Three professors killed at University of Arizona
Gunman killed himself after shooting
Monday, October 28, 2002 Posted: 11:21 PM EST (0421 GMT)
TUCSON, Arizona (CNN) -- Students taking a midterm exam at the University of Arizona College of Nursing watched in horror Monday as a fellow student, apparently angry over being barred from the test, shot and killed two professors, police said. Authorities later found another professor dead in her office on another floor of the building.
The student was identified by the university as Robert S. Flores, 41, who turned the gun on himself after killing the two professors in the classroom, police said. Flores had asked students to leave the room before he killed himself.
Sgt. Marco Borboa of the Tucson Police Department said Flores was recently enrolled at the school, but it was not immediately clear if he was a current student.
The university identified the victims as three clinical associate professors at the nursing school: Robin Rogers, 50; Barbara Monroe, 45; and Cheryl McGaffic, 44.
The shootings began in the morning when Flores, carrying two guns, entered the College of Nursing and fatally shot Rogers in her second-floor office, Borboa said.
Flores then entered a fourth-floor lecture hall where, at 8:40 a.m. (10:40 a.m. EST), about 20 students had already been taking an examination for 20 or 30 minutes, said Assistant Police Chief Robert Lehner.
Flores spoke briefly to Monroe before shooting her, then went to the back of the classroom and shot McGaffic before telling students to leave, the university said.
"That's when we believe he shot himself," Borboa said.
Lehner said Monroe was shot several times.
Police teams were still sweeping the school building Monday evening, searching for explosives, Borboa said. They also searched Flores' home but found nothing suspicious.
Police said a bomb-sniffing dog had a reaction to the suspect's car, which was parked near the school building, and when police found a backpack under the body of the gunman, they suspected it might contain an explosive device.
The university said a memorial for the victims was pending.
"It's an intensely personal tragedy and trauma," said Peter Likins, president of the university.
It is too early to identify a motive, Borboa said, but Flores was dealing with "several different types of issues" concerning school and home life. Borboa would not give details.
A witness said the gunman was angry over being barred from midterm exams.
Another witness taking the test on the fourth floor of the building said she heard about 15 gunshots. It was "really scary," she said. "It was silent while he was shooting our teachers."
"I was afraid that I was going to get shot," she said.
University spokeswoman Lisa Wakefield said the college and surrounding buildings were evacuated after the shootings. Other buildings closed besides the Nursing College were the College of Pharmacy, Life Sciences North and Basic Sciences, police said.
The University Medical Center was locked down, and emergency cases were being diverted to other hospitals, a spokeswoman said. Visitors were barred, but she said employees were able to go in and out.
Police said people who fled the college after the shootings gathered at a nearby alumni center, where counseling was available.
The school building where the shootings happened will be closed Tuesday, Borboa said.
The police didn't find any explosives. The shooter did have 5 guns on him and about 200 rounds of amunition in his backback. The police think that he was going to kill more people but changed his mind because the police arrived so quickly.
My hospital made arrangements to take more patients because University Medical Center was closed to incoming patients for much of the day as the police were investigating for explosives in the vicinity of the University of Arizona School of Nursing.
This next article is more recent and has more details.
UA gunman's chilling words: 'Are you ready to meet your maker?'
© 2002 Arizona Daily Star
With a surreal calm, Robert S. Flores walked in on a midterm exam Monday, confronted a pair of University of Arizona nursing professors, then shot them three times each, eyewitnesses said.
Nursing student Diana Lugo, 22, was 40 minutes into a multiple-choice test when Flores, a fellow student, suddenly entered room 467 of the College of Nursing. Lugo, startled by the opening of the door near the blackboards, immediately saw Flores had a gun.
"He walked in and said to the first professor, 'Here's a lesson in spirituality,' then he said 'Make peace with your maker,' and then he shot her," Lugo said.
That professor, whom police identified as Barbara Monroe, often talked about spirituality when lecturing about patient care, Lugo said.
Monroe's shooting was actually the second of four apparently carried out by Flores around 8:30 this morning in the College of Nursing, police said.
First, professor Robin Rogers was shot to death in her second-floor office.
Then, police said, after Monroe was shot, Flores turned the gun on fellow professor Cheryl McGaffic, who also was teaching the class, called critical care. Finally, Flores shot himself.
The killings forced police to evacuate four buildings in the Arizona Health Sciences Center complex and to close North Campbell Avenue between East Speedway and East Elm Street. A police bomb dog alerted both to Flores' car and to a package that was underneath his body, prompting searches for explosives.
Lugo and fellow student Elizabeth Pickney both noticed Flores' incredible calm as he shot the first professor.
"It didn't register at first. Then I just heard the gunshot go off and I could see her fall to the ground," a shaken Lugo recounted Monday afternoon. "He did it in a kind of calm, gross, happy way. It was kind of like a joke to him."
After the first shot, the roughly 50 students in the class dove for the floor, Lugo said. From beneath their desks, students heard two more shots ring out, each spaced 10 or 15 seconds apart and presumably fired at Monroe, Lugo said.
Then Flores, who was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a coat, called out the names of two female students and demanded they stand up. Neither budged at first, but Flores insisted he wouldn't hurt them.
Eventually one of the female students stood up and Flores told her to "get the hell out of here," Lugo said. She fled the room, then the other female student stood up and was also allowed to leave unharmed.
"We were all pretty scared because we thought he would hold us hostage. We didn't know why he let them go," Lugo said.
Then Flores walked up to the second professor and said, "Do you remember what was the last thing you said to me," Lugo and Pickney recalled.
The professor replied "No" to which Flores responded, "You said it didn't matter. Well, it does matter to me," Lugo said. Before shooting her, Flores said "Are you ready to meet your maker?" Students heard two more shots ring out, again spaced 10 or 15 seconds apart, Lugo said.
Fearing for their lives, some students on the classroom floor had been trying to crawl toward the doors on the right side of the classroom, near the front. Flores had entered the class through the doors on the left side, also near the front.
Then Flores said, "Everyone get your asses out of here," urging his classmates to walk, not run, Lugo said. Students tumbled out of the room, some tripping over desks. As she left, Lugo saw both of the fallen professors, one of them "just laying in a pool of blood with blood coming out of her nose," she said. "I knew she was dead. You could just tell."
Lugo also saw Flores, standing there calmly with his gun dangling from one finger. Pickney, a former UA basketball player, ran to McKale Center while other students ran next door to the College of Pharmacy.
There, student Chris Chavez and his classmates in a third-floor immunology class heard screaming outside. They went downstairs and saw students running toward them from the College of Nursing.
"They were crying and screaming. We waited for them all to come in, and we locked down the college," Chavez said.
The pharmacy students and those who had come over from the nursing building waited about 15 minutes until a police team arrived and escorted them out of the building.
Police went on to evacuate the College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy, Life Sciences and Basic Sciences buildings. They were concerned about an explosion because of the bomb dog's alerts.
It wasn't until around 10:30 a.m. that police found Rogers' body.
Police also evacuated six people from the Broadway Village Apartments, where Flores lived, before conducting a search at the apartment.
Police said it's too early to know the motive for the shootings. But court records and acquaintances of Flores show there have been recent upsets in Flores' life.
On Oct. 4 a Pima County Superior Court judge ordered that Flores' wages be garnisheed for payment of child support, court records say. The records list Flores' employer as Nurse Finders, a business on Tucson's East Side.
Fellow students also said Flores had recently failed courses in the College of Nursing. Lisa Lentini, a nursing student who was in the building when the shootings occurred, said she started college with Flores. He failed pediatrics, Lentini said, and she heard he was failing critical care, the class where the shootings occurred.
According to court records, Flores was divorced in 1996 and had two children from that marriage, ages 15 and 10. State records show that Flores has a military background. In 1988, he had an address on post at Fort Huachuca, near Sierra Vista.
Flores was a soldier and a veteran of the Persian Gulf War, said Spencer Ralston, spokesman for the Veterans Administration's Southern Arizona Health Care System.
Although UA's nursing school is described as a tight-knit community, fellow student Lugo said Flores didn't have many friends because he had been left back and only joined the current senior class last year. UA's five-semester nursing program includes a mix of undergraduates and students who already have college degrees, Lugo said.
Lugo didn't know Flores well, only chatting with him a few times, but he did strike her as "a very anxious and stressed-out person." Flores would usually sit at the front of class and would repeatedly squeeze a rubbery "stress ball," Lugo said. "He always had one of those stress balls, had it out in class," she said.
Though he may have been stressed out, Lugo and many of Flores' neighbors described him as kind and friendly.
"I'm just really shocked this happened at the college of nursing," Lugo said. "It's sad to know that someone who was supposed to be caring for others could just go and shoot people."
