-year-old Lawrence King in the head at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, CA. King was declared brain-dead and taken off life support late Thursday night.
Students said King had recently started to wear makeup and jewelry. The day prior to the shooting he had i verbal confrontation concerning King’s sexual orientation with the defendant. The 14-year-old defendant was charged with premeditated murder and a hate crime and was tried as an adult.
Friday brought further fatalities in Las Vegas when Palo Verde High School freshman Christopher Privett was killed by a fellow student in a drive-by shooting. Privett was leaving campus with other students after classes ended. There are no understood motivations for the targets.
These were the culmination of five fatal school shootings since last Friday, Feb. 8 when a woman shot two fellow students at Louisiana Technical College and a 17-year-old was accused of critically wounding a fellow student during a high school gym class in Memphis Tenn. on Monday Feb. 11. 
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