BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - 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.
| (AP) Virginia Tech freshman, Ryan Fowler, second from right, hugs his dad, Tim, of Mt. Airy, Md., as his... Full Image |
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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.
| (AP) In this photo provided by the Collegiate Times, ambulances wait on the Virginia Tech campus in... Full Image |
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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."
| (AP) Gabriel Averill, 27, and his friend, Christyne Fitzgerald, 23, left, comfort each other as they... Full Image |
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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.
| (AP) Shootings at a dorm and classroom on the Virginia Tech campus Monday, April 16, 2007, left at least... Full Image |
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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.