Two 2007 NIU graduates have identified Thursday’s shooter as a former residence hall neighbor.

Ben Woloszyn, former Northern Star photo editor and current staff photographer for the Laramie Boomerang in Laramie, Wyoming, said he lived next door to the shooter, Stephen Kazmierczak, his sophomore year. Woloszyn said Kazmierczak had a single room and did not regularly communicate with his floormates.

“He was really quiet and kept to himself,” Woloszyn said, adding that the only time he typically conversed with him was when Kazmierczak would complain that Woloszyn and his roommate, Jarrod Rice, were too loud.

He added that Kazmierczak spent a great deal of his time playing “Counterstrike,” a first–person shooter video game.

Rice, former Northern Star sports editor and current copy editor for the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, said, “We’d see him briefly in the hallway or if he’d come over and tell us to keep it down.”

Rice believed Kazmierczak was particular about his privacy.

“He was kind of awkward; really quiet,” Rice said. “There was something off about him.”

Kazmierczak often plastered his door full of political comics, often bashing president George W. Bush, Rice said.

The shooter was also a sociology computer lab attendant in 2006-2007 at NIU, Rice said.

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