At least 20 killed in Virginia Tech shooting

Blitzkrieg · 04-16-2007, 12:57 PM

Quote:

(CNN) -- The Virginia Tech police chief said at least 20 people were killed in twin shootings on the Blacksburg campus Monday morning.

"Some victims were shot in a classroom," Chief Wendell Flinchum said, adding that the gunman was dead.

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," said university President Charles Steger. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified." (Map of Blacksburg)

The attacks mark the worst school shooting incident since 1999 when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

A hospital spokeswoman told The Associated Press that 17 Virginia Tech students were being treated for gunshot wounds and other injuries.

Sharon Honaker at the Carilion New River Valley Medical Center told CNN that four patients had been transported there, one in critical condition.

One person was killed and others were wounded at multiple locations inside a dormitory about 7:15 a.m., Flinchum said. Two hours later, another shooting at Norris Hall, the engineering science and mechanics building, resulted in multiple casualties, the university reported. (Watch police, ambulances hustle to the scene Video)

The first reported shooting occurred at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a co-ed dormitory that houses 895 students. The dormitory, one of the largest residence halls on the 2,600-acre campus, is located near the drill field and stadium.

Amie Steele, editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, said one of her reporters at the dormitory reported "mass chaos."

The reporter said there were "lots of students running around, going crazy, and the police officers were trying to settle everyone down and keep everything under control," according to Steele.

Kristyn Heiser said she was in class about 9:30 a.m. when she and her classmates saw about six gun-wielding police officers run by a window.

"We were like, 'What's going on?' Because this definitely is a quaint town where stuff doesn't really happen. It's pretty boring here," said Heiser during a phone interview as she sat on her classroom floor.

Student Matt Waldron said he did not hear the gunshots because he was listening to music, but he heard police sirens and saw officers hiding behind trees with their guns drawn.

"They told us to get out of there so we ran across the drill field as quick as we could," he said.

Waldron described the scene on campus as "mayhem." (Watch a student's recording of police responding to loud bangs Video)

"It was kind of scary," he said. "These two kids I guess had panicked and jumped out of the top story window and the one kid broke his ankle and the other girl was not in good shape just lying on the ground."

Madison Van Duyne said she and her classmates in a media writing class were on "lockdown" in their classrooms. They were huddled in the middle of the classroom, writing stories about the shootings and posting them online.

The university is updating its 26,000 students through e-mails, and an Internet webcam is broadcasting live pictures of the campus.

The shootings came three days after a bomb threat Friday forced the cancellation of classes in three buildings, WDBJ in Roanoke reported. Also, the 100,000-square-foot Torgersen Hall was evacuated April 2 after police received a written bomb threat, The Roanoke Times reported.

After the Monday shootings, students were instructed to stay indoors and away from windows, police at the university said.

"A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows," read a warning from the university.

"Virginia Tech has canceled all classes. Those on campus are asked to remain where they are, lock their doors and stay away from windows. Persons off campus are asked not to come to campus," a statement on the university Web site said.

Holy crap. People are insane.

molebeing · 04-16-2007, 02:16 PM

Society never gets better......

Beaker · 04-16-2007, 09:09 PM

33 dead including the psycho i heard

Felix · 04-16-2007, 09:24 PM

Thats odd. He killed himself? I thought I saw on the news they had someone in custody, and he didn't look dead to me! <----goes to cnn to hear more.

Inogenius · 04-16-2007, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felix

Thats odd. He killed himself? I thought I saw on the news they had someone in custody, and he didn't look dead to me! <----goes to cnn to hear more.

There was 2 shooters.

I'm kind of worried about a guy I know there. He was a long time customer of mine from my web hosting company that I had become pretty good friends with.

Danny Diamond · 04-18-2007, 08:23 AM

Well. Now it appears that there was only one shooter.

I personally can't believe that there was two different shooting sprees 2 hours apart from the same damn guy.

Where was SWAT or even the State Police. That school should have been locked down tight.

I feel extremely bad for everyone there as it was clearly a chaotic scene and NOBODY should have to deal with something like this on a college campus. Security is such an issue, but seems to never get handled properly.

What I mean is everything seems to be reactionary in this "post 9.11 country" which we constantly here over here in the States these days. Now all colleges will most likely go on lockdown or some crazy ass security measures will be put in place.

My question is, what will they do when someone pulls out an Uzi and guns down a shitload of people in say Yankee stadium or the Superbowl? What about a public park or Disney World?

[/saftey rant]

I would like to know what the general reaction/feelings is down there from our roving WV reporter Dakstang.

Dr. Giganto · 04-18-2007, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danny Diamond

Where was SWAT or even the State Police. That school should have been locked down tight

The thing is, there was no way to know that the guy would go off and kill 30 more people. The police suspected that it was a "domestic incident". It would be different if he shot up everybody in the dorm and managed to escape. People saw him arguing with some girl, the girl's RA intervened, and so he shot him and the girl. There really were no indications that it would escalate to anything beyond that.

You can't lock down an entire campus or community every time a person gets shot. Could you imagine if they tried to shut down New York every time a dead body turned up?

molebeing · 04-18-2007, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Dogg

The thing is, there was no way to know that the guy would go off and kill 30 more people. The police suspected that it was a "domestic incident". It would be different if he shot up everybody in the dorm and managed to escape. People saw him arguing with some girl, the girl's RA intervened, and so he shot him and the girl. There really were no indications that it would escalate to anything beyond that.

You can't lock down an entire campus or community every time a person gets shot. Could you imagine if they tried to shut down New York every time a dead body turned up?

You don't lock down a whole community but one area where there are lots of people like a college campus you lock down after there is a murder and the police still have nobody arrested, that's just common sense.

Dr. Giganto · 04-18-2007, 12:51 PM

According to the FBI, there were over 10,000 gun-related homicides in 2005. I would assume the number is similar in recent years. I would venture a guess that 99% of these were isolated incidents i.e. guy shoots a cheating girlfriend, woman shoots an abusive boyfriend, gang member shoots rival gang member, two drunks get into a fight at a bar, etc.

In 2004, 37.4% of all homicides went unsolved. I would also assume the number is similar in recent years.

That means that every year, there are about 3,500-4,000 unsolved gun-related homicides. That's not even counting the ones where the killer initially escapes and is found days, weeks, or even months later.

The vast majority of homicides in this country are isolated incidents in which the killer flees the scene. Mass killings are few and far between. The police that responded to the initial shooting had no reason to suspect this was anything besides a crime of passion or a "domestic incident". Hindsight is 20/20. The cops were confronted with a situation where 99.9999% of the time it doesn't end up becoming a mass killing, and they were unfortunate enough to get caught in the other situation that happens .0001% of the time.

What if the cops had focused all their energy on locking down the school, but the killer had already fled the campus and killed a bunch more people off-campus? Then what? The cops have to make the best decision they can given incomplete information, and I am confident they did so to the best of their abilities. Unfortunately, it did not work out the way the police (or anybody really) could have expected

The fact that this massacre happened sucks. It's a terrible, tragic event. But to try to place blame on anybody besides the psychopathic killer is extremely misguided. The question shouldnt be "How could the police allow this to happen?"

The question should be "How could anybody do this?"

molebeing · 04-18-2007, 01:22 PM

Your right about not placing all the blame on the police, but this is a very twisted society that we all live in and we know that there's people like that in the world so we should be more careful, I still believe they should have locked down the school and got the guy after he killed those 2 people, in a huge area such as a college campus where there are lots of people better security measures should be taken, but I guess they will be doing that now.

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At least 20 killed in Virginia Tech shooting

Kick back and talk about just about anything non wrestling related. You know the drill.