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Churchgoers pray for shooting victims
2008-02-17
Churchgoers remembered the victims of the Northern Illinois University shooting rampage Sunday with prayers and support for the school and family members. At First Baptist Church of DeKalb, members passed out red ribbons to several dozen people who attended a morning service. The Rev. Joe Sanders offered prayers for the families of victims and relatives of the gunman who killed five students and wounded 16 other people in a lecture hall Thursday before taking his own life. "Our spirit cannot help, cannot even begin, to grasp the horror that we have seen," Sanders told those gathered. "I'm never going to be the same. I don't think any of us will be the same. The way we think and live will be altered by what happened at NIU." In the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, worshippers at Christ Church were asked to rally around Gary and Linda Parmenter, whose 20-year-old son, Daniel, was killed in the shooting. "We think of unexpected and unexplained violence that strikes our family," the Rev. Doug Calhoun prayed. "We grieve and we shudder. We know there's no answer to this." Authorities said Steven Kazmierczak, 27, had a history of mental illness and had been off his medication for weeks when he stepped out from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on a geology class.
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