Gunman kills 33 on Virginia Tech campus

[Taco Head]

Oh, great! Jack Thompson on the loose!

http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Jack_Thompson_Blames_VaTech_Shooting_on_video_games

 

[Mic_128]

The guy has no scruples.

I heard about the first shooting about an hour before bed and that they had caught the first guy (whoever told me must have hard wrong :/) Didn't expect to wake up to the news of 33 dead.

 

[Miharu]

And yet, incidents like these will continue to happen, as our world is slowly, but surely, stuck in a downwards spiral, since almost nothing, is being done to reverse the path that we seemed doomed to stay with.

I'd like to know just what the **** this guy was thinking before he went on his killing spree.

 

[Mic_128]

And yet, incidents like these will continue to happen, as our world is slowly, but surely, stuck in a downwards spiral, since almost nothing, is being done to reverse the path that we seemed doomed to stay with.

The only thing that needs to be done to stop these is increase gun control.

 

[MarioReincarnate]

As a University of Virginia student, I have family and very close friends at VT. I can't begin to describe what I'm feeling, and I can't imagine what it must be like to everyone there. Even though on the field we're the biggest of enemies, in the wake of this tragedy it's safe to say we're the closest of family.

My love goes out to everyone affected, both directly and indirectly. If I weren't in Egypt, I'd be in Blacksburg right now.

-MR

 

[Andromeda]

Heard about this yesterday. This is terrible and so f****ing unneccesary...

 

[Taco Head]

its late and i cant sleep cuz of this

im watching cnn and it said that
that asian kid (20 years old) killed his girlfriend and her room mates

2 hours later kill about 30 ppl on the other side of campus

 

[crismas]

I really love law enforcement. They let that psycho walk around for 2 hours therefore letting him kill those other people. Why not try to to look for the gunman instead of covering it up and assuming things. It's not right.

 

[Sandy]

Va. Tech president: Gunman was student

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A Virginia Tech student was behind the massacre of at least 30 people locked inside a campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university said Tuesday.


The bloodbath ended with the gunman's suicide, bringing the death toll from two separate shootings — first at a dorm, then in a classroom building — to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy.

"We do know that he was an Asian male — this is the second event — an Asian male who was a resident in one of our dormitories. He was one of our students," university president Charles Steger said Tuesday, confirming for the first time that the killer was a student.

Steger and university spokesman Jeff Douglas said officials don't believe another gunman is at large, but they aren't certain that one shooter was responsible for both attacks.

President Bush planned to attend a memorial service Tuesday afternoon at the university, the White House said, and Gov. Tim Kaine was flying back to Virginia from Tokyo for the 2 p.m. convocation.

The first deadly attack, at a dormitory around 7:15 a.m., left two people dead. 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. By then the second attack had begun.

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.

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.

A federal law enforcement official said Tuesday he had been told by other federal law enforcement officials that the two guns recovered in the shooting had had their serial numbers scraped off. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced.

The slayings left people of this once-peaceful mountain town and the university at its heart praying for the victims and struggling to find order in a tragedy of such unspeakable horror it defies reason.

"For Ryan and Emily and for those whose names we do not know," one woman pleaded in a church service Monday night.

Another mourner added: "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 immediately 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 26 people were taken to hospitals after the second attack, some seriously injured. 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 near Calhoun's room, 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.

Nine students remained hospitalized Tuesday at Montgomery Regional Hospital, all of them stable, CEO Scott Hill said. Two others had been transferred to other hospitals with a Level I trauma center.

Their families "are by the bedside, which is a good thing," Hill said.

Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem had three remaining patients, all in stable condition, with one expected to be discharged later Tuesday, Hill said. That hospital originally had five patients, another hospital initially had four, and Montgomery was initially sent 17, one of whom died en route, Hill said.

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.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview, citing e-mail he said students had sent to his family. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

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. He was a resident assistant at Ambler Johnson Hall, the dorm where the first shootings took place.

Gregory Walton, a 25-year-old friend of Clark's 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," Walton said. "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."

 

[shadenexus18]

I kinda wish they woulda taken the shooter alive. Has there ever been a school shooter that didn't end up dead? I want to hear, from the *******'s mouth, what drives them insane. There has to be a reason for the taking of lives of people you know.

I'm pretty sure that the parents of the shooter will figure out why he would do such a thing. The FBI or police should eventually interview them.

As for the shooting in general I agree with my brother Orion, (we talked about it) We would have approached the insane madman with no fear.......no fear at all. No fear of dying, no fear of the afterlife, for we would have beaten him senseless. Not because of the mere fact that we would be two of the greastest heroes of all time, it's just that it would be the right thing to do. I would not have lost my life in the event of trying to stop him from hurting innocent bystanders either. Grrr, gunman are nothing but COWARDS! The whole lot of them!

If only we were there.......if only.

 

[Eor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Seung-hui

 

[shadenexus18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Seung-hui

Nice job on finding the person solely responsible of the massacre that occured yesterday.

May God have mercy on his soul.....

 

[Crimson King]

The only thing that needs to be done to stop these is increase gun control.

I totally agree! Then whenever a psychopath breaks into my house and shoots me with an illegal gun I will have my.... knife or something to defend myself.

Gun control will never stop gun crimes. Guns accelerate a death, but they still require someone to aim it and pull the trigger.

 

[Mic_128]

I totally agree! Then whenever a psychopath breaks into my house and shoots me with an illegal gun I will have my.... knife or something to defend myself.

Or perhaps the psychopath couldn't get a gun because of restrictions. I saw a bit on the news about how a previous shooter walked into a gun trade show and bought a few handguns withut a background check. Please enlighten me, how is that good?

I'm not saying GUNZ R BAD TAKE THEM AWAYZOR (Though imo, that's certainly a step in the right direction) but at least make the ability to get hold of one and store one a LOT better.

 

[Virgilijus]

Mic, I can't speak for CK in Louisiana but here in Tennessee there are guns everywhere and any one can get them. Hell, my roommate brought back a shotgun during Easter. Regardless, if some one wants a gun, they are going to be able to get them despite any imposing law or legality. This has no backing behind it other than rudimentary observation, but criminals in Memphis (easily one of the worst cities in America) do not get their guns leagally yet there is never a shortage of them. Greatly imposing those gun laws really only hurts the 99% of people that buy guns either for hunting, self defense, whatever by making them jump through hoops and waiting weeks or months to get a one.

In sum, psychopaths will always get a gun and typically don't get them legally anyways.

 

[Chill]

Yeah, stronger gun control would eliminate people from walking into a store and just buying one. But they could still buy one of some guy in an alley with even less question asked.

I was about to go on but I just noticed Virg's final sentence. Basically that's what I was going to say.

The shooting is pretty horrible I don't even know what to feel. It's hard to care about other people without depressing yourself.

 

[Lord_Deathborne]

I think it's a real bad time to bring up the whole gun control debate. Right now, we should be paying our respects and direct our prayers to the most unfortunate victims of this ghastly tragedy and let politics rear its ugly head only afterwards...

 

[Magus420]

As for the shooting in general I agree with my brother Orion, (we talked about it) We would have approached the insane madman with no fear.......no fear at all. No fear of dying, no fear of the afterlife, for we would have beaten him senseless. Not because of the mere fact that we would be two of the greastest heroes of all time, it's just that it would be the right thing to do. I would not have lost my life in the event of trying to stop him from hurting innocent bystanders either. Grrr, gunman are nothing but COWARDS! The whole lot of them!

If only we were there.......if only.

I remember once thinking the same thing back at the time of the Columbine shootings when I was in HS. While it's a brave thought to want to do something like that if you could, have you ever actually been at the end of someone's gun while unarmed before? Things change pretty quick in that situation. To be quite honest, I can't say I feel the same way anymore. Even then, it's one thing to take a person on when they're right there in front of you with nothing else you can do, and something entirely different to actively seek out and confront an armed killer having no weapon and without really knowing what the situation is or even which person(s) you'd be looking for. If you have then all the more to you, and if you haven't then hopefully you never will know.

 

[X-PAC]

I think it's a real bad time to bring up the whole gun control debate. Right now, we should be paying our respects and direct our prayers to the most unfortunate victims of this ghastly tragedy and let politics rear its ugly head only afterwards...

Completely agreed. But you know a bunch of career politicians are gonna jump on this as their huge opportunity to push those bills through and be the big hero.
I know my prayers are with the victims though, and I can only hope this kind of tragedy doesn't happen again.

 

[GoldShadow]

Some profiles of some of the victims: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6564075.stm

There were renowned professors, students with families, people with wives and children and siblings killed, foreigners and natives and everybody...

I swear, I wish this guy was alive so he could be slowly and painfully tortured to death.

 

[ScaryMunky]

Sorry if this was already posted.

Gunman identified as VT senior

 

[shadenexus18]

I remember once thinking the same thing back at the time of the Columbine shootings when I was in HS. While it's a brave thought to want to do something like that if you could, have you ever actually been at the end of someone's gun while unarmed before? Things change pretty quick in that situation. To be quite honest, I can't say I feel the same way anymore. Even then, it's one thing to take a person on when they're right there in front of you with nothing else you can do, and something entirely different to actively seek out and confront an armed killer having no weapon and without really knowing what the situation is or even which person(s) you'd be looking for. If you have then all the more to you, and if you haven't then hopefully you never will know.

I'll tell you this......my siblings and I have had are fair share of close calls bro. Back in the Spanish Harlem, or in Paterson NJ (hometowns) yes bro.....we have been held up at gun point, and yet managed to come out alive. Yes, I have been shot before, but that bullet wound hasn't stopped me and Orion from laying the smackdown on cowards with guns even when we are injured. We're speaking from experience.

 

[virtualgamecafe]

I live in blacksburg I am a highschool student and from what i know 22 are dead more are wounded and in critical condition. The gunman either killed himself or was shot by a officer. All my friends that go to tech are safe and friends parents that work there and I thank god for that. I feel terrible and i send my prayers to the viictums familys. I cannot believe this, what is wrong with us as people. How can people do this to one another?

they think that it is fun because they are idiots, anyways why do people kill another of there own kind instead of anything else??? they could have gone hunting or somthing...for animals instead of shooting real people...people don't understand that they are taking a life of som.eone that can live on earth only once...people still don't use there brains or think and they don't understand what they are doing is stupid until they pay for it and sometimes not even after that anyways, i have heard this earlyer but now that i hear the full story it sounds terrible....i don't think any one understands what i'm saying so i'll stop typing now.

 

[Vampirekain]

I heard that bearing guns when you're above 18 in USA is legal :S Is that correct? If it is something like that is bound to happen...I mean take this time for example, the guy had obviously some mental problems and when his girlfriend dumped him he went on a bloody rampage and killed whoever standing in front of him. If he had no gun the worst thing that could happen is beat his girlfriend and then get caught by other students/professors. Here in Greece its illegal to carry guns under whatever circumstances (Expect police/security units etc etc) I think that's for the best.What do you guys say?

 

[Crimson King]

Mic, see the posts after yours. I didn't want to quote it because they are both valid. Sure it's easy to get guns now, but if someone is going to murder someone else, not getting a gun legally won't stop them. They plan to commit one crime, a second wouldn't bother them.

As for VampireKain, you can own most rifles and shotguns around 18, and handguns and the rest at 21. This is perfectly fine as long as background checks are done. I plan to go get a handgun for my 21st birthday because, living in post-Katrina Louisiana, crime has taken a sharp turn here even today. Right after Katrina, we had tons of looting, drugs, (3 sleeping bags FILLED with cocaine were confiscated [Dodongo, stop slobbering]) and another sleeping bag of illegal firearms. Living in a small, college town, police here is quite inept as I've learned the hard way with just traffic accidents. If my house gets broken into, I don't want to have to wait 30 minutes for a cop to say "It's out of our jurisdiction".

This shooting is just a senseless act by a sad and depraved person. The wiki that Eorlingas posted showed an ineptitude in the US and that isn't gun control. He was talked about as a loner by all people in the school, yet no one in school reached out and offered him anything. As a society by isolating kids like this, we are breeding them and it's not right. Sadly, it takes a tragedy like this to make people realize that changes are needed. VT Shooting victims are gone, but we can't forget what it taught us. We need SECURITY in schools and more and more outreach programs to mentally disturbed people instead of ostracizing.

 

[Eor]

you can own most rifles and shotguns around 18, and handguns and the rest at 21.

..Seriously? I can own a shotgun before a handgun?

I guess because of hunting and such, as a rifle and shotgun could be used for deer, while a handgun would only be used for people. But that still seems ****ing weird.

 

[Linguini]

Wow....this is shocking.....
My real question is how the **** is it that this is something that is nearly confined in the United States. Do other countries, for example Canada, have just as many guns, or more.Yes, but do they have insane massacres such as this one, no.
This is disgusting....I dont even know what to say.......

 

[The_Corax_King]

The US has a very large population though...

Personally I dont think we can blame anyone... just the killer... (but maybe not even him, you'd have to be pretty messed up to do something like that). We should focus on supporting the families etc...

I am against gun control, but enforcing background checks and such is totally legitimate.
I think gun safety classes in school would be far more useful than sex education...

 

[vjgyo]

This is very sad, especially since there was 2 hours between the first and second shooting.

 

[Sandy]

This is very sad, especially since there was 2 hours between the first and second shooting.

And nobody thought to look for him:

 

[Eor]

My real question is how the **** is it that this is something that is nearly confined in the United States. Do other countries, for example Canada, have just as many guns, or more.Yes, but do they have insane massacres such as this one, no.

*Links are graphic pictures*

http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/march2006/100306iraq.jpg

That's called Iraq.

http://www.alamuae.com/up/Folder-003/1154862373_genocide93.jpg

That's called Somalia

http://www.worldproutassembly.org/images/gaza-martyr.jpg

That's called the Gaza strip

http://image1.bubbleshare.com/media...5d32f83e503560d2c/580x435/aaaa-59_580x435.jpg

Lebanon

 

[Linguini]

Good examples of horrible events, but where these school massacres conducted by students? No, that was the topic I was posting and sharing my thoughts about, please read clearly next time.

 

[Eor]

I thought you meant massacre in general. "Insane Massacre" isn't narrowed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaa_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._R._Myers_High_School_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_school_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monash_University_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_College_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beirut_Arab_University_shooting

Though I admit, we do have more then most. It's most likely because it's a trend, in a bad way. Without Columbine, I don't think the majority of our school shootings (afterwards) would have taken place.

 

[Kerocola]

Yeah, school shootings seem to be pretty popular afteer the Columbine.
I have some sympathy for them. I mean, come on, they're ready to roll, at the end of school, starting life. And then you die. I wouldn't want to be a random, insignificant death to a not-able to handle emotions person. I like to say that, but I have no control over if I get shot or not. To die during school, though...not exactly liking the thought. Not the best way to die...you wonder why those shooters aren't liked, and it's because they act so extremely. Things don't just come to ya, and some people just expect it too, I guess..."Nobody likes me. Gotta kill random people now.." "Depressed, gotta kill people."

 

[Linguini]

Ah, I worded it poorly, seems after Columbine this has been becoming much more common, but even before Columbine incidents like these were happening in the U.S. but never this bad. Back in the 60's when shootings happened people thought the country was going insane, now its just another horrible shooting, apparently society has changed its views completely
And in response to Corax King, the population of this country has nothing to do with the phsychological problems of a numbered few that commit such heinious acts.

 

[The_Corax_King]

Im just saying with a large population it is more likely to have crazy people...

This doesnt excuse horrible crimes by any means...

 

[Crimson King]

Actually, the US has a high stress level for college and school children. Almost as high as China which if kids fail, they commit suicide.

As for limiting massacres to the US.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada-tan

This was perhaps even sicker given the ages. There was a serial killer who was young to in Japan, but I forgot her name.

 

[The_Corax_King]

I found out about some really bad Japanese ones...

But anyway...

 

[Met]

George bush came to our town today. And my mother girlfriend and I went to techs drill field a couple of hours ago to honor the victums. there were thoasands of people there. I like living here because our community cares so much for one another. And you know we really shouldn't blame our law enforcement, they did the best they could. No one was prepared for what happened. The kid chained the doors and went from class room to class room just shooting through the open door into groups of students. He had 2 pistols which were illegally purchased somehow. Now is a time for healing, and I pray for the familys of the victums. I dont know if there is really anything more to be siad in this thread.

 

[Frozenserpent]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall reading in the articles that the guns were purchased legally by the student.