Gunman identified by police
The gunman who killed 32 people and then himself at
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Cho Seung-Hui in an undated photo released on April 17, 2007. REUTERS/Handout

By Andrea Hopkins and Patricia Zengerle Reuters - Tuesday, April 17

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - A student from South Korea was identified on Tuesday as the gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech university in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.  Police said the shooter was Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior who was a legal U.S. resident, and that ballistics tests showed one gun had been used in both attacks on Monday at the sprawling rural campus in southwestern Virginia. Cho killed himself at Virginia Tech after opening fire in four classrooms where in some cases he apparently chained doors to prevent victims from escaping, officials said. Two people were shot to death two hours earlier at a dormitory. "It's certainly reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both places," said Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police. There was no official word on a motive for the attacks. But the Chicago Tribune quoted investigative sources as saying Cho, who was studying English literature, left behind an invective-filled note and had shown recent signs of aberrant behaviour, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women. Victims were found in at least four classrooms as well as a stairwell, Flaherty said. "The gunman was discovered among several of the victims in one of the classrooms," he said. "He had taken his own life." Cho was a South Korean citizen who had lived in the United States since 1992, said U.S. immigration spokesman Chris Bentley. He and his family lived in Centreville, Virginia. A note believed to have been written by Cho was found in his dorm room that railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus, the Chicago Tribune said. The shooting spree renewed heated debate over gun control in the United States, where more than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds every year and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country. Even as condolences poured in from world leaders, foreign politicians and media commentators railed against America's "gun culture." In Italy, the leftist Il Manifesto newspaper said the shooting was "as American as apple pie."

STRICKEN CAMPUS

At Virginia Tech, 12 students remained hospitalised in stable condition on Tuesday, officials said. Some students were hurt jumping from windows in a desperate attempt to flee the gunfire. The campus, where there are more than 25,000 full-time students, reeled with shock and grief. "I don't even know if any of my friends were killed, because it was so hard to get in touch with anyone last night," said Brittany Jones, a 19-year-old Tech student from Urbanna, Virginia. "Even if they weren't, it wouldn't make it any less sad. You don't expect this to happen at your school. We're just kids," she said early on Tuesday as she watched members of the university's military corps drill before class. Some of the uniformed cadets were crying and hugging one another on the drill field, which was to host a candlelight vigil on Tuesday night in memory of the shooting victims. The shooting rattled nerves elsewhere. A bomb threat caused St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas to cancel all classes and evacuate students and staff to the college's sports fields. Television images of terrified students and police dragging out bloody victims revived memories of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. "There were leg, arm, head, face (injuries), the more critical ones actually had head or facial shots. There were chest shots, leg shots, arm shots. He was just shooting to kill," said Dr. Joseph Cacioppo, an emergency room physician who treated the wounded. Many students expressed anger that they were not warned of any danger until more than two hours after the first attack at a dormitory -- and then only in an e-mail from the university. University President Charles Steger and law enforcement officials on Monday defended their response to the shootings, but at a news conference on Tuesday they did not discuss their response to the shootings or take questions. "We are doing everything possible to move forward," Steger said. Classes were cancelled for the week and Norris Hall, where most deaths occurred, is closed for rest of the school term, he said. President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush were to attend a memorial service at Virginia Tech later on Tuesday. "We understand that there is going to be and there has been an ongoing national discussion and debate about gun control policy," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. But she said the focus now was on families, the school and the community. Police said they found two guns after the attacks, one of which was used in both the classroom and the dormitory shootings.

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Gunman was a student
Virginia Tech president says gunman who killed
more than 30 in campus attack was a student.
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Va. Tech gunman writings raised concerns BLACKSBURG, Va. - The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as an English major whose creative writing 

 
Tragedy at Virginia Tech
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• Virginia Tech Gunman Identified as Studentat NPR - Tue, Apr 17, 2007
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Police identify gunman
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior from South Korea, named as shooter in Virginia Tech massacre.
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Colleges seek to get word out quicker 

AP Photo: Security personnel patrol near Norris Hall the site a shooting on the campus of Virginia...

The two hours it took for Virginia Tech officials to e-mail students a warning about a gunman on campus has raised concern about how schools can get critical news out faster in a crisis.  "When you're in the middle of something, two hours is not very long. But when you're looking in, it does seem like a long time," says Mitchell Celaya, the assistant chief of campus police at the University of California, Berkeley. At UC Berkeley, Celaya says an extreme emergency would warrant, among other things, a siren on an outdoor public address system followed by an announcement with instructions. The University of Florida is working with local police to place automatic calls to campus telephones with similar kinds of messages, including alerts about hurricanes and tornadoes. And the University of Cincinnati has gone as far as making its public address system audible inside buildings. "There is no one magic communication system that we can press a button and let everyone know what is going on," says Chris Meyer, assistant vice president for safety and security at Texas A&M University, where they use all of the above methods and others. Getting word out to students also was the plan at Virginia Tech, where officials have been working on a system that would get emergency alerts to students via text messages on their cell phones. That system was not in place Monday, during the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Some students said their first notice of trouble came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., after the second shooting had begun. University president Charles Steger said the university decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out. The University of Georgia has joined a small but growing number of institutions that are testing similar systems. Their service, provided by the California-based NTI Group, is voluntary and allows students to plug in various phone numbers and e-mail addresses to a Web site — and then transfers messages from the university using phone systems outside the affected area so it doesn't jam local phone lines. "One person may be receiving five different messages through five different means," says UGA spokesman Tom Jackson. Elsewhere, some universities are devising more targeted means of security in hopes of quickening their responses. The University of Washington has a high-level safety team that was put in place after a murder-suicide. The aim is to move staffers who are in danger to other offices or provide them extra security protection. However, that system failed recently when a 26-year-old staffer was killed by her ex-boyfriend on April 2. There's also no guarantee that students will heed warnings. Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the University of Michigan's public safety department, says officials there sometimes have trouble getting students to exit buildings during fire alarms and other emergencies because of false alarms. "How do you overcome that desensitization?" she asks. She and others note that it's also common for students to let strangers into dorms that are locked or require key cards. Propping doors open is also still a rampant practice. And the fact of the matter is, campuses are largely open places where just about anyone — especially a student — is free to roam. For that reason, college officials across the country agree that, in the end, no higher education institution is immune to this kind of violence, no matter how well they prepare.  "Obviously, these crazy out-of-the-blue nightmare scenarios can happen just about anywhere," says John Holden, a spokesman at DePaul University in Chicago.

On the Net: International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators: http://www.iaclea.org Associated Press writers Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; Juan Lozano in Houston; Jessica Gresko in Miami; Curt Woodward in Seattle; David Eggert in East Lansing, Mich.; and Arthur Rotstein in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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Massacre sparks foreign criticism of U.S. gun culture 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Foreign politicians and media attacked America's "gun culture" on Tuesday after a gunman killed 32 people in the country's worst shooting rampage.  Prime Minister John Howard said tough Australian legislation introduced after a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996 had prevented the U.S. gun culture emerging in his country. The Australians subsequently imposed laws banning almost all types of semi-automatic weapons. "We showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country," said Howard, extending sympathies to the families of the victims at Virginia Tech university. The attacker killed himself in a classroom after opening fire on students and staff in an apparently premeditated massacre on Monday morning. The gunman was an Asian male who was a student at the university and a dormitory resident, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger told CNN. His name was not released.

British Prime Minister

"AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE"

European newspapers saw a grim inevitability about the shootings, given the right to bear arms which is enshrined in America's constitution. In Italy, the Leftist Il Manifesto newspaper said the shooting was "as American as apple pie." More than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds in the United States annually and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country. But a powerful gun lobby and support for gun ownership have largely thwarted attempts to tighten controls. "It would be vain to hope that even so destructive a crime as this will cool the American ardor for guns," the Independent newspaper said in a commentary. Gerard Baker, a columnist for The Times newspaper, feared worse was yet to come: "The truth is that only an optimist would imagine Virginia Tech will hold the new record for very long." France's Le Monde newspaper said such episodes frequently disfigure the "American dream." "The ... slaughter forces American society to once again examine itself, its violence, the obsession with guns of part of its population, the troubles of its youth, subjected to the double tyranny of abundance and competition," it wrote. Campaigners in other countries where gun ownership is common expressed fears of a similar massacre.  Nandy Pacheco, head of the Philippines anti-gun lobby, Gunless Society, said he feared it could happen there. "Not a day passes without a gun-related incident happening (in the Philippines). You hear it on radio, see it on TV and read it in newspapers," he said.  Gun ownership is commonplace in the Philippines, from housewives worried about burglary to politicians fearful of assassination. There are around 1.1 million guns, and police estimate that around 30 percent of them are unlicensed.

Shootings over trivial incidents are commonplace. A few years ago several fatal karaoke bar shootouts were sparked by poor renditions of Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

(Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Paris, Phil Stewart in Rome and Kate Kelland and Parisa Hafezi in London)

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Full Coverage: Virginia Tech Shootings

Feature Articles

• A look at some Virginia Tech victims AP via Yahoo! News, Apr 17
• Victims in Virginia Tech massacre at MSNBC, Apr 17

News Stories

• Sources: College gunman left note at The Chicago Tribune (reg. req'd), Apr 17
• Centreville Student Was Va. Tech Shooter at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Apr 17

Opinion & Editorials

• The Massacre: Atrocity at Virginia Tech Renews the Search for Elusive Answers at Richmond Times-Dispatch, Apr 17
• At a loss in Virginia at Boston Globe, Apr 17

Va. Tech gunman writings raised concerns 

Reuters Photo: Virginia Tech students sign a book in memory of those killed on the campus of...

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as an English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.  News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, arrived in the United States as boy from  South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where Monday's bloodbath began. Police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set him off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. "He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said. Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled." "There was some concern about him," Rude said. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this." She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws. The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that he left a note in his dorm room that included a rambling list of grievances. Citing unidentified sources, the Tribune said he had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women. ABC, citing law enforcement sources, reported that the note, several pages long, explains Cho's actions and says, "You caused me to do this." Investigators believe Cho at some point had been taking medication for depression, the Tribune reported. The rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart — first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died after being locked inside, Virginia State Police said. Cho committed suicide; two guns were found in the classroom building. One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident, federal officials said. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony. Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But ballistics tests show one gun was used in both, Virginia State Police said. And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were found on both guns. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said. Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that the link was not yet definitive. "There's no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we're exploring the possibility," he said. Officials said Cho graduated from a public high school in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va. "He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.  Virginia Tech Police issued a speeding ticket to Cho on April 7 for going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone, and he had a court date set for May 23.  South Korea expressed its condolences, and said it hoped that the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."  "We are in shock beyond description," said Cho Byung-se, a Foreign Ministry official handling North American affairs.  A memorial service was planned for the victims Tuesday afternoon at the university, and  President Bush planned to attend. Gov. Tim Kaine was flying back to Virginia from Tokyo for the gathering. Classes were canceled for the rest of the week.  Many students were leaving town quickly, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks.  Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, left Newman Hall and headed for her car with tears streaming down her red cheeks.  "I'm still kind of shaky," she said. "I had to pump myself up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out, but it took a little bit of 'OK, it's going to be all right. There's lots of cops around.'"  Although she wanted to be with friends, she wanted her family more. "I just don't want to be on campus," she said.  The first deadly attack was at the dormitory around 7:15 a.m., but some students said they didn't get their first warning about a danger on campus until two hours later, in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., around the time the second attack began.  Two students told NBC's "Today" show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they walked into Norris Hall for a German class where the gunman later opened fire.  The victims in Norris Hall were found in four classrooms and a stairwell, Flaherty said. Cho was found dead in one of those classrooms, he said.  Derek O'Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired away in "eerily silence" with "no specific target — just taking out anybody he could."  After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people down the hall. O'Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the shooter couldn't get back in — though he later tried.  "After he couldn't get the door open he tried shooting it open ... but the gunshots were blunted by the door," O'Dell said.  Virginia Tech President Charles Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack. He said that before the e-mail was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors to warn them.  "We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.  Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.  Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Centreville, Va.; Matt Barakat in Richmond, Va.; and Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey and Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.

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CNN REPORT ON VIRGINIA MASSACRE
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/

 

Shooter named as campus grieves

Police have identified the gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech before turning the gun on himself as 23-year-old South Korean student Cho Seung-Hui. The campus is still reeling from Monday's rampage, the deadliest school shooting incident in U.S. history. School President Charles Steger called the killings "a tragedy of monumental proportions."

FULL STORY

Victims begin to be named | Time.com:Too few warnings?
Gallery:I-Reporters capture the scene of the shootings
360° Blog:'Tremendous sense of shock'

CNN TV: Watch “Massacre at Virginia Tech,” Saturday and Sunday at 8 ET

THE TRAGEDY

At least 33 people, including a gunman, were killed during a shooting Monday at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Click through the gallery to see I-Reporters' photos after what is believed to be the deadliest shooting incident in U.S. history.

Jamal Albarghouti was walking on campus when he saw police with weapons drawn, running toward Norris Hall, one of the shooting sites. Albarghouti said the police told everyone to get down on the ground, and he shot this video with his cell phone. Apparent multiple gunshots can be heard in the background.
Watch:Gunfire caught on cell phone

Police: Virginia Tech shooter an English major, 23

POSTED: 1645 GMT (0045 HKT), April 17, 2007

 

Cho Seung-hui, who police say is responsible for most of Monday's shootings, was a loner, according to a university official.

Image:

Story Highlights

• Police ID shooter as 23-year-old resident alien, English major
• Police say one of the guns recovered was used in both shooting incidents
• At least two professors among the dead in Virginia Tech massacre
• Officials: 33 dead, including gunman, in Norris Hall and dormitory shootings

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- The gunman who killed 30 people at Virginia Tech's Norris Hall before turning the gun on himself was student Cho Seung-hui, university police Chief Wendell Flinchum said Tuesday.

University officials said they were still trying to determine whether Cho was responsible for an earlier shooting at a dormitory that left two dead.

However, Flinchum said ballistics tests show that one of the two guns recovered at Norris Hall was used at Norris and at the dorm, both located on the 26,000-student campus. (Watch police disclose new information about the shooter)

Authorities are still investigating whether Cho had any accomplices in planning or executing Monday's rampage, Col. Steven Flaherty of the Virginia State Police said.

"It certainly is reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both places, but we don't have the evidence to take us there at this particular point in time," Flaherty said.

Cho, a 23-year-old South Korean and resident alien, lived at the university's Harper Hall, Flinchum said. He was an English major, the chief said.

Cho was a loner and authorities are having a hard time finding information about him, said Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations.

A department of Homeland Security official said Cho came to the United States in 1992, through Detroit, Michigan. He had lawful permanent residence, via his parents, and renewed his green card in October 2003, the official said.

His residence was listed as Centreville, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

The university and police are still in the process of releasing the names of the 32 people killed in Monday's shootings. (Watch how some are asking why warnings weren't issued sooner)

"What went on during that incident certainly caused tremendous chaos and panic in Norris Hall," Flaherty said, describing how victims were found in four classrooms and in the stairwell of the school's engineering science and mechanics building.

Doctor recalls 'amazing' injuries

A doctor at a Blacksburg hospital described the injuries he saw Monday as "amazing" and the shooter as "brutal."

"There wasn't a shooting victim that didn't have less than three bullet wounds in them," said Dr. Joseph Cacioppo of Montgomery Regional Hospital.

Even among the less serious injuries, Cacioppo said, "we saw one patient that had a bullet wound to the wrist, one to the elbow and one to the thigh. We had another one with a bullet wound to the abdomen, one to the chest and one to the head."

A source familiar with the investigation said the weapons found at Norris were a Walther .22-caliber semi-automatic and a 9 mm Glock -- both with the serial numbers filed off. (Watch how quickly these guns can be fired, reloaded)

As questions continued to arise about how police reacted to the first shooting at the dorm,Steger on Tuesday defended the response, saying police believed it to be "a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide" that was contained to one dorm room.

Police cordoned off the 895-student West Ambler Johnston dorm and all residents were told about the shooting as police looked for witnesses, Steger said.

Authorities were still investigating what they believed was an "isolated incident" when the slaughter occurred at Norris Hall.

"I don't think anyone could have predicted that another event was going to take place two hours later," Steger said, adding that it would've been difficult to warn every student because most were off campus at the time. (Watch a student's recording of police responding to loud bangs)

Steger told reporters Monday that when police responded to Norris Hall they found the front doors chained shut. The gunfire had stopped by the time they reached the second floor, he said.

The gunman killed 31 people, including himself, and wounded 15 in Norris Hall classrooms.

Student: Gunman 'seemed very thorough'

The gunman was dressed "almost like a Boy Scout" and wore a black ammunition vest, said a student who survived by pretending to lie dead on a classroom floor.

"He just stepped within five feet of the door and just started firing," said Erin Sheehan. "He seemed very thorough about it, getting almost everyone down, I pretended to be dead." (Watch student describe surviving by playing dead)

The shooter, who remained quiet throughout the rampage, came back 30 seconds after the first round of gunfire and Sheehan and her classmates tried to barricade the door with their bodies, she said.

After the shooter couldn't get in, he began firing through the door, Sheehan said. Of the 25 students in her German class, Sheehan was one of four able to walk out on her own when police arrived.

As of midday Tuesday, officials were still releasing the names of victims, which include a marching band member from Georgia and an Israeli Holocaust survivor who headed the engineering and science department. (Full story)

The university has scheduled a convocation for 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. President Bush and the first lady are scheduled to attend.

Classes have been canceled for the rest of the week, and Norris Hall will be closed for the remainder of the semester, Steger said. Student Emily Alderman said students were sending out instant messages urging each other to wear their Virginia Tech Hokie gear in a sign of unity.

There have been two bomb threats at the university this month, the latest of which came Friday. Flinchum said Tuesday they were unrelated to the shootings. (Watch gunfire on the campus)

Last August, the first day of class was cut short at Virginia Tech by a manhunt for an escaped prisoner accused of killing a Blacksburg hospital security guard and a sheriff's deputy.

Before Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States occurred in 1991, when George Hennard drove a pickup truck into a Killeen, Texas, cafeteria and fatally shot 23 people, before shooting and killing himself.

A student's quick thinking saves lives  (3:29)

Why weren't students warned sooner?  (1:34)

Timeline of a tragedy  (2:30)

Eyewitness: Gunman entered her classroom  (1:23)

Gallery: Shootings rock Virginia Tech campus

Gallery: I-Reporters capture the scene

 

Doctor calls injuries 'amazing'

What happened when

Police begin to name victims

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Police learn from Canada shootings

Review: 'New' Tolkien splendid

Police identify college gunman The gunman who killed 30 people at Virginia Tech's Norris Hall before turning the gun on himself was student Cho Seung-hui, university police Chief Wendell ...

 

SPECIAL REPORT

• I-Report:Caught on cell phone

• Map:On Virginia Tech's campus

• Gallery:The shooting scene

• Special Report

INFORMATION

• Concerned parents should call the dean of students' office at 540-231-3787.
• Anyone with information about the shootings should call the Virginia Tech Police Department at 540-232-8477.

Gallery:The grieving begins
Killer used 2 handguns
Student's quick thinking saves lives
Why weren't students warned sooner
Timeline of a tragedy
Gallery:Scene of the shootings
Cop draw guns, hunt shooter
Map:On campus | Blacksburg, Virginia
Where the bodies were found
School head: 'Monumental horror'

EYEWITNESS

Witness survives by pretending to be dead
Students: A 'College Columbine'
Students describe panic, confusion
Student: I knew this was serious
 I-Report:Caught on a cell phone
I-Report:Send your thoughts, photos
Eyewitness: Gunman entered her classroom

SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

Timeline:Deadly college shootings
Time.com:Making campuses safe
Murder-suicide shakes campus
Montreal's lesson: Police act fast
Amish school shooter was 'angry at life'
Gunman opens fire on Montreal campus
Deadly end to Colorado school siege


 
Tragedy at Virginia Tech
Death toll rises to 33 in worst shooting incident in U.S. history.
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Live video
More coverage
'College Columbine'
Tech security
Gun control debate

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Volunteer contributes what he can: Body bags

It was a tearful, lonely drive for Brian Horne.

The Christiansburg, Virginia, resident was called to the Virginia Tech campus Monday morning as a member of the local volunteer fire and rescue squad. Horne did not see the carnage; he was stationed at a command post on campus.

But as authorities began to comprehend the scope of the disaster, Horne volunteered to take care of a sober task. His family owns a funeral home about 10 miles from the campus, and Horne drove back to collect 36 body bags.

"We knew then there were at least 30 dead and possibly more," Horne told CNN in a brief interview outside the funeral home, where a giant American flag flies at half staff in honor of the victims.

Horne said he has responded to many tragic events in the past, but nothing anywhere comparable to the scope of the campus massacre. "It is difficult to comprehend, but at that moment I knew I could assist with what we needed to do," he said.

Horne would not speak on camera out of respect for the victims. He also said he did not want to overstate his role in the rescue operation, saying many friends had it much worse. He recounted their stories of helping collect and count the bodies, even as the victims' phones and PDAs rang and vibrated.

-- By John King, CNN Chief National Correspondent

Posted By CNN: 11:48 AM ET
  4 Comments | Add a Comment

Tech students mute sounds of gunfire on TV

A group of teary-eyed Virginia Tech students gathered in a room near where a news conference was being held on campus. They stared at the television with their arms interlaced. Each time they were approached for an interview about the shootings, they gave a frustrated "No." They told other students in the area to stop talking to reporters.

Another student beside me said they were waiting to hear about a friend, and no one wanted to talk to anybody. It was still Monday, just hours after the nation's deadliest shooting.

CNN started showing I-Report footage of the shooting. You could hear gunshots and a student say, "Whoa." The students I was sitting with didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to see it. They scrambled for the remote saying, "Can anyone mute this? Where's the volume?"

One girl's phone rang. She started crying and left.

The student beside me made a phone call.

"It doesn't look good," he said.

--Kristi Keck, CNN.com Writer

Posted By CNN: 10:50 AM ET
  2 Comments | Add a Comment

'Tremendous sense of shock'

As I talk to students, faculty, staff, and also a lot of alumni, there is a tremendous sense of shock that this could have happened to Virginia Tech.

I am sure that anyone would say that no matter where something like this happened, but it seems even more so here in Blacksburg. I graduated from VT almost a decade ago but still keep in contact with many friends and professors and I admit it, I still keep up with the news on campus as much as someone 10 years out of school and in D.C. can.

Alumni and students take great pride in and are fiercely loyal to their school (we have to spend the rest of our lives explaining what a Hokie is -- which can be done in a separate setting!) But Tech has always been such a relatively calm and quiet place.

There's usually some small controversy or talk of the campus/town, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing is that big of a deal. In recent days, there were of course the bomb threats that were serious stories but in general, the hot topics on campus have been:

• The men's basketball team had a stellar season, (a complete rarity) making it to the second round of March Madness
• The missing Hokie Bird statues throughout campus (artwork in the style of the party animals or pandas in D.C. or the cows in Chicago) which were apparently taken as a prank by students from another university
• "Girls Gone Wild" was scheduled to be in town this week to tape a segment, and there was a growing movement organizing a boycott. University officials were doing everything they could to discourage any student's participation.

Of course, none of that matters anymore, but I just say all that to reiterate that this was the last thing that students expected to happen on campus in this small college town.

From everyone on campus I've been talking to, I don't think the enormity of it all has really sunk in. There is definitely a profound sense of shock in absolutely everyone I've talked to that probably won't go away anytime soon.

-- By Becky Brittain, CNN Producer

Posted By CNN: 6:46 AM ET
  11 Comments | Add a Comment

Wal-Mart visit reveals the day's stories

It's 1 a.m. in Blacksburg. The farmland surrounding the school is pitch-black, and dozens of restless people, weary of endless hours of news coverage or hospital vigils are at Wal-Mart.

I'm here looking for socks, pj's and food (after living off the hard candy provided by Virginia Tech staff at their impromptu press center). But moving around the 24-hour superstore, I see the stories of the day.

Three workers from the Salvation Army are shopping for breakfast food for displaced students. Richard White of the Roanoke office is smiling in his Salvation Army uniform but his eyes are turning red.

Two young women are buying fruits and veggies for friends waiting at the hospital, which is just a few miles away.

A cashier tells me another young woman came in just 45 minutes earlier from a hospital, looking for a break from her vigil. The cashier says that while the girl was at Wal-Mart she got a call saying her friend had died. The officials from the hospital are asleep and I can't confirm the story. But the cashier and others working agreed the girl they saw was in pain. One has tears in his eyes, too.

A few aisles away, four 20-somethings are looking at racks of Virginia Tech jackets, hats and shirts. Only one is a student at the university but the two men and two women insist they had to do something, had to show some support for the school. They buy burgundy and orange shirts and pledge to wear them to their jobs Tuesday.

Dozens of people are here, but none of them look like they can sleep.

-- By Lisa Goddard, CNN Radio Correspondent

Posted By CNN: 2:30 AM ET
  0 Comments | Add a Comment

The worst kind of waiting

When I first arrived today at Virginia Tech, I was directed by campus staff through a large hallway off a ballroom at the Alumni Center. It had already become the worst kind of waiting room. This was where many students and parents were gathering -- pockets of people who hadn't heard from their friend or child since the shootings.

A group of engineering students was looking for some friends who might have been in Norris Hall during the second shooting. One was optimistic that he probably couldn't reach some of them because of how people scattered from the campus. Many were on their cell phones. I heard one say, "Yes, I'm trying to locate ..."

When I came back a couple hours later, the change in mood was palpable. I have never seen that look on a person's face before, let alone on so many faces.

Shock. The realization that today and every day after will be so, so different.

-- By Brianna Keilar, CNN Correspondent

Posted By CNN: 12:36 AM ET
  5 Comments | Add a Comment

Monday, April 16, 2007

Shaken by the shooting half a nation away

It's incidents like the Virginia Tech shooting that remind you how close to home -- and how far from home violence can hit. My son's best friend is a senior at Virginia Tech. My son is a senior at the University of Colorado.

He hadn't heard about the shooting until my wife phoned him at around 11:45 this morning. He dropped off the line almost instantly, frantically dialing his friend. There are 26,000 students at Virginia Tech, but you just never know.

He got through; his friend was alright. Shaken up like every other student on campus, but alive and well. Half a nation away, my son was as shaken as the students at Virginia Tech. In addition to his friend, he told his mother, he knows about 100 other students in Blacksburg. Many of them were friends from high school, flung far and wide across the nation -- now drawn together by fear and grief.

-- By John Roberts, CNN Anchor

Posted By CNN: 7:11 PM ET
  35 Comments | Add a Comment

Professor concerned about campus security

With my bag in one hand and a ticket in the other, I ran to catch the plane en route to Virginia Tech's campus. CNN Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and I were joining the throngs of reporters converging on Blacksburg, Virginia.

The plane was small and it seemed everyone was talking about the shootings at the university. A mother sitting next to me was talking on the phone to her daughter who has friends at Tech.

"This is so bizarre," she said. "Is everyone OK?"

The mother added: "Good. Honey, you take care. I love you and will talk with you when I land."

She hung up and took a deep breath. This mom teaches at a small women's college in Virginia and many of her students date people at Tech. She says it makes her worry about the security at her school. But she also said: Who would ever think this would happen at a college?

Tragically, we now know it can.

-- By Jen Pifer, CNN Producer

Posted By CNN: 6:16 PM ET
  10 Comments | Add a Comment

Tragedy caught on camera

This picture was taken from Tech student Jamal Albarghouti's cell phone.

Virginia Tech graduate student Jamal Albarghouti was on his way to see an adviser when police officers ran past him. The police told him to hit the ground. Albarghouti took cover, then took out his cell phone and captured some of the first images from the scene.

"When I saw the policemen taking their guns out, then I knew that this was serious," Albarghouti says. His dramatic video shows police closing in on Norris Hall. Gunfire can be heard in the background. Albarghouti quickly downloaded his video to his computer and sent it to CNN I-Report. (Watch Albarghouti's video of shots fired on campus)

Within minutes, his video was aired on CNN.

-- By Tyson Wheatley, CNN Producer

Posted By CNN: 4:12 PM ET
  10 Comments | Add a Comment

Tech student: How did shooter get across campus?

At LaGuardia Airport, Virginia Tech freshman Megan Pendergast, 19, was on her cell phone trying to speak to friends on campus. She said she was scared and nervous and couldn't understand how someone so heavily armed could have walked from the first building to Norris Hall.

"He would have to walk past a dining area and dorms," she said.

Posted By Deborah Feyerick, CNN Correspondent: 3:20 PM ET
  22 Comments | Add a Comment

Gunman kills 32 in Virginia Tech rampage

AP Photo: An ambulance leaves the area near the back of Norris Hall, the site of a...

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday, cutting down his victims in two attacks two hours and a half-mile apart before the university could figure out what was going on and get the warning out to students.  The bloodbath ended with the gunman committing suicide, bringing the death toll to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with tragedy, perhaps forever. "I'm really at a loss for words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus," Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said. He was also faced with difficult questions about the university's handling of the emergency and whether it did enough to warn students and protect them after the first burst of gunfire. Investigators offered no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known if he was a student. Wielding two pistols, the gunman opened fire about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory, then stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus, chaining the doors behind him to keep anyone from escaping. Two people died in a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall, including the gunman, who put a bullet in his head. At least 26 people were hurt, some seriously. Students jumped from windows in panic. Young people and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. Many found themselves trapped behind the chained and padlocked doors. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building. Trey Perkins, who was sitting in a German class in Norris Hall, told The Washington Post that the gunman barged into the room at about 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a minute and a half, squeezing off 30 shots in all. The gunman, Perkins said, first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the students. Perkins said the gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face." "Everyone hit the floor at that moment," said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever." Students bitterly complained that there were no public-address announcements on campus after the first shots. Many said the first word from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage — around the time the gunman struck again. "I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm. "If you had apprehended a suspect, I could understand having classes even after two of your students have perished. But when you don't have a suspect in a college environment and to put the students in a situation where they're congregated in large numbers in open buildings, that's unacceptable to me." Steger defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus. "We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said. Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to notify members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out. He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms to notify them and sent people to knock on doors to spread the word. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows. "We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said. He called the massacre a tragedy of "monumental proportions."  A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.  Some students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.  The e-mail had few details. It read: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.  Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that."  Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said he was in the classroom building and he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory regarding the first shooting and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs, but the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside. They left the building through a construction area that had not been locked.  Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.  The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.  Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.  Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.  The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus. The campus is centered around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets — who now represent a fraction of the student body — practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.  A White House spokesman said  President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said  After the shootings, all entrances to the campus were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly for Tuesday at the basketball arena.  It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.  Last August, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

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LIVE - Virginia Tech coverage

University Shooter Identified

Officials at Va. Tech release information about the gunman.

AP Photo: Haiyan Cheng prays during a vigil, for the Virginia Tech shooting victims, at the Grace...

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Virginia Tech's president said Tuesday that a student was the gunman in at least the second of the two campus attacks that claimed 33 lives to become the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Though he did not explicitly say the student was also the gunman in the first shooting, he said he did not believe there was another shooter at large. Two hours after two people were killed at a dormitory Monday, 30 more people were killed at a campus building by a gunman who finally killed himself with a shot to his head. "We do know that he was an Asian male — this is the second incident — an Asian man who was a resident in one of our dormitories," university president Charles Steger said in an interview with CNN, confirming for the first time that the killer was a student. Steger also defended the university's delay in warning students after the first shooting. Some students said their first notice came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., after the second shooting had begun. Steger said the university was trying to notify students who were already on-campus, not those who were commuting in. "We warned the students that we thought were immediately impacted," he told CNN. "We felt that confining them to the classroom was how to keep them safest." He said investigators did not know there was a shooter loose on campus in the interval between the two shootings because the first could have been a murder-suicide. Two students told NBC's "Today" show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they reported to a German class where the gunman later opened fire. Derek O'Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired away in "eerily silence" with "no specific target — just taking out anybody he could." After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people down the hall. O'Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the shooter couldn't get back in — though he later tried. "After he couldn't get the door open he tried shooting it open... but the gunshots were blunted by the door," O'Dell said. The slayings left people of this once-peaceful mountain town and the university at its heart praying for the victims, struggling to find order in a tragedy of such unspeakable horror it defies reason. Laura Bush were planning to attend a 2 p.m. convocation Tuesday, and people sought comfort Monday night at a church servide. One mourner pleaded "for parents near and far who wonder at a time like this, 'Is my child safe?'" That question promises to haunt Blacksburg long after Monday's attacks. Investigators offered no motive, and the gunman's name was not released. The shooting began about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory where two people died. Police were still investigating around 9:15 a.m., when a gunman wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus.  At least 15 people were hurt in the second attack, some seriously. Many found themselves trapped after someone, apparently the shooter, chained and locked Norris Hall doors from the inside.  Students jumped from windows, and students and faculty carried away some of the wounded without waiting for ambulances to arrive.  SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.  Inside Norris, the attack began with a thunderous sound from Room 206 — "what sounded like an enormous hammer," said Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior who was in a solid mechanics lecture in a classroom next door. Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks to make hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.  "I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last," said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.  Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at his professor, who had stayed behind, apparently to prevent the gunman from opening the door.  The instructor was killed, Calhoun said.  Erin Sheehan, who was in the German class next door to Calhoun's class, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that she was one of only four of about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.  She said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."  The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the class, another student, Trey Perkins, told The Washington Post. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face," he said.  "Everyone hit the floor at that moment," said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."  At an evening news conference, Police Chief Wendell Flinchum refused to dismiss the possibility that a co-conspirator or second shooter was involved. He said police had interviewed a male who was a "person of interest" in the dorm shooting and who knew one of the victims, but he declined to give details.  "I'm not saying there's a gunman on the loose," Flinchum said. Ballistics tests will help explain what happened, he said.  Some students bitterly complained that the first e-mail warning arrived more than two hours after the first shots.  "I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm.  Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.  He said that before the e-mail was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.  "We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.  The 9:26 e-mail had few details: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating."  Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.  The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.  Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.  Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.  Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but that they had not determined whether they were linked to the shootings.  It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of gunfire.  Last August, the opening day of classes was canceled when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy was killed just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.  Among the dead were professors Liviu Librescu and Kevin Granata, said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.  Librescu, an Israeli, was born in Romania and was known internationally for his research in aeronautical engineering, Puri wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.  Granata and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics. Puri called him one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.  Also killed was Ryan Clark, a student from Martinez, Ga., who had several majors and carried a 4.0 grade-point average, said Vernon Collins, coroner in Columbia County, Ga.  His friend Gregory Walton, a 25-year-old who graduated last year, said he feared the nightmare had just begun.  "I knew when the number was so large that I would know at least one person on that list," said Walton, a banquet manager. "I don't want to look at that list. I don't want to.  "It's just, it's going to be horrible, and it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Full Coverage: Virginia Tech Shootings

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Off the Wires

• Va. Tech president: gunman was studentAP, 2 minutes ago
• Americans stunned as 33 die in worst US shooting rampageAFP, 2 hours, 2 minutes ago

Feature Articles

• A look at Virginia Tech's president AP via Yahoo! News, Apr 17
• 2 hours of terror at Va. Tech campus AP via Yahoo! News, Apr 17

News Stories

• Gunman may have been in U.S. on visa at Chicago Sun-Times, Apr 17
• 31 dead at Va. Tech at Richmond Times-Dispatch, Apr 16

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• Unspeakable grief binds Virginians at The Virginian-Pilot, Apr 17

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33 dead in Va. Tech

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Norris Hall,one of the sites of the shootings at Virginia Tech, is seen in Blacksburg, Va., Tuesday, April 17, 2007. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)


Virginia Tech student Jeff Graham visits a makeshift memorial to the 32 slain students and others on the campus of the school in Blacksburg, Va., Tuesday, April 17, 2007. University President Charles Steger confirmed Tuesday that the gunman was a Virginia Tech student. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)


An ambulance pulls away from Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus after a gunman shot dozens of people in a shooting spree in Blacksburg, Virginia April 16, 2007. The gunman killed 32 people at a Virginia university, many of them students attending class, and then shot himself dead on Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. (Chris Keane/Reuters)


Law enforcement officer confer outside a building on the Virginia Tech University after a gunmen killed at least 32 in a shooting spree on the campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007. (Brendan Bush/Reuters)


A student prays in a chapel at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007. A gunman killed 32 people at the university, many of them students attending class, and then shot himself dead on Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)


An emergency technician wheels a gurney into Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus after a gunman shot dozens of people in a shooting spree in Blacksburg, Virginia April 16, 2007. The gunman killed 32 people at a Virginia university, many of them students attending class, and then shot himself dead on Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. (Chris Keane/Reuters)

 
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Questions remain after U.S. shooting rampage
Enlarge Photo

Students comfort each other at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007. A gunman...
By Patricia Zengerle and Andrea Hopkins Reuters - Tuesday, April 17

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Police and university authorities faced pressure on Tuesday to explain how a gunman apparently evaded detection after killing two people and then went on to kill 30 others two hours later in America's worst shooting rampage.
The man, whom police have not identified, killed himself in a classroom at Virginia Tech university after opening fire on students and staff during class in an apparently premeditated massacre on Monday morning.
Police said he appeared to have used chains to lock the doors and prevent terrified victims from escaping the building. Fifteen people were wounded, including those shot and students hurt jumping from windows in a desperate attempt to flee the gunfire.
Many students expressed anger that they were not warned of any danger until more than two hours after the first attack at a dormitory, and then only in an e-mail from the university.
"We knew that there was a shooting but we thought it was confined to a particular setting," university president Charles Steger told reporters, explaining the lack of more urgent measures such as evacuating the sprawling grounds or shutting down the whole campus, which has more than 25,000 students.
Although they said earlier there appeared to be only one gunman, police declined to confirm the two incidents were linked and said there was a male "person of interest" connected with the initial dormitory shooting of a male and female student. That person was not in custody.Asked whether police had initially pursued and questioned the wrong man, campus police chief Wendell Flinchum declined to comment. "I'm not saying there's a gunman on the loose," he said. The first shooting was reported to campus police at about 7:15 a.m. (1115 GMT) in West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dormitory housing some 900 students. It was followed two hours later by more gunfire a half-mile (0.8 km) away at Norris Hall, site of the science and engineering school. Witnesses said the killer was a black-clad Asian male, about 6 feet (1.8 metres) tall, who went wordlessly from room to room calmly shooting students and staff with at least one handgun. "There were multiple gunshot wounds in all the victims, even the least injured had multiple gunshot wounds, this guy was just, he was out to kill everyone he came in contact with, not just to shoot the gun, he was out to kill them," said Dr. Joseph Cacioppo, an emergency room physician who treated the wounded.Authorities haven't released the names of the victims, but Israeli media reported that one of the dead was Liviu Librescu, an Israeli citizen and professor of engineering at the university. Librescu's son told Israeli Army radio that his father tried to block his classroom door against the gunman and urged his students to flee.

ECHOES OF COLUMBINE

Television images of terrified students and police dragging bloody victims out of the building revived memories of the infamous Columbine High School massacre in 1999 and is likely to renew heated debate about America's gun laws. More than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds in the United States every year and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country. But a powerful gun lobby and support for gun ownership rights has largely thwarted attempts to tighten controls. Advocates of gun ownership rights saw Monday's massacre as evidence of the need to relax gun laws rather than tighten them. "All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last 10 years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen -- a potential victim -- had a gun," said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. "The latest school shooting at Virginia Tech demands an immediate end to the gun-free zone law which leaves the nation's schools at the mercy of madmen." In an editorial in Tuesday's editions, The New York Times said the shooting was "another horrifying reminder that some of the gravest dangers Americans face come from killers at home armed with guns that are frighteningly easy to obtain." "What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss," the Times said.

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