"Now I'll be Famous"

Famous?

What good is being famous for being a mass murderer?

What good is being famous if you're dead?

OMAHA, Neb. -- A man opened fire with a rifle at a busy department store Wednesday, killing eight people in an attack that made holiday shoppers run screaming through a mall and barricade themselves in dressing rooms.

The young shooter, who left a note predicting, "Now I'll be famous," wounded five others, two critically, then took his own life.

Witnesses said the gunman sprayed fired down on shoppers from a third-floor balcony of the Von Maur store using what police said was an SKS assault rifle they found at the scene.

"My knees rocked. I didn't know what to do, so I just ran with everybody else," said Kevin Kleine, 29, who was shopping with her 4-year-old daughter at the Westroads Mall, in a prosperous neighborhood on the city's west side. She said she hid in a dressing room with four other shoppers and an employee.

Police found the first victim on the second floor, then several more near a customer service station on the third floor.

The shooter, identified by police as 19-year-old Robert A. Hawkins, was found dead on the third floor with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren said the shooting appeared to be random. He would not release the victims' identities and gave no motive for the attack.

This is absolutely terrifying.

Hawkins went to a shopping mall and shot people at random. He killed them in cold blood.

It's so horrible, so senseless.

Apparently, Hawkins had a less than perfect life.

From the Omaha World-Herald:

Robert A. Hawkins made his wish come true Wednesday.

"I'm going to be famous now," the 19-year-old wrote in a suicide note before killing eight, wounding five and killing himself Wednesday afternoon at the Von Maur department store at Westroads Mall.

...The family he lived with said they saw no signs that he would hurt anyone other than himself.

Hawkins, 5-foot-7 and 128 pounds, moved in with his friend Will's family last year in the Quail Creek subdivision in Bellevue, said Will's mother, Debora Maruca.

The boys liked to target- and skeet-shoot at her family's cabin.

The night before the shooting, Hawkins and her sons showed Maruca an SKS semiautomatic Russian military rifle. She said she thinks the gun belonged to a member of Hawkins' family.

She didn't think much of it - it looked too old to work.

Hawkins took the weapon to the mall Wednesday afternoon, where he killed eight people and himself.

"I think, 'Why didn't I do something? What could I have done?'" Maruca said.

Hawkins' parents divorced when he was 3. He had spent time in foster care.

In Sarpy County in 2005, Hawkins admitted to a drug charge. He also pleaded guilty that year to disorderly conduct in Washington County and later was arrested for not paying the $100 fine.

Hawkins' father, Ronald, had been concerned about his son, said neighbor John Hubbard, a captain at the Douglas County Jail.

Ronald Hawkins asked Hubbard earlier this year if he would take the youth on a tour of the jail to help set him straight.

Hubbard said the jail has a policy against such tours.

Hubbard said Hawkins seemed like a "typical teenager" who played basketball and hung out with friends.

Mary Glass was Hawkins' foster mother for about a year. Her son, Ben Glass, 31, remembered Hawkins as an average kid who enjoyed video games. With his curly brown hair and big glasses, Hawkins had kind of a "nerdy" look, he said.

"He was a quiet kid," Ben Glass said. "He wasn't a whole lot of trouble."

Hawkins was a student at Papillion-La Vista High School "off and on," Principal Jim Glover said.

He was disciplined for skipping classes but never showed anger toward staff or students, Glover said.

"He was pretty low-key, laid-back," he said.

Hawkins quit school in March 2006, his senior year. Maruca said he later gotten earned a GED.

Hawkins had been hopping between homes of friends when Maruca offered to let him move in with her family in August 2006.

"He was like a lost pound puppy nobody wanted," she said.

The first few months, he seemed nervous and withdrawn, sometimes curling into a fetal position.

He was mannerly, expressing appreciation and asking how her day had been.

"We were eating like vultures," she said, "and he's saying, 'Please pass this,' and thanking me for every meal.'"

She thought his life had started to come together.

Hawkins was earning about $800 a month working at a nearby McDonald's and had started to pay rent in an effort to become more responsible.

He had gotten his driver's license in July, and on Nov. 28 he registered a 1995 green Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo.

"I really thought he was doing better," she said. "He had a little spark in his eye."

Then in the past two weeks, he broke up with his girlfriend.

He was ticketed Nov. 24 on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two alcohol charges.

About 1 p.m. Wednesday, Hawkins called Maruca's son, upset, and Maruca got on the line.

Hawkins thanked the family members for everything they had done for him. He said the family wouldn't have to worry about him any more.

Maruca asked if he had been fired from his job.

He said he had. He said he had been accused of stealing $17 from his till. (McDonald's management has declined to comment.)

They told him, Robbie, it's not that bad. Just come home. It'll be OK, Maruca said.

"He must have felt like everything he touched turned to crap," she said.

After the call, they checked his bedroom and found his note, which said things like, "I'm a piece of shit, but I'm going to be famous now."

Several ammunition clips lay nearby. The gun was gone.

They had gotten a call like this from him once before and worried he was going to commit suicide.

They didn't think he would hurt anyone else.

Maruca's son Will went looking for Hawkins. Maruca called Hawkins' mother, who picked up the note and took it to the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office.

Maruca, not knowing what else to do, went to work.

She is a nurse in the recovery room at the Nebraska Medical Center.

There she heard news reports of the mall shooting.

"I just got this sick feeling," she said. "I thought, 'Oh, my God, I hope this is not Robbie.'"

When Hawkins' mother arrived at the Sheriff's Office, she did not know about the mall shooting that had happened about 30 minutes earlier, Sarpy County Capt. Rolly Yost said.

Maruca said she had no idea why Hawkins picked Von Maur.

"They're completely innocent victims," she said of those he shot. "He had no connection."

...Among the media live trucks and split-level homes in her hilly subdivision, Maruca and a friend hugged and sobbed.

"That was Robbie," she said.

"I can't believe it," they kept telling each other.

"I can't f-ing believe it."

Hawkins had problems.

Who doesn't?

He also had people who cared about him. Maruca gave "lost pound puppy" Hawkins a home.

She said he wasn't a violent person.

She was very wrong about that. He slaughtered eight people.

Why them?

Because they were there.

Hawkins didn't know his victims.

So all this trauma was set off because things weren't going well for him. He wrote a suicide note, went to a mall, and committed mass murder before killing himself.

Was Hawkins a victim, too?

I don't think so.

In a sense, we're all victims in some way. We all have challenges and disappointments and struggles. But we don't choose to take the lives of innocents at a shopping mall. We don't kill others because our lives haven't been perfect.

Hawkins is getting his 15 mintues of fame, but that fame will be fleeting.

Being a murderer won't get him too far. He's not the first and he won't be the last.

What he did was criminal and immoral and cowardly.