Robert Hawkins: Troubled Child

From ‘Troubled’ to ‘Killer,’ Despite Many Efforts
By ERIC KONIGSBERG
Published: December 8, 2007
Robert A. Hawkins made a five-year journey through a maze of juvenile services before killing eight people and himself in a mall.

Robert A. Hawkins, as a ward of the State of Nebraska, received extensive care at Cooper — private psychotherapy, family therapy, drug counseling — from 2003 to 2005...
“I’ve just snapped,” Mr. Hawkins wrote in one of two suicide notes the police released on Friday.
But his actions did not come without warning signs; nor were these signals ignored. The rampage appears to be not so much a case of a young man slipping through the cracks, as a tragedy in which measured vigilance ended up not being enough.

Opposite Reactions: Pro Gun Carrying vs. Gun Control

An "Eye-Witness" of Robert Hawkins shooting in the shopping mall, writes:

This part of the story may be removed later, but I will have it here for now.

I do not have a Concealed Handgun Permit. I have completed the training class, but I keep putting off applying for the permit because I think it is useless. In the places I would need a gun most, I am not allowed to have it. I will not be a person living in fear and not go to Van Maur because they don’t allow guns.

My point that Open Carry needs to be easier in Omaha, and places like Westroads need to take down their “no guns” signs.

If I had my gun deeply concealed, I wouldn’t have been able to draw it very fast. However, If I had open carried, I could of drawn instantly.

Either way though, I could have drawn and taken a clean shot. However, in both cases, regardless of the laws, I am not allowed to carry a gun at all in Westroads Mall. If the laws did not oppress my rights, I would carry a gun most places (except work). I would certainly have had it in the mall as mall shootings have been on my mind since the incident at a mall involving a shotgun back in February.

My wife is somewhat cautious about guns as is my sister-in-law. After this event, both are now pro-guns. In addition, I will never again be caught without a gun.

Off the top of my head, this gentleman (who amazingly survived being within a fairly close distance of shooter, Robert Hawkins at the mall in Nebraska) makes me imagine the 'wild West' where everyone was armed openly everywhere... in the streets, in the saloons, in the hotels, perhaps even in the churches (?)!

I can't imagine that this sort of open gun carrying would make any of us safer. It seems to me that if we all carried guns, then any time we felt threatened, we would be faced with the awful decision: do I shoot this person or wait? If I shoot this person, will that fellow over there (who is also packing a gun openly) know why I took the shot? Or will that person draw his or her handgun and shoot me? Goodness, just about everyone around me at that particular moment might draw his or her gun and shoot me!

As for me, I think I lean towards gun control, not open gun toting.

The KEY question is: How did this 19 year old get an AK-47?

Memorial Fund for Victims of Shopping Mall Massacre

The Von Maur company, which operates stores across the Midwest, said it had established a memorial fund with the local United Way for the shooting victims and their families and invited public contributions. It also said it was helping families of the eight victims with funeral arrangements and grief counseling.

Police said Hawkins, 19, of nearby Bellevue, fired more than 30 rounds inside the crowded mall, striking 11 people. Six died where they fell, one died on the way to a hospital and another died despite 45 minutes of emergency treatment at another hospital.

Three other people were wounded, two seriously.

Young Murderers

MICHAEL ANDERSON, 24
ROBERT HAWKINS, 19

OMAHA, Neb. - The young man (Robert Hawkins) who killed eight people and committed suicide in a shooting rampage at a department store spent four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002.

Michael Anderson killed a young woman who answered an online advertisement for a babysitter. She was shot in the back by Anderson and a friend of his when she came for the interview.

Gunman Kills

OMAHA, Nebraska: A gunman wearing camouflage and wielding a rifle opened fire in a department store at a mall here crowded with holiday shoppers, killing eight people and wounding five, before turning the gun on himself.

The gunman, identified by the authorities as Robert Hawkins, who was 19 or 20, of nearby Bellevue, Nebraska, was described by friends as a depressed person who had lost his job at a McDonald's restaurant earlier Wednesday.