In a stark, puzzling contrast to the usual image of a rampaging gunman, Mr. Kazmierczak, 27, was described Friday as a successful student %26#151; %26#8220;revered,%26#8221; the authorities said, by his professors %26#151; who had served as a teaching assistant and received a dean%26#8217;s award as an undergraduate here at Northern Illinois University, where he returned Thursday, killing himself and five students and wounding 16 others.Here, he had campaigned for a leadership post in a student group that studied the failings of the prison system, an issue he was passionately concerned about, and had apparently won. He was a co-author of an academic paper called %26#8220;Self-Injury in Correctional Settings: %26#8216;Pathology%26#8217; of Prisons or of Prisoners?%26#8221; which examined why inmates might hurt themselves with behaviors like cutting their skin.He was personable, easy to talk to, an excellent student, said his professors at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, some 130 miles south of here, where he was on his way to receiving a master%26#8217;s degree in social work. The specialty he selected was in mental health. %26#8220;In this case, I was overwhelmed,%26#8221; said Jan Carter-Black, Mr. Kazmierczak%26#8217;s adviser and an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois, after learning that Mr. Kazmierczak was the gunman. %26#8220;I was amazed. I was shocked. I was overwhelmed.%26#8221; Officials said the only hint of trouble from Mr. Kazmierczak, who fatally shot himself moments after firing at a large class with rounds from some of his four guns, had come in the last few weeks. Family members told the authorities that Mr. Kazmierczak had stopped taking his medication. Law enforcement authorities would not say what the medication was for, but said Mr. Kazmierczak had grown erratic, according to his family, in the days after he quit taking the drugs. The gunman bought his weapons legally from a Champaign gun dealer, officials said. He also bought some accessories from the popular Internet dealer who sold a gun to the gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre last year. In Champaign, neighbors at a modest apartment complex Mr. Kazmierczak had moved into not long ago said they, too, had sensed that something was not quite right. The look on his face suggested he had %26#8220;a lot on his mind,%26#8221; said Martha Shinall, 78, who lives across the hall from Mr. Kazmierczak%26#8217;s apartment, where he sometimes blared his music and spent time with a girlfriend.But beyond the recent changes and some glimpses of inconsistency through the years %26#151; a quick end to a stint in the military, a prison job he left with no explanation %26#151; the authorities here said they knew nothing of signs, overlooked warnings, or known grudges when it came to Mr. Kazmierczak. He said nothing when he burst into an ocean sciences lecture in Cole Hall here on Thursday afternoon and started firing. He left no known notes behind, said Donald Grady, the police chief at the university. He had no known relationships with any students or teachers inside the class. He had no previous run-ins with the police.%26#8220;He was an outstanding student, revered by faculty and staff,%26#8221; said Chief Grady, acknowledging how that increased the mystery of the violence. Mr. Kazmierczak grew up on a tree-lined street of ranch-style homes in the suburbs of Chicago with a sister and parents who retired to Lakeland, Fla., in recent years, records show. His mother, Gail, died in 2006, at age 58. In a modest golf and country club community in Lakeland, at the home of his father, Robert Kazmierczak, plastic pink flamingos adorned the lawn and a sign, %26#8220;Illini fans live here,%26#8221; a reference to his son%26#8217;s most recent university, hung on the front door. %26#8220;Please leave me alone,%26#8221; the elder Mr. Kazmierczak told reporters from his front stoop in a brief, televised interview. %26#8220;This is a very hard time. I%26#8217;m a diabetic, and I don%26#8217;t want to have a relapse,%26#8221; he added, bursting into tears.In Champaign, at the home of his sister, Susan, a message was taped to the door offering prayers and sympathies to all of the victims. %26#8220;We are both shocked and saddened,%26#8221; the note said. %26#8220;In addition to the loss of innocent lives, Steven was a member of our family. We are grieving his loss as well as the loss of life resulting from his actions.%26#8221; 1 2 Next Page %26#x00bb;
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