On December 5, 2007, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins shot and killed eight people and wounded four others in a Von Maur department store at

Westroads Mall Westroads Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska at the intersection of 100th and Dodge Streets ( U.S. Route 6). It is the largest mall in Nebraska. The mall's anchor stores are The Container Store, Von Maur, JCPenney, Dick's Sport ...

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

, before committing suicide by shooting himself in the head. It was the deadliest mass murder in

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

since the rampage of

Charles Starkweather Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959) was an American spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming between December 1957 and January 1958, when he was nineteen years old. He killed ten of his victi ...

in 1958.

Prior to shooting

An hour before the rampage, Hawkins' mother gave the Sarpy County Sheriff's Department his suicide note, which read in part: "I just want to take a few pieces of shit with me... just think tho, I'm gonna be fuckin famous." Surveillance footage showed that Hawkins, unarmed at first, entered the south entrance of the Von Maur department store at about 1:36 p.m. CST (19:36 UTC). After walking a short distance into the store, he scanned the area, turned around and left. Returning six minutes later through the same entrance, he proceeded directly to the elevator at his immediate right, this time with a Century WASR-10 (a commercial copy of the

AKM The AKM () is an assault rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1959. It is the most ubiquitous rifle of the Kalashnikov rifles. It was developed as a replacement to the AK-47 introduced a decade prior. Introduc ...

(

7.62×39mm The 7.62×39mm (aka 7.62 Soviet, formerly .30 Russian Short) round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the worldwide proliferation of Russian SKS and AK-47 pattern rifles, as ...

)

semi-automatic rifle A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt-a ...

) stolen from his stepfather's house, along with two 30-round

magazines A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination ...

taped together, concealed in a sweatshirt. He took the elevator to the top floor.

Shooting

At approximately 1:43 p.m. CST (19:43 UTC), Hawkins stepped out of the elevator on the third floor and opened fire. He first killed two women standing by some clothing racks before firing down the atrium, killing two men on the first and second floors. He then wounded two people on the third floor, one fatally, before walking to the customer service desk, where he shot several people, killing three. Hawkins then committed suicide by shooting himself up the chin. He fired more than 30 rounds, striking 12 people. Six were killed instantly, one died before reaching the hospital, and another died 45 minutes after reaching the ER of another hospital. Omaha Police arrived at Westroads Mall about six minutes after receiving the first 911 call. Audio tapes and transcripts of the 911 calls, along with images captured by mall security

surveillance camera A closed-circuit television camera can produce images or recordings for surveillance or other private purposes. Cameras can be either video cameras, or digital stills cameras. Walter Bruch was the inventor of the CCTV camera. The main purpose o ...

s, were released by the police on December 7, 2007. In one 911 call, gunshots can be heard. An autopsy of Hawkins showed that he had 200 nanograms per

millilitre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3) ...

Valium Diazepam, first marketed as Valium, is a medicine of the benzodiazepine family that acts as an anxiolytic. It is commonly used to treat a range of conditions, including anxiety, seizures, alcohol withdrawal syndrome, muscle spasms, insomnia, a ...

in his system, which is the low end of its therapeutic-use range (100–1500 ng/mL). No trace of any other drug was found in his system.

Victims

Eight people were killed by Hawkins during the shooting. Six were employees at the Von Maur store and the remaining two were customers. They are:"Profiles of 8 who died in Omaha mall massacre"
/ref> *Beverly Flynn, 47 (employee) *Janet Jorgensen, 66 (employee) *Gary Joy, 56 (employee) *John McDonald, 65 (customer) *Gary Scharf, 48 (customer) *Angie Schuster, 36 (department manager) *Dianne Trent, 53 (employee) *Maggie Webb, 24 (store manager) Four of the victims shot by Hawkins survived. Two critically injured were store employees. Fred Wilson, 61, was a manager for the customer service department. He was sent to the

University of Nebraska Medical Center The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) is a public academic health science center in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1869 and chartered as a private medical college in 1881, UNMC became part of the University of Nebraska System in 1902. R ...

with a gunshot wound to the upper chest. By the time he reached the ER, he had lost three-quarters of his blood and had no pulse. Wilson was upgraded to stable by the following weekend, and soon after was making some attempts to communicate. The other critically wounded victim was customer service employee Micheale "Mickey" Oldham, 65, who was sent to

Creighton University Medical Center Creighton University Medical Center - Bergan Mercy (formerly known as Creighton University Medical Center-Saint Joseph Hospital) is a hospital located in Central Omaha, Nebraska in the United States. On April 24, 2012, CUMC signed an agreement to ...

. She sustained heavy injuries to the abdomen and back, and, of the surviving victims, she suffered the worst injuries. Another surviving victim was customer Jeff Schaffart, 34, who was treated and released at UNMC for a gunshot wound to the left arm and the little finger of his left hand. The

Omaha Police Department The Omaha Police Department (OPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the city of Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States o ...

announced on December 22, 2007, that Mandy Hyda, 34, received a bruise when a bullet fragment struck her left leg. She was neither transported nor treated for the injury. It was initially reported that there were five people injured (not including Hyda), but two of those at the scene who were sent to local hospitals were sent for reasons other than being shot by Hawkins.

Perpetrator

Robert Arthur Hawkins was the 19-year-old perpetrator of the Westroads Mall shooting. He was born at the

RAF Lakenheath Royal Air Force Lakenheath or RAF Lakenheath is a Royal Air Force station near the village of Lakenheath in Suffolk, England, UK, north-east of Mildenhall and west of Thetford. The base also sits close to Brandon. Despite being an RAF sta ...

station in Suffolk, England, U.K., to American

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

personnel parents Ronald Hawkins and Maribel "Molly" Rodriguez. He was hospitalized at the age of four after persistent violent behavior in

pre-school A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary scho ...

. He was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder and

posttraumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats ...

due to his chaotic homelife. The day after he turned 14, he was sent to a mental health treatment center for threatening to kill his stepmother. Four months later, he became a

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

of the State of Nebraska, which lasted nearly four years until he was discharged completely due to his unwillingness to improve. During his second hospitalization, he was diagnosed with an unspecified

mood disorder A mood disorder, also known as an affective disorder, is any of a group of conditions of mental and behavioral disorder where a disturbance in the person's mood is the main underlying feature. The classification is in the '' Diagnostic and St ...

and

oppositional defiant disorder Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is listed in the DSM-5 under ''Disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders'' and defined as "a pattern of angry/irritable mood, argumentative/defiant behavior, or vindictiveness". This behavior is us ...

. His treatments cost the state $265,000. He was expelled from Fort Calhoun High School after trying to sell drugs to his classmates in 2005. He then attended Papillion-La Vista High School, and later dropped out in March 2006. He received a

GED The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills. It is an alternative to the US high ...

. In late 2006, he became estranged from his parents and chose to live with two friends and their mother in a home in the Quail Creek Neighborhood of

Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to: Placenames Australia * Bellevue, Western Australia * Bellevue Hill, New South Wales * Bellevue, Queensland * Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales Canada ...

, a suburb south of Omaha. Debora Maruca-Kovac, the owner of the house in which Hawkins lived, described him as "troubled". She also stated that he was depressed over being fired from his job at

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...

, reportedly for stealing $17, and over separating from his girlfriend two weeks prior to the incident because he cheated on her. In the summer of 2007, Hawkins tried to enlist in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

but was turned down on account of his mental health record. Hawkins was ticketed on November 24, 2007, for suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two alcohol charges, one of which was underage possession of alcohol. He was due in court for an arraignment on December 19, 2007. In late November, 2007, Hawkins threatened to kill a local teenager's family and burn her house down, because he thought she had stolen his

CD player A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audio ...

. The teen decided to press no charges because Hawkins was known for "shooting his mouth off". Hawkins was also convicted as a juvenile of a felony drug conviction while in foster care in Omaha.

Aftermath

In the days following the tragedy, the Von Maur store was thronged on all sides by flowers and signs expressing condolences, as makeshift memorials to the victims. By January 12, 2008, a fund for the victims' families surpassed one million dollars. ''

The Smoking Gun The Smoking Gun is a website that posts legal documents, arrest records, and police mugshots on a daily basis. The intent is to bring to the public light information that is somewhat obscure or unreported by more mainstream media sources. Most ...

'' released a copy of Hawkins' three-page suicide note which consisted of a note to his family, one to his friends, and his last will and testament, below which he signed his name and included his Social Security number. Initial news reports indicated that Hawkins wrote in his suicide note, "I'm going out in style"; however, the phrase does not appear on the publicly released document. On January 7, 2009, Hawkins' mother Maribel Rodriguez was featured on season 7 episode 77 of '' the Dr. Phil show''. Hawkins was the subject of the series premiere of the

Investigation Discovery Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. As of February 2015, approximately 86 million Amer ...

series ''

Evil Lives Here ''Evil Lives Here'' is an American documentary television series on Investigation Discovery that debuted on January 17, 2016. This 60-minute true crime show spends each episode interviewing a family member of the highlighted murderer. On August ...

'', a show that features testimonials of the loved ones of murderers, which premiered on January 17, 2016. It was his father and ex-stepmother's first public interviews since the shooting. Dutch DJ and producer

Angerfist Danny Masseling (born 20 June 1981), better known by his stage name Angerfist, is a Dutch hardcore producer and DJ. Aside from his main alias, he also produces for other genres and subgenres under various aliases and is part of the following g ...

sampled an excerpt from a news story about the shooting on his track "The Road to Fame" on the ''

Retaliate Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." Pr ...

'' album, released in 2011.

Reactions

The Von Maur corporate headquarters in Davenport, Iowa issued a statement saying, "We are deeply saddened by the horrific shooting at our Omaha store this afternoon. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this tragic event, as well as their families." A similar statement was shown on its web site's home page. Westroads Mall also stated on its web site, "Our thoughts and prayers remain with all affected by this tragedy." Its home page also indicated that the mall would remain closed until the following Saturday, December 8; however, the Von Maur store, where the incident took place, did not open until December 20. The day after the shooting, the Hawkins family released a statement expressing their condolences for the victims. On December 13, 2007, Hawkins' mother, Maribel Rodriguez, issued a formal apology for Hawkins' actions in an interview on '' Good Morning America''.

References

External links

Complete coverage
from the ''

Omaha World-Herald The ''Omaha World-Herald'' is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It was locally owned from its founding in 1885 until 2020, when it was sold to the newspaper ch ...