Friends: Mall shooter appeared to be coping

Friends of the 19-year-old man who killed eight before committing suicide in an Omaha mall describe someone who didn’t fit the standard image of a mass killer.

Robert Hawkins wasn’t a loner, had friends, sometimes dated and didn’t seem like he was so consumed by anger over the bad hand life dealt him that he could commit such a heinous crime, two men who knew the gunman said Friday on TODAY.

“Robert was a very smart man. He could have done anything he wanted to,” one of his best friends, a 20-year-old man who asked to be identified only as Jason, told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira. “He was real gentle, real kind with animals, real nice, real funny. I couldn’t really see him doing anything like this.”

“He’d never given us an indication of anything like that. He was too mild-mannered,” said another friend, Noah, 19, who also asked to be identified only by his first name. “This is a surprise to everyone.”

The two friends, speaking from Omaha, spoke in subdued monotones, their faces blank as if from shock. Both had met Hawkins in high school within the past two years. They knew he had been a ward of the state since he was in the eighth grade and had had a rough childhood marked by conflict with his father.

But since moving in with a surgical nurse, Debora Maruca-Kovac, whose sons were among his tight circle of friends, life had seemed to be looking up for him. But for Hawkins, any advance was usually followed by a defeat, the friends said.

“He was getting better. He was on his feet again,” said Noah. “But with Rob it was always one step forward and then two steps back. It happened to him over and over again.”

News reports have noted that Hawkins had in short order lost his girlfriend and his job at McDonalds, but Jason said he hadn’t seemed devastated. On Monday, he had spoken with Hawkins about the lost job.

“I told him it was no big deal; he could find another job easily,” Jason said. “He said, ‘Yeah, it’s no big deal. I’m not going to worry about it.’ He didn’t seem upbeat, but he didn’t seem too depressed over it.”

Slide show Mall shooting View images from the scene and aftermath of a deadly rampage at a shopping mall in Nebraska. more photos

Noah spoke at some length about Hawkins’ troubled childhood. Maruca-Kovac had described Hawkins as a “lost puppy,” and Noah said that was an apt description for the young man he met two years ago.

“He had it rough as a kid,” he told Vieira. “He seemed like someone that nobody wanted to deal with. He was in the system since eighth grade. He just got dropped off in the adult world, and that was it. He was getting better, but there were so many past problems that bubbled up. It’s hard to explain.”

Neither would be specific about those problems, including what was apparently a very difficult relationship with his father and stepmother.

In 2002, Hawkins had threatened to kill his stepmother. That incident put him into the juvenile justice system and four years as a ward of the state. He spent time in a treatment center and also lived in group homes and foster homes. He has one felony drug possession charge in his past that was later dropped, and had had other minor brushes with the law.

WOWT-TV Robert Hawkins, 19, shown in a high school yearbook photo, opened fire Wednesday at an Omaha, Neb., department store.

With he turned 18, he was put out on his own and wandered from place to place, staying a few nights at a time at friends’ houses before Maruca-Kovac took him in. She has said there was evidence that he drank and occasionally smoked marijuana, but didn’t think it was anything beyond what many teenagers do.

He was helpful around the house and seemed so non-threatening that she and her sons thought nothing of it when he showed them an old AK-47 assault rifle he had purchased – apparently the same gun he used in his rampage.

“Deb took him in and was so loving and caring,” Noah said. “He was so grateful to have her in his life. She did so much for him. She gave him some stability. She tried her best, and evidently her best wasn’t good enough.”

Neither Jason nor Noah said there was any justification for what their friend did on Wednesday afternoon in the Roadside Mall. When Vieira asked if Hawkins was a victim, Noah said he wasn’t sure.

“It’s hard to specify what he was a victim of,” Noah said. “I don’t know if that’s the right word for it. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m condoning what he did. Our condolences to those victims and their families. Nothing I can say right now will every give them any amount of peace.”

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