At least 17 shot at Illinois university

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A man opened fire with a shotgun in acrowded lecture hall at Northern Illinois University onThursday, wounding at least 17 people before killing himself,authorities said.

Witnesses said terrified students, some of them bleedingprofusely from neck and other wounds after being hit bybuckshot, fled the classroom after the gunman began shootingseemingly at random from near the front of the room.

"Some girl got hit in the eye, a guy got hit in the leg,"George Gaynor, a student who was in the hall told the NorthernStar, the student newspaper on the campus.

He said "a skinny white guy with a stocking cap on" beganshooting about five minutes before a class on ocean science wasto have ended. Another witness said the man suddenly appearedat the front of the auditorium carrying a shotgun and perhapsanother weapon and began firing into the audience and at theteacher.

Within two hours of the shooting police said the area hadbeen secured. They said the gunman had killed himself.

"Campus police report that the immediate danger haspassed," the Web site of Northern Illinois University in DeKalbsaid on its Web site. "The gunman is no longer a threat."

A hospital near the campus said 17 people had been treatedfor gunshot wounds.

One student told local radio that roughly 140 students werein the classroom when the man opened fire. Ambulances swarmedonto the 25,000-student campus, which is 65 miles (104 km) westof downtown Chicago, and classes were cancelled, the universitysaid on its Web site.

One male student said he was sitting in the class, takingnotes when the gunman entered from behind a curtain, firing ashotgun. "He was just shooting, and people were screaming."

Kristina Balluff, a student, said the gunman was dressed inblack pants, shirt, and was wearing some sort of mask. He cameonto the classroom stage, which is elevated above where thestudents sit, and began firing.

"I looked at this girl next to me and actually said, 'isthis real?' I think the professor ... ducked out of the way."

U.S. schools and colleges have suffered a series ofshooting incidents in recent years.

A university in Blacksburg, Virginia, Virginia Tech, becamethe site of the deadliest rampage in U.S. history in April lastyear when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern and Michael Conlon; Editing byStuart Grudgings)