Seventeen shot at Illinois college

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.

"I can't confirm any other fatalities," said John Peters,president of the 25,000-student college 65 miles (104 km) westof Chicago."

"I can tell you nothing about the gunman," includingwhether he was a student, Peters told a briefing on the latestin a series of shootings at U.S. colleges and high schools inrecent years.

A local hospital said there were 17 wounded, three incritical condition, eight in stable condition and six in goodcondition.

Officials at the campus said they did not know the motiveof the black-clad gunman, who they and witnesses said appearedat the front of the lecture hall and opened fire in the lastminutes of a class on ocean science.

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.

"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" firedthe shots.

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 university said on its Web site. "The gunman is nolonger a threat."

One student told local radio that roughly 140 students werein the classroom when the man opened fire. Ambulances swarmedonto the snow-covered campus and classes were cancelled for therest of the day and Thursday.

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 and came onto the classroom stage, which iselevated above where the students 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."

Mass shootings are not rare in the United States, where guncontrol is less strict than in many countries and where thegun-ownership lobby is politically influential.

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.

Last week, a nursing student shot dead two women and killedherself in front of horrified classmates at a college inLouisiana.

In December, a threat was found scrawled on a wall atNorthern Illinois University referring to the Virginia shootingand threatening similar violence, but officials said they hadno reason to link that to Wednesday's incident.

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