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The three still images show Robert A Hawkins, 19, the shaggy-haired assailant, raising an assault rifle to fire in front of a department store mannequin in the Westroads Mall in Omaha. The images at first show Hawkins walking into the mall unarmed, wearing glasses, a black zippered sweat shirt over a black T-shirt with a white logo. Six minutes later, he returns and strides through an entrance decked with holiday decorations, an apparent bulge under his clothing. In the last image, he is shown with his sleeves rolled up, aiming the AK-47 to fire. In his three-page, handwritten suicide note, Hawkins wrote that he 'just snapped' in a letter that combines love for his friends and family and hate for his random victims. The gunman left the note Wednesday at the house where he lived.
Full Image "I know everyone will remember me as some sort of monster but please understand that I just don't want to be a burden on the ones that I care for my entire life," 19-year-old Robert Hawkins wrote. "I just want to take a few peices (sic) of (expletive) with me." He apologized to his friends in one page of the note, saying, "I've been a peice (sic) of (expletive) my entire life it seems this is my only option." He said his friends would be better off without him, and told them to remember the good times they had. "Just think tho I'm gonna be (expletive) famous," he wrote. He was more apologetic in another page addressed to his family.
Full Image "I'm so sorry for what I've put you through I never meant to hurt all of you so much and I don't blame any one of you for disowning me," he wrote. "I've just snapped I can't take this meaningless existence anymore I've been a constant disappointment and that trend would have only continued." I love you dad," and expressed love for several other people. The third page was his will: "I'm giving my car back to my mom and my friends can have whatever else I leave behind." The images appear to contradict earlier reports that the gunman had a military-style haircut and entered the mall wearing a camouflage vest.
Full Image Moments after Hawkins entered the mall, authorities would be flooded with 911 calls about the gunfire. One was from Jodi Longmeyer, a human resources manager at the Von Maur store, agonized with the operator while barricaded in an employee locker room at the store. She saw Hawkins step off the mall elevator on the third floor. Minutes later, shaking and scared, Longmeyer was able to get into a security room, where she described what she could see on live surveillance of the department store. "It looks like the gun is lying over by customer service. It looks like he might have killed himself," Longmeyer said, her voice rising as she started to sob. The shoppers killed were identified as Gary Scharf, 48, of Lincoln, and John McDonald, 65, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Jorgensen's family said Friday they gathered soon after the tragedy at the police command center to pray for the victims and their families, including Hawkins. But they still haven't come to grips with what happened, family members said.
Full Image "We're waiting for her to walk in the door, late from work," son-in-law Randy Shaefer said. State officials, aquaintances and police have described Hawkins as having a troubled past. He had broken up with a girlfriend recently and lost his job. Acquaintances said he was a drug user and that he had a history of depression. Hawkins spent four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002, state officials said. In August 2006, social workers, the courts and his father all agreed: It was time for Hawkins to be released - nine months before he turned 19 and would have been required to leave anyway. After reviewing surveillance tape, the suicide note and Hawkins' last conversations with those close to him, police said they don't know - and may never know - exactly why Hawkins went to the mall and opened fire. About an hour before the shootings, Hawkins called Debora Maruca-Kovac, a woman who with her husband took Hawkins into their home because he had no other place to live. He told her he had written a suicide note, Maruca-Kovac said. In the note, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore.
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