Teen kills 8, shoots self in Nebraska mall

Five people were wounded, two of them critically, in the early afternoon rampage in the Midwestern US city. Most of the victims at the upscale Westroads Mall were shot inside the Von Maur department store near the children’s clothing area.

“It was horrible, just horrible,” one woman told local television station KETV, saying she hid under a rack of clothes when the gunfire started.

The Nebraska shooting was the latest in a series of mass killings that have shocked the US, where gun ownership is widespread and the right to bear arms is a fiercely contested constitutional issue. The White House said it was a “terrible tragedy”.

“It’s hard to believe it would happen here,” said Jennifer Bettger, who left the mall just before the shootout. “It stops you in your tracks. We’re all asking why. Why here?”

Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren identified the gunman as Robert Hawkins from Bellevue, Nebraska, near Omaha. He was living with friends after going through a series of hard times, according to many who said they were close to Hawkins.

Warren said the dead were five females and three males but he would not specify whether any were children.

“It would be speculation to try to figure out what the motive may have been,” said Warren. “It may be impossible to come up with an explanation.”

The gunman 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 as dozens of shots echoed through the shopping centre.

“We’re a family business,” said Jim Von Maur, chief executive of the chain of 22 department stores. “This is just devastating.”

Hawkins struggled with depression and had been in trouble at school and with the law, KETV reported. Hawkins, who had just been sacked from a his job at McDonald’s and had recently broken up with his girlfriend, was said to be “troubled”. He was kicked out of his home about a year ago and moved in with friend Debora Maruca-Kovac and her husband.

Maruca-Kovac said Hawkins phoned her at about 1pm on Wednesday telling her that he had left a note for her in his bedroom.

“He said, ‘It’s too late’,” and hung up,” she told CNN. “He wanted to go out like a star,” said Andrew Bigler, who introduced himself as a friend of Hawkins. “He had a rough life. He was a good guy. I loved him.”

Jeff Schaffart, an attorney, was shot in the arm as he spent his lunch break shopping with his wife. He said he hid in a Von Maur women’s bathroom, using his tie to slow the bleeding.

“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 after Virginia Tech university became the site of the deadliest shooting spree in modern US history when a student killed 32 people and then himself.

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.

President George W Bush, who visited Omaha on Wednesday morning but had left the city hours before the gunman opened fire, was “deeply saddened by the shootings,” the White House said in a statement.

Shootouts fail to provoke a serious debate in the United States; gun laws not a big issue in the presidential campaign

On April 16 2007, Seung-Hui-Cho, a student at Virginia Tech indiscriminately shot to death 32 students before committing suicide. The Virginia Tech massacre claimed more lives than any other school shootout in US history

On October 2, 2006, 32-year-old gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV killed five girls at an Amish school in Pennsylvania. He committed suicide after killing the girls, who were aged between 7 and 13

On March 21, 2005 Jeffrey Weise, a student of Red Lake High School in Minnesota shot and killed 7 people including a teacher, before committing suicide. Before embarking on the shootout, he had killed his paternal grandfather Daryl Lussier and Lussier’s girlfriend Michelle Sigana

On January 12, 2002, a former student of Appalachian School of Law (in Virginia), Nigerian Peter Odighizuwa opened fire with a handgun, and killed 3 people. Eventually he was subdued by students and is now serving multiple life terms in prison for murder

On April 20, 1999, high school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed into Columbine High School and went on a shooting rampage killing 12 students, before committing suicide

On May 21, 1998 Kipland ‘Kip’ Kinkel arrived at Thurston high school in Springfield, Oregon. He killed 2 students before being subdued by other students. The previous day he had shot and killed his parents, who were teachers in local high schools