Omaha mall gunman was a troubled teen
BELLEVUE, Neb. -- A high school dropout with a criminal past, Robert A. Hawkins had struggled to overcome depression. But friends thought he was making strides.
Then, about two weeks ago, he lost his girlfriend. A week later, it was his job. His friends worried he would regress.
"He was a very helpful young man, but he was quiet," said Debora Maruca-Kovac, a surgical nurse whose family took in the young man after her 17- and 19-year-old sons befriended him.
"He didn't cause a lot of trouble. He tried to help out all the time," Maruca-Kovac said. "He was very thankful for everything. He wasn't a violent person at all."
But police said it was that same 19-year-old who went into an Omaha shopping mall Wednesday and began a shooting rampage that killed eight people. It ended when he turned his high-powered rifle on himself. The rampage was as troubling as it was puzzling for those who knew him.
He had been in trouble before. There was a felony drug conviction in March 2005 and the disorderly conduct charge seven months later. He was due in court later this month on charges he contributed to the delinquency of a minor.
But Maruca-Kovac said she saw nothing foreshadowing the horror the teen would inflict during his last moments alive. She remembered a gentle young man who loved animals. She regarded him so benignly that when he showed her an AK-47 semiautomatic rifle the night before his attack, she thought little of it, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
But she had a feeling of despair soon after she learned about Wednesday shootings. By then, she had learned of a suicide note that the teen had left behind.
"I had a feeling it could be him," she said.
Police said the gunman may have smuggled an assault rifle into the mall underneath clothing.
Police Chief Thomas Warren said the young man "appeared to be concealing something balled up in a hooded sweat shirt" he was carrying, according to a surveillance video.
The teen entered the store Wednesday using an elevator, and moments later, gunfire pierced through the notes of Christmas music at the Westroads Mall's Von Maur department store. People huddled in dressing rooms and barricaded themselves in offices as the gunman sprayed the floor with bullets.
Six store employees and two customers were killed. When the shooting was over, the gunman shot himself.
Police believe the gunman stole the assault rifle, an AK-47, from his stepfather's home, Warren said.
The mall was closed Thursday as authorities continued to investigate what may have motivated the teen to go on the shooting spree. The shooting spree was Nebraska's deadliest since January 1958, when Charles Starkweather killed 10 people in Nebraska and another in Wyoming.
"We will not accept this evil action to occur in our community," Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey said at a news conference.
She said she and her husband let the gunman stay with them after he left or was kicked out of his family's house. Court records show that at least once he was termed a ward of the state, which legally removed him from his parents' custody.
With Hawkins living in her home, Maruca-Kovac could see he had a drinking problem and was an occasional marijuana smoker. He enjoyed music and video games -- "normal teenager stuff," she said.
"He was depressed, and he had always been depressed," Maruca-Kovac said. "But he looked like he was getting better."
The son of a woman who had custody of Hawkins until about a year ago said he was helpful in the yard and around the house.
"As far as foster kids go, he was pretty normal," said Ben Glass, 31, the son of Hawkins' former foster mother Mary Glass. Hawkins lived with the family for about a year. "He was actually one of the easier ones to get along with."
Hawkins had earned a GED after dropping out of Papillion-La Vista High School. He got a driver's license after moving in with the Maruca-Kovacs and five months ago started working at a McDonald's restaurant near their raised ranch-style home in a middle-class neighborhood in Bellevue, Maruca-Kovac said.
He was fired from that job this week, Maruca-Kovac said. Two employees of the McDonald's who were eating there Wednesday said they had been told not to talk to anyone about Hawkins.
Hawkins was not on any medication for mental illness, but he had been treated in the past for depression and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Maruca-Kovac said.
Hawkins lived with several friends for a couple days at a time before landing at Maruca-Kovac's house last year, she said.
"He was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted," she said. "I felt sorry for him. I let him stay, and we tried to get him on his feet."
Maruca-Kovac, who works at Nebraska Medical Center, said she was getting ready for work Wednesday when Hawkins phoned her at about 1 p.m., telling her he had left a note. She tried to get him to explain.
"He said, 'It's too late,' " and hung up, she told CNN. She then called Hawkins' mother.
In the note, which was turned over to authorities, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore.
"Now I'll be famous," he wrote.
Maruca-Kovac went to the medical center, where victims of the shooting soon began to arrive.
{BC-Mall Shooting, 11th Ld Ld-Writethru,1096}
{Police: Gunman may have smuggled rifle into mall in a sweat shirt}
{Eds: UPDATES with police saying rifle was an AK-47, that he} apparently stole it from stepfather; attempts to contact Hawkins family, detail on attorney who was shot. CORRECTS spelling of Vickroy. TRIMS. News conferences set for 3:30 p.m. EST. AP Video.
{AP Photo NY112, NEDW101, NEOMA201}
{AP Graphics MALL SHOOTING, OMAHA MALL}
{By OSKAR GARCIA}=
{Associated Press Writer}=
Hawkins either was kicked out or left home some time ago, and moved in with Debora Maruca-Kovac and her husband, whose sons were friends with him, Maruca-Kovac said.
Attempts to reach Hawkins' biological parents on Thursday by The Associated Press were unsuccessful. A man who answered at a phone number listed for Hawkins' father, Ronald Hawkins, said it was a wrong number. Nobody answered the door at the home of Maribel Rodriguez of Bellevue on Thursday. Court records list her as Hawkins' mother.
Hawkins was described by many as having a troubled past. He recently split with his girlfriend and been fired from McDonald's. He also had a criminal record and had left or been kicked out of his parents' house.
He dropped out of Papillion-La Vista High School as a senior in March 2006, principal James Glover said Thursday. While he wasn't a loner, he had a very small group of friends and was not involved in extracurricular activities, Glover said.
"It was never a situation where he was out of the loop because people were picking on him," Glover said.
About an hour before the shooting, Hawkins called her and told her he had written a suicide note, Maruca-Kovac said. In the note, which was turned over to authorities, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore. More ominously, he wrote, "Now I'll be famous."
"I was fearful that he was going to try to commit suicide but I had no idea that he would involve so many other families," she told CBS' "The Early Show," Thursday.
Records in Sarpy and Washington counties showed Hawkins had a felony drug conviction and several misdemeanor cases filed against him, including an arrest 11 days before the shooting for having alcohol as a minor. He was due in court in two weeks.
When the shots began, the store descended into chaos.
Mickey Vickroy, who worked in the store's third-floor service department, said she heard shots and went with coworkers and customers into a back closet, emerging about a half-hour later when police shouted to come out with their hands up. As police led them to another part of the mall for safety, they saw the victims.
"We saw the bodies and we saw the blood," she said.
Witness Shawn Vidlak said the shots sounded like a nail gun. At first he thought it was noise from construction work at the mall.
"People started screaming about gunshots," Vidlak said. "I grabbed my wife and kids. We got out of there as fast as we could."
Omaha attorney Jeff Schaffart, 34, was shopping with his wife and, after fleeing, realized he had been hit by two bullets, one in the upper arm and another grazing his left pinkie finger.
While hiding in a restroom, Schaffart said, he used his necktie as a tourniquet for his arm wound and put napkins on his finger to stop the bleeding. He was later treated and released at a hospital.
The customers killed were Gary Scharf, 48 of Lincoln and John McDonald, 65, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The employees killed were Angie Schuster, 36, of Omaha; Maggie Webb, 24; Janet Jorgensen, 66 of Omaha; Diane Trent, 53 of Omaha; Gary Joy, 56 of Omaha; and Beverly Flynn, 47, of Omaha, police said.
Nebraska Medical Center spokeswoman Andrea McMaster said the hospital had three victims from the mall shooting, including Fred Wilson, 61, who was in critical condition early Thursday with a bullet wound to his chest.
Micky Oldham, 65, was in stable condition at Creighton University Medical Center. Oldham, who was shot once in the abdomen and once in the back, underwent surgery Wednesday to repair injuries, Dr. Leon Sykes said.
The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to its Web site.
It was the second mass shooting at a mall this year. In February, nine people were shot, five of them fatally, at Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City. The gunman, 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, was shot and killed by police.
------
Associated Press Writer Anna Jo Bratton contributed to this report.