U.S. police release surveillance images of Omaha mall gunman

By Xinhua

Washington : U.S. police released Friday surveillance images of the 19 year-old gunman who went on a shooting rampage in a shopping mall in Omaha, Neb. Wednesday, killing 8 people before committing suicide.


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The images show Robert Hawkins walking into the Westroads Mall unarmed, unmasked, in a black sweat shirt and pants and glasses, according to TV and wire news reports.

Hawkins returned 6 minutes later with an apparent bulge under his sweat shirt.

The last image shows Hawkins with his sleeves rolled up, holding an AK-47 with both hands toward the surveillance camera, ready to fire.

Hawkins went on a shooting spree in the mall Wednesday shortly before 2 p.m.

Six store employees and two customers died, and five people were wounded.

He was found by police dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on the third floor of the Von Maur department store.

Hawkins spent four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002.

Debora Maruca-Kovac, the mother of a friend of Hawkins, described him as introverted and troubled.

She also told CNN that Hawkins had obtained a rifle Tuesday night from his parents’ house, where he was reportedly kicked out, and said that he was going target shooting with friends.

Maruca-Kovac said Hawkins had called her an hour before the shooting.

“He had said how much he loved his family and all his friends and how he was sorry he was a burden to everybody and his whole life he was a piece of shit and now he’ll be famous,” she recalled.

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