“I’m focused on the NIU family, our parents and our students,” NIU president John Peters said in a public address Friday morning regarding the Cole Hall shooting Thursday afternoon.

As announced at Friday morning’s press conference, the shooting has claimed six victims, including the shooter thus far: Daniel Parmenter, 20, a finance major from Westchester; Catalina Garcia, 20, undecided, of Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, psychology, of Carpentersville; Julianna Gehant, 32, elementary education, of Meridian; Gayle Dubowski, 20, anthropology, of Carol Stream.

The shooter, Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, of Elk Grove Village, was a former NIU graduate student and current graduate student at University of Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign studying sociology.

Just minutes after the event, students joined together through phone calls, text messages, instant messages, FaceBook and MySpace to check on their friends and friends and family members.

A candlelight vigil was held by the Greek community at midnight to commemorate Daniel Parmenter, a Pi Kappa Alpha member killed in the shooting as well as two members of the Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority injured in the shooting.

A candlelight vigil is scheduled for 9 p.m. Friday in the King Memorial Commons.

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