BILL WOLFF (Announcer): From NPR News in New York, this is THE BRYANT PARK PROJECT.
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RACHEL MARTIN, host:
Live from NPR Studios at Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan, this is THE BRYANT PARK PROJECT from NPR News. Hey, I'm Rachel Martin.
ALISON STEWART, host:
And I'm Alison Stewart. It is Friday, February 15th, 2008. I don't know about Rachel, when you get out of the bed on Friday, isn't there just that little extra kick on your step?
MARTIN: It was remarkable. Usually, I'm like, snooze, snooze, snooze. But today, I woke up with a little spring in my step and…
STEWART: Ready to go.
MARTIN: …feeling good.
STEWART: Right. You also have Monday off because I'm going to - it's your birthday Monday.
MARTIN: It's my birthday, it's my birthday - apparently, I have no issues with telling everyone it's my birthday on Monday.
STEWART: We're going to let Rachel loose in the big city on Monday. And we'll have a special guest host. I'm not going to tell who it is.
MARTIN: Yeah. Stay tuned. It's going to be good.
STEWART: Guest newscaster as well.
MARTIN: Shaking it up here at THE BRYANT PARK PROJECT.
STEWART: Lots of guests.
This hour, we'll also - we'll speak to a photographer who takes pictures of things that are left behind right at the border. And by the looks of them, it seems to be things that illegal immigrants have had to abandon in their quests.
MARTIN: And every Friday, we round up all the news from Iraq into one, big segment. And we call at the Week in Iraq. And today, we're going to talk with Ann Scott Tyson at the Washington Post.
STEWART: Yeah, talking about whether or not the withdrawal of those extra surge troops will be paused. That's the word that's being used now. Also…
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STEWART and MARTIN: Bake off!
STEWART: If you don't know what that is, that means you've not visited our blog nearly enough…
MARTIN: Shame on you.
STEWART: …and seen our video. We have a staff bake off, sort of in honor Valentine's Day, using various - you guys voted on the ingredients. It's kind of an "Iron Chef" meets bake off meets - I don't know what else.
MARTIN: "Top Chef."
STEWART: "Top Chef." Thank you. That's what I was looking for. Producer Ian Chillag and producer Caitlin Kenney go head to head. Our NPR New York office manager Agnes will be the judge.
MARTIN: Helper. Very diplomatic, that Agnes.
STEWART: She is. Agnes has the cutest accent ever.
MARTIN: I know.
STEWART: We'll get today's headlines in just a minute. But we do want to get to THE BRYANT PARK PROJECT's Big Story.
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MARTIN: Seven people are dead and 15 wounded after a shooting at Northern Illinois University yesterday. A young man dressed in black entered a campus lecture hall armed with a shotgun and two handguns and opened fire, killing six people before taking his own life.
STEWART: Now officials have not released the shooter's name and offered no information about his motive. He had been a sociology grad student at NIU, but was not currently enrolled there. He had no police record at the university.
MARTIN: Student Desiree Smith was in the lecture for Geology 104 with about 100 classmates. She describes what happened to WGNTV.
Ms. DESIREE SMITH (Student, Northern Illinois University): You know, he just seemed to appear out of nowhere. There's two doors to the auditorium where everyone sits. And in the stage part, there's a back door that like leads to the projection room, I think, or at least to another hallway. And he came in through that back door. And I just looked up, and he was just there all of a sudden. So I didn't even notice that the door was opening for him to come out. And I just - I'll never forget that image of him standing there, holding that huge gun.
STEWART: Another student who was in the classroom, Lauren Karr(ph), described the scene as students fled.
Ms. LAUREN KARR (Student, Northern Illinois University): It was chaos. I was on the ground and got trampled. My back has, like, bruises on it and people stepped on everyone. And you're just trying to get out of there. Everyone was screaming and running, and it was really scary.
MARTIN: John McGinley(ph) survived the ordeal, but was obviously shaken.
Mr. JOHN McGINLEY (Student, Northern Illinois University): It's shocking that it actually is happening right now. And I've asked my buddy a couple times, this is seriously happening right now? I was like, this is Virginia Tech stuff.
Unidentified Man: Pretty scary?
Mr. McGINLEY: Very scary.
STEWART: The attack was the deadliest campus shooting since 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech last April. NIU president John Peters offered condolences to the victims and their families and urged students to seek counseling.
MARTIN: Campus police chief Donald Grady responded to questions about how to prevent this kind of campus tragedy.
Mr. DONALD GRADY (Campus Police Chief, Northern Illinois University): You know, I wish I could tell that there was a panacea for this kind of a thing. But you've noticed that there's been multiple shootings all over this country within the last six months. It's a horrendous circumstance, and as much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning. Now we do the best that we can to make certain that it doesn't go very far and that we end it very quickly, but it's very difficult to say that we could actually stop someone for beginning an incident like this.
STEWART: Classes at all Northern Illinois University campuses are cancelled today.
That's the BPP's Big Story. Now let's get some more of today's headlines. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.