Most of you may have already heard, Brazil
imposed a ban on popular role-playing computer games Counter-Strike. At that
time, I'm was puzzled, but now, a college crime related CS has happened in
Northern Illinois University.
It is a sad story. Steven Kazmierczak, a 27-years-old man, gunned down five
people and wounded 16 in an Illinois classroom recently. According to the nypost's
report, the man played the wildly popular game Counter-Strike while studying
sociology at school.
February 16, 2008. The man who gunned down five
people and wounded 16 in an Illinois classroom rampage was a loner who preferred
studying to partying and was obsessed with an ultra-violent video game,
dormitory mates said yesterday.
Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, played the wildly popular game Counter-Strike while
studying sociology at Northern Illinois University in 2003 and 2004.
"He played a lot of video games, especially Counter-Strike, really loud,"
said dorm mate Ben Woloszyn, 24.
In the game, players use imaginary money to buy shotguns, pistols and other
equipment they need to move around an imaginary world in which they're
constantly under threat of being killed by roving terrorists.
In real life, Kazmierczak, who had become "erratic" recently after shunning
medication for an undisclosed illness, purchased weapons like those used in
Counter-Strike, including a Glock handgun and a pump-action Remington shotgun,
which he bought legally on Feb. 9.
He had two other pistols that cops said were also bought legally, though they
weren't sure when.
Police wouldn't say why Kazmierczak stopped taking his medication, or what is
was for.
Though a loner, Kazmierczak wasn't antisocial, said acquaintances. He had
been an officer in the campus chapter of the American Correctional Association.
He worked briefly as a full-time correction officer at the Rockville
Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Indiana, but his tenure there
lasted only from Sept. 24 to Oct. 9, after which Indiana prisons spokesman Doug
Garrison said "he just didn't show up one day."
Kazmierczak also had a short-lived stint in the Army. He enlisted in the Army
in September 2001, but was discharged in February 2002 for an "unspecified"
reason, said an Army spokesman.
He got his undergraduate degree in 2006, and was enrolled in Northern
Illinois' graduate school last spring. More recently, he'd enrolled in grad
school at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
"He was a really quiet guy. Something about him wasn't quite right, he was
kind of off," said Jarrod Rice, 23, another dorm mate.
At around 3 p.m. Thursday, Kazmierczak shot up a class containing between 70
and 100 students before killing himself.
"He had a blank look on his face. He was there to kill," said witness Sam
Brunell, 18. "Anyone that could walk into a room and just start shooting has no
emotions."
News Original From: nypost
[Editor:Stella]