Shooter lacked courage and faith, says mother

THE mother of the teenage gunman who killed eight people at a busy shopping centre earlier this month apologised yesterday for her son’s crime and said she did her best raising him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Maribel Rodriguez told ABC’s Good Morning America“ when asked what she would say to the victims’ families.

“I’m deeply devastated with you.”

Robert Hawkins, 19, fired more than 30 rounds inside a shopping centre department store on December 5, striking 11 people. Six died where they fell, one died on the way to hospital, and another died in hospital.

Three other people were wounded, two seriously.

“If you want to hate Robert, then hate Robert. You don’t need that pain,” said Ms Rodriguez. “You absolutely don’t need that type of pain in your heart and mind. Because it destroys your soul.”

Hawkins was a troubled teenager who spent four years in a series of treatment centres, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002. He had recently broken up with his girlfriend and lost his job at a McDonald’s outlet.

“He was without hope. He was without faith. He was without courage,” said Ms Rodriguez. “Because you don’t do that to other people. You just don’t do that to other people.”

She and Hawkins ate supper together at the house of her ex-husband — Hawkins’ stepfather — the night before the shootings, said Ms Rodriguez. The stepfather was holidaying in Thailand.

When asked what people should think of her son, Ms Rodriguez said: “I’m not perfect, I know that. But you tell me: What could I have done differently?

“I did my best.”