History > 2007 > USA > Gun violence (II)

The Virginian Pilot        p. 1        17.4.2007

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=123020&ran=2202&tref=po

South Koreans React

to Shooting in Virginia

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By CHOE SANG-HUN and NORIMITSU ONISHI

SEOUL, South Korea, April 18 — South Korea takes great pride in Koreans who have become successful in the United States. So people here were stunned and ashamed to learn that the gunman responsible for the worst mass shooting in American history was a South Korean — Cho Seung Hui, a 23-year-old student at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Political and religious leaders issued messages of condolence today for the 32 victims of the campus shootings. President Roh Moo Hyun called his shock at the events “beyond description.”

Policymakers expressed concern about the potential impact of the killings on South Korea’s relations with the United States — and, more immediately, on the Seoul government’s effort to win Congressional support for allowing the tens of thousands of South Koreans who travel to the United States each year to do so without having to obtain a visa.

They also feared that the shootings might touch off racial prejudice or violence against Koreans in the United States.

“I almost panicked when I called my daughter studying in New York, as soon as I heard the killer was a Korean, and I couldn’t immediately reach her,” said Kim Jin Gil, 51. “I told her not to go out on the streets for the time being, and not to tell people that she is a Korean. She laughed at me, though.”

The news hit particularly hard here because so many South Koreans have relatives or friends living in the United States, or hope to study or work there. The United States Embassy in Seoul interviews more than 2,000 visa applicants a day, and as many as 3,000 a day during the summer traveling season.

About two million people of Korean ethnicity live in the United States. Korean immigration gained momentum after the Korean War in the early 1950’s, when Americans adopted thousands of war orphans. Today, however, thousands of South Koreans send their children to the United States each year, or move as entire families, to help them learn English and benefit from an education away from what they see as their home country’s overly competitive, overly expensive school system.

Approximately 93,000 South Korean students are estimated to be enrolled in the United States. Virginia Tech alone is said to have more than 400 South Korean students now enrolled.

English proficiency and a diploma from a top-notch American university have become important status symbols in South Korea, as more businesses and government agencies here try to recruit employees with an international perspective.

The trajectory taken by Mr. Cho’s parents — emigrating, working long and hard and eventually reaping the fruits by sending their children to top colleges — was a dream pursued by many South Koreans. So the concluding nightmare has particular resonance here.

“The parents went to the United States, and did everything to raise and educate their children,” said Kim Ae Ja, 51, who was among a crowd of people gathered outside a newspaper’s headquarters in downtown Seoul to read front-page headlines about the shooting at Virginia Tech. “And then the son does something crazy like this.”

Mr. Cho’s family moved to the United States in 1992, when Mr. Cho was 8, and ran a dry-cleaning shop in Centerville, Va. The family reportedly lived in a basement apartment in a Seoul suburb before leaving the country.

“Cho’s father said he was going to the United States because the life here was too tough for him,” their former landlord, Lim Bong Ae, 67, told the daily newspaper Munwha Ilbo. “The family was very poor but looked happy. The mother was calm and pretty. The father was a quiet man, but I had no idea what kind of job he had.”

Because the United States fought alongside South Korea against the invading North Korean communists, remained a staunch ally after the fighting ended in a stalemate and maintains a military alliance and vigorous trade ties, it looms larger than any other foreign country in the Korean national consciousness.

Crimes committed by any of the 28,000 American soldiers now based in South Korea usually receive intense media coverage. When an American military armored vehicle struck and killed two teenage girls in 2002, for instance, it touched off a wave of anti-American sentiment that analysts said helped President Roh win election.

Still, many of the same people who supported Mr. Roh’s pursuit of greater diplomatic independence from Washington are eager to send their children to study in the United States. When Korean students graduate with honors from prestigious universities, they are often featured in newspapers here.

The Korean news media also gives a hero’s welcome to successful professional athletes like the golfer Se Ri Pak, the Major League baseball pitcher Chan Ho Park and Hines Ward, a half-Korean American football star, when they visit the country where they were born.

South Korea’s relations with the United States remain close. Negotiators for the two countries concluded a free-trade agreement, or F.T.A., early this month, which awaits ratification by the Senate.

“I don’t think this sad incident will affect the government-to-government relations or the chances of ratifying the F.T.A.,” said Song Dae Sung, who studies Korean-American relations at the Sejong Institute. “What we worry about is the possibility of a racial backlash being released against Korean expats, some of whom are seen by other Americans as too selfish, too self-centered and too competitive.”

Han Woo Sung, a freelance journalist who emigrated to Los Angles in 1987 with two children, doubted that the shootings on Monday would lead to major racial violence against Koreans, like that seen against Korean shopkeepers in predominantly black areas of the city during the 1992 riots. Still, he said, “Korean communities certainly feel a sense of uneasiness and a sense of guilt.”

People in Seoul expressed similar feelings. “I and all of South Korea want to apologize to all Americans about what happened,” said Nahm So Seob, 70, whose daughter moved to the United States 15 years ago and now lives in Virginia. She decided to keep her own daughter out of school for a while for fear of retaliation against Korean-Americans.

In 1994, when a 23-year-old South Korean student named Park Han Sang returned home from the United States and stabbed his parents to death and burned their bodies, many South Koreans deplored what they saw as a case of a young Korean spoiled by American pop culture.

Commentaries along those lines have not been much in evidence this time. Instead, Internet bloggers and newspaper columnists put blame on Americans’ relatively easy access to firearms. Private ownership of guns is banned in South Korea.

South Koreans React to Shooting in Virginia, NYT, 18.4.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/world/asia/18cnd-korea.html

 

The Big Question:

Is there a link between America's lax gun laws

and the high murder rate?

Published: 18 April 2007
The Independent
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington DC
 

Why ask this now?

The massacre at Virginia Tech has, yet again, focused attention on the culture of guns and the ease of obtaining firearms in America, an unending source of amazement to most of the rest of the world. Roughly 29,000 people are killed by firearms every year - 10 times as many as died on September 11, 2001. Of the victims, some 11,000 are murdered, 17,000 use a gun to commit suicide, and almost 1,000 die in accidents. Some sub-statistics are even more disturbing. Every day three children under 19 die from a gun wound. Across the country, roughly 1,000 crimes involving firearms are committed every 24 hours. The rampage of Cho Seung-Hui, the deadliest mass shooting in US history, will merely add one suicide and 33 murders (at the latest count) to these grim totals.

How strict are the gun-buying laws?

To be fair, a little stricter than they were a generation ago. But controls are still very lax by European standards. With guns, as with so many areas of American life, lawmaking takes place at two levels: federal and state. The first are passed by Congress in Washington, the latter are passed by legislatures in individual state capitals. Laws differ wildly from state to state, but federal laws tend to adopt a lowest common denominator approach.

The best known legislation to control firearms is the 1993 "Brady Bill", named after James Brady, the White House press secretary who was shot and crippled in the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981. But the last federal gun-control law, dealing with domestic violence, dates back to 1996.

A sign of the times, 1994 legislation banning semi-automatic assault weapons was allowed to lapse in 2004, largely because of pressure from the pro-gun lobbying group, the National Rifle Association. Republicans tend to be pro-gun, while even liberal Democrats have concluded there are few new votes to be won by tighter curbs on gun ownership - even after traumatic events like the 1999 Columbine shootings, or the execution of five little girls at an Amish school in Pennsylvania last October.

And in the states?

Approaches differ hugely. Populous and traditionally Democratic states on both coasts tend to have the toughest regulations. The loosest are generally to be found in Republican states of the South and the old frontier West.

California, Massachusetts and Maryland get an A-grade from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and New York rates a B+, but 32 states rank from D to F, with legislation that ranges from the lax to the downright non-existent.

Texas, addicted to hunting and home of the Alamo, rates a D-, while the Deep South trio of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi get the lowest grade of F. Alabama has no limit on handgun sales, no state checks on guns, no registration requirements, no restrictions on minors possessing handguns, and not even curbs on so-called "Saturday Night Special" junk guns.

What about Virginia?

Interestingly, Monday's massacre took place in a state which, despite being home to the headquarters of the NRA, gets a medium C- rating. Virginia's main role in America's gun universe is as an convenient source of firearms for nearby East Coast cities like New York. Indeed, the Virginia legislature has passed an "anti-Bloomberg" law (named after the mayor of New York), preventing sting operations by disguised US law enforcement officers who trap Virginia dealers into selling them guns illegally.

To curb the gun trade, the state has legislation limiting handgun sales to one a month per person. But the contrast with Washington DC next door, which has vainly banned the possession of handguns, is glaring. Cross the Potomac River and within 20 miles, you meet roadside stores proclaiming "GUNS SOLD HERE".

So how easy is it to get a gun?

The short answer is, very. The Brady Bill, requiring a background computer check and a three-day waiting period for the purchase of a gun, means that anyone with a clean criminal record and minimal patience can buy one. According to Justice Department statistics covering criminals convicted in firearms offences, a small proportion of the weapons were acquired at flea markets, and an even smaller proportion (2 per cent) at gun shows, where no background checks are required. The majority, 80 per cent, got them from family, on the streets or illegally. It is reckoned the gun population of the US is roughly equal to its 300 million human one. Supply thus outstrips any conceivable demand. Even if there was a genuine public will for strict gun control, it is simply too late. Occasionally, a city authority will offer an amnesty when citizens can hand over illegal weapons, no questions asked. The results have mostly been derisory.

Is gun availability the main reason for incidents like that at Virginia Tech?

Absolutely not. Gun ownership, its supporters contend, is specifically encouraged by the Second Amendment of the Constitution, endorsing militias and the right of citizens to bear arms. Hence slogans like that of the NRA: "Guns don't kill people, people do". Moreover, violence, and the glorification of violence, runs deep in American culture.

The United States is a country where take-no-prisoners talk radio flourishes as nowhere else, and where gangsters and outlaws become national legends. For proof, just look at Hollywood's regular output, and any weekly list of top box-office hits. In a generally homogenous country, those who do not fit in can easily become alienated. All too easily, alienation breeds depression and despair. Most school shootings (and it seems this latest one at Virginia Tech) are carried out by people determined to commit suicide, and who want to take a few people with them. No weapon kills more people more quickly, and confers a greater sense of power, than a gun.

The media doesn't help, does it?

Most experts on the psychology of crime believe that saturation media coverage only makes the problem worse. Watching American TV this week, a visiting Martian would assume that Virginia Tech was not just the most important thing, but the only thing, happening in the entire world.

As one FBI specialist warned on NPR, "My big fear now is copycat incidents. How many kids at this moment are sitting around depressed, wondering whether life's worth it, and then they see the fuss this guy created? Some of them are bound to think to themselves, 'Hey, that's the way to go'." An hour after those words were uttered, a university campus in Austin, Texas was temporarily shut after a threatening note was found. The only difference is that the note talked of a bomb attack, while Cho Seung-Hui used guns.

WILL AMERICA EVER TIGHTEN ITS GUN LAWS?

YES

* An outrage like Virginia Tech will finally galvanise public opinion behind the gun-control lobby

* Some one will wake up to the terrorist threat. What if Cho Seung-Hiu had not been a South Korean, but a member of al-Qa'ida?

* The renewed sense of danger on American school and university campuses will generate its own pressure for action

NO

* Liberals accept that there is little chance of prevailing over the NRA, and Democrats in Congress have become more conservative

* If Killeen, Columbine and the Amish school murders made no difference, why should Virginia Tech?

* Saturation TV coverage will have other deranged, would-be gunmen believe they, too, can have their day of glory

The Big Question: Is there a link between America's lax gun laws and the high murder rate?, I, 18.4.2007,
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2458855.ece

Massacre - The Dealer's Defence:

'I just sold him the gun'

Published: 18 April 2007
The Independent
By Andrew Buncombe in Roanoke
and Jerome Taylor
 

If Cho Seung-Hui wanted to start a war, he could not have gone to a better place than Roanoke Firearms.

Five weeks ago, the 23-year-old foreign student entered the shop and paid $570 (£284) with a credit card for a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol and a box of 50 cartridges. He provided three different forms of identification and passed an additional security check carried out by the state police. The checks threw up no red flags. The entire transaction took no more than 20 minutes.

"I don't know anything about him. I just sold him the gun," the store's owner, John Markell, told The Independent, standing behind one of the store's glass display cases packed full of matt-black weapons. "He had a Virginia driving licence, a cheque book and a green card. Everything was legit - he checked out completely."

Yesterday, as this part of southern Virginia and the rest of the US was struggling to come to terms with the bloody carnage that took place on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, 40 miles away, on the outskirts of Roanoke, the shop that sold Cho one of the two semi-automatic weapons he used with such devastating effect was open and doing swift business.

Mr Markell, 58, said that officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) visited the store on the afternoon of the shooting - the receipt for the handgun had later been found on Cho - but they had not troubled him further. There had been no suggestion the shop should be closed or that business should be suspended.

Mr Markell said that because Cho was a foreign national, he was required to have three forms of identification with him rather than the normal two. "We also rang up the state police. They ran it through the FBI computer," Mr Markell added. "He was here on a student visa."

The Korean student, who was majoring in English, had bought a Glock, of which several were on display. (One of the members of staff gladly lifted his shirt to show The Independent his own Glock, which he was carrying in a leather holster.)

But had he wanted something else, Cho - as with other visitors to Roanoke Firearms, which shares its scruffy premises with a pawn shop - would have had a vast array of weapons to chose from.

Yesterday, the shop had on display scores of semi-automatic handguns and revolvers for between $300 and $650. There were dozens of hunting knives and a range of various paper targets.

For the more ambitious, a Steyr tactical rifle for $2,075 had been set up on the counter, while on the floor lay a Barrett .50 calibre sniper rifle, similar to one used by the US military. Behind more glass was a rack of AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles. A packet of .45 "dum-dum" rounds was offered for $15.75. Mr Markell said his store sold 2,500 guns a year.

The shootings have already triggered new debate about the need for greater gun control. Mike Males, the author of the book Kids & Guns: How Politicians, Experts, and the Press Fabricate Fear of Youth, told the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington: "I cannot find another country where mass shootings are so common outside of war or revolution, regardless of their other characteristics."

But many people say the incident may also lead to greater gun sales as people buy a weapon for self-defence. Leane Anderson, a firearms instructor and gun shop owner, said purchases had soared since the killings.

She said: "I think guns don't kill people, people kill people. And I'm a strong believer in being able to protect yourself and your family. The Second Amendment [which gun enthusiasts claim affords them the right to bear arms] is very important to me. If it was taken away I'd be very upset."

But Mr Markell, owner of Roanoke Firearms for the past eight years, said that when Cho entered the store five weeks ago, his mind had not been on murder - even though he had filed off the weapons' identification numbers. He said he believed the student had bought ammunition more suitable for target shooting than for "self protection".

"I think that something pushed him over the edge. He did not buy that gun to do what he did," he said. "This was not pre-meditated five weeks ago ... You don't plan something [like this] five weeks in advance."

Massacre - The Dealer's Defence: 'I just sold him the gun', I, 18.4.2007,
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2458871.ece

Steve Nease

Oakville Ontario        Cagle        17 April 2007

Steve is the daily cartoonist

for the Oakville Beaver

Rupert Cornwell:

A brutal truth:

Massacre is just part

of everyday life in America

You hear no new arguments because, deep down,

there is nothing new to be said

Published: 18 April 2007
The Independent

It is as if we are on autopilot. The ghastly tragedy swamps the news to the exclusion of all else. There are the heartbreaking stories of a university shattered and of the dozens of victims, their mostly young lives cut short so senselessly. We listen to the grief-stricken remarks of the President, and follow the breathless investigation of the perpetrator's background, his history of mental illness. We share the anguished second guessing about whether his murderous rampage could have been prevented. Yet everything is playing to a script we know by heart.

Virginia Tech, of course, is the worst incident of its kind in US history - and at one level, you would gain the impression from American television that Cho Seung-Hui has literally stopped the world.

He hasn't of course. On Tuesday, in what passes for a relatively quiet news day in Iraq, wire services reported the deaths of 56 people in violence across the country: some of them gunned down, some killed by a suicide bomber, some discovered as decomposed or decapitated corpses. But we heard not a word of that, nor of the trial in absentia in Italy of a US soldier accused of shooting dead an Italian intelligence agent, nor of the report that North Korea may be about to shut down a key nuclear reactor (which would be very big news indeed if true.) And somebody shot dead the Mayor of Nagasaki. But who cares? Instead, nothing but Virginia Tech.

Yet, however exceptional the event, there is something formulaic, even routine, about the coverage. There is no soul searching, no wondering what might be wrong with a society where such things happen so frequently. You hear no new arguments, for deep down there is nothing new to be said.

No detail of the tragedy is too tiny to recount; from where Cho went to high school to the thoughts of the postman who delivered mail, to where the family lived in the Virginia suburb of Centreville (and never met him). Yet America is showing scant sign of addressing the far bigger issue - of whether it is finally time to get serious about gun control.

"Today is the time to focus on the families, the school and the community," Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said. But, she added, "we must allow the facts of the case to unfold before we talk about policy." Reasonable enough. But if not now, in the white heat of stunned national outrage, when?

For public anger can force unexpected change. Over the course of a long career as a loud-mouthed talk radio host, Don Imus must have made hundreds of offensive remarks. Last week, he made what seemed just another one, about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Astonishingly, public tolerance at last snapped. In three days, Imus was out on his ear.

Might not Virginia Tech be the Rutgers University joke for the gun lobby, the moment when violence-drenched America says enough is enough? Alas no. Yes, there will be debate, just as after similar awful incidents in recent years, from Columbine High School to the murder of the five Amish schoolgirls last October in Pennsylvania.

But the underlying mood is of disillusioned resignation. So President Bush formulaically speaks of a "day of sadness for our entire nation," and how Americans are "asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected." It is less certain, however, that a President from gun-toting Texas, who has pursued the conservative vote his entire career, will try to mobilise temporal political forces to render comfort from the Almighty unnecessary.

Keep coming to our world-class universities, was the message to foreign students from Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman yesterday. Virginia Tech was "an aberration". As Donald Rumsfeld infamously remarked of the anarchy of post-invasion Iraq, "Stuff happens".

School shootings happen year in, year out, like tornados in the Midwest in springtime and hurricanes in the south in summer. There will be pressure to step up security procedures on campuses. But that, I confidently predict, will be it. Some even urge more guns, not less. The shooting was proof that "gun bans are the problem, and that Americans should have the rights to defend themselves", according to The Gun Owners of America, a firearms lobbying group. In the meantime, the mighty media river rolls on, washing everything else away. And copycats watch, and wait to choose their moment.

The massacre at Virginia Tech is alarming, not just because of its scale, or that the authorities missed warning signs about Cho Seung-Hui, or that he found it so easy to carry out his terrible mission. The biggest worry is the "copy cat" risk - or rather virtual certainty - that some other student who's feeling depressed or victimised and wondering if life's worth while, will see what happened at Blackburg. And then he'll decide that he too might as well go out with a bang (or more exactly, as many deadly bangs as possible).

The question is not whether, but where, when and how a new outrage will happen. Not, thankfully, at St Edward's University in Austin, Texas, or at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, nor at the University of Oklahoma. The first two received bomb threats yesterday and briefly evacuated their campus. At the third, someone was reportedly seen with a weapon. All three scares were unfounded. But sooner or later, the scare will be real, and more people will die because of America's inability to strip the glamour from guns.

Rupert Cornwell: A brutal truth: Massacre is just part of everyday life in America, I, 18.4.2007,
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2458908.ece

J.D. Crowe

Alabama -- The Mobile Register        Cagle        17 April 2007

NRA = National Rifle Association

FACTBOX:

Guns and gun ownership in the United States

Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:46PM EDT
Reuters

(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 modern U.S. history.

Here are some key facts on guns and gun ownership in the United States and worldwide:

* An estimated 34 percent of the citizens in the United States own firearms, and there are thought to be more than 200 million firearms in private hands.

* Private gun ownership is generally not subject to either licensing or registration. The private resale of guns is largely unregulated in the United States.

* The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The National Rifle Association says this guarantees a citizen's right to keep and bear arms for personal defense.

* From 1993 to 2000, the United States was the leading supplier of conventional arms to the developing world. In 1999, more than 4 million firearms were manufactured in the United States for domestic sale or export.

* More than 300 U.S. companies produce arms and/or ammunition.

* There are 640 million guns in the world, and another 8 million new guns are manufactured annually by more than 1,200 companies in 92 countries. Ten billion to 14 billion units of ammunition are manufactured every year.

Sources: Reuters; National Rifle Association / www.nra.org ; International Action Network on Small Arms/ www.iansa.org

FACTBOX: Guns and gun ownership in the United States, R, 18.4.2007,
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1743414020070417

Clay Bennett

The Christian Science Monitor, Boston

18 April 2007

FACTBOX:

Police contacts with Virginia gunman

Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:09PM EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - Women students at Virginia Tech had complained about Cho Seung-Hui long before he killed 32 people at the university in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, campus police said on Wednesday.

Here is a chronology of what occurred, according to university authorities.

Autumn 2005 - Dr. Lucinda Roy, chairwoman of the Virginia Tech English department, told Virginia Tech police of her concerns about Cho's disturbing and angry writing assignments.

November 27, 2005 - Cho contacted a female student through telephone calls and in person. There was no direct threat made, but she notified the Virginia Tech police about what she termed his "annoying" communication, declining to press charges. Officers spoke with Cho about it and he was referred to the university disciplinary system.

December 12, 2005 - Cho sent instant messages to a second female student who complained to the campus police. There also was no direct threat.

December 12, 2005 - Later the same day, an acquaintance of Cho contacted the campus police, concerned that Cho might be suicidal. Officers met with Cho again and talked with him at length, and asked him to speak to a counselor.

Cho went voluntarily to a counselor. Based on that interaction, a temporary detention order was obtained, and Cho was taken to Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Center, near Radford, Virginia.

He was released from the center and returned to the university. Wendell Flinchum, campus police chief, said he was aware of no further contact between Cho and campus police until the massacre on Monday of 32 people, and Cho's suicide.

    FACTBOX: Police contacts with Virginia gunman, R, 18.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1830044920070418?src=041807_1328_TOPSTORY_portrait_of_a_killer

Shootings provoke gun debate on campus

Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:42PM EDT
Reuters
By Patricia Zengerle

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Some of those affected by the Virginia Tech university shootings were quick to direct their anger and grief not just at the gunman who killed 32 people, but also at the two weapons he used.

As students, their parents, staff and local residents struggled on Wednesday to come to grips with the deadliest gun rampage in modern U.S. history, some said they hoped it might help control America's constitutionally protected love affair with the gun.

"I thought about it (gun control) when I saw the weapons, and how easy it is to buy those guns," said Chris Keats, 58, of Salina, Kansas, who attended a memorial service in honor of the shooting victims with her daughter, Virginia Tech student Ashleigh Keats, 21, on Tuesday.

The gunman, Tech student Cho Seung-Hui, had a history of mental illness and was committed for treatment in 2005. But state law would have banned his handgun purchases only if he had been involuntarily committed.

Police said there was nothing in his record that would prohibit him from buying a gun. Cho killed himself after his rampage.

John, a retired U.S. Air Force officer and Virginia Tech graduate from Blacksburg, who declined to give his full name, lamented that Cho was able to legally purchase and use the easily concealed handguns.

He said would not resent the campus deaths serving to fuel a push for tighter controls on handguns. "I don't mind the political ends, if they are good ends," he said.

About one-third of U.S. households reported having a gun, according to a 2001 government survey.

Although the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment specifies a "right of the people to keep and bear arms," debate over gun-ownership restrictions is a perennial political hot button. Groups that support gun rights are among the most effective lobbyists in U.S. politics.

Democrat Al Gore lost the presidency in 2000 to Republican George W. Bush partly because of his support for gun control.

Analysts said they expected the Virginia shootings on Monday to rekindle a national debate over guns, as the infamous Columbine high-school slayings did in 1999.

A bill to allow weapons on Virginia campuses failed in the state legislature last year, and gun-rights advocates said Monday's shootings proved it should have passed.

The second-largest U.S. gun lobbying group, the Gun Owners of America, said that if Virginia Tech students or faculty had been allowed to carry guns, they might have been able to stop the killer.

"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," said Larry Pratt, the group's director.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said on Tuesday it was too early to argue about gun control. "For those who want to make this into some little crusade, I say take that elsewhere, let this community deal with grieving individuals," he said.

Bush expressed a similar view in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, but said an eventual debate was inevitable.

"I think when a guy walks in and shoots 32 people, it's going to cause there to be a lot of policy debate," he said.

The Virginia Tech Pistol and Rifle Club acknowledged in a statement on its Web site that the right to bear arms "certainly has been abused in this instance."

"But just like airplanes were not forever banned after (September 11), we certainly oppose the unconstitutional act of banning guns," it said.

French engineering student David Freche, 22, said as he walked on campus, "Everyone knows in America there are lots of guns, that it is very easy to get a gun here. It's a huge problem."

"That's why I chose a school in a peaceful town, not New York, not Chicago, where there are lots of murders. I thought it would be very very rare here."

(Additional reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Blacksburg and David Alexander in Washington)

Shootings provoke gun debate on campus, R, 18.4.2007,
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1719950620070418?src=041807_1328_TOPSTORY_portrait_of_a_killer

Va. Gunman Had 2 Past Stalking Cases

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:02 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The gunman blamed for the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history had previously been accused of stalking two female students at Virginia Tech and had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005 after an acquaintance worried he might be suicidal, police said Wednesday.

Cho Seung-Hui had concerned one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in 2005 that police were called in, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.

He said the woman declined to press charges, and neither woman was among the victims of Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus.

During the stalking second incident, also in late 2005, the department received a call from an acquaintance of Cho's who was concerned that he might be suicidal, and Cho was taken to a mental health facility, Flinchum said. About the same time, in fall 2005, Cho's professor informally shared some concerns about the young man's writing but no official report was filed, he said.

Flinchum said he knew of no other police incidents involving Cho until the deadly shootings Monday, first at a girl's dorm room and then a classroom building across campus. Neither of the stalking victims was among the victims Monday.

Thirty-two people were shot to death before the gunman killed himself. State Police have said the same gun was used in both shootings, but they said Wednesday said they still weren't confident that it was the same gunman.

Campus police on Wednesday applied for search warrants for all of Cho's medical records from the Schiffert Health Center on campus and New River Community Services in Blacksburg.

''It is reasonable to believe that the medical records may provide evidence of motive, intent and designs,'' investigators wrote in the documents.

Police searched Cho's dorm room on Tuesday and recovered, among other items, two computers, books, notebooks, a digital camera, and a chain and combination lock, according to documents filed Wednesday; the front doors of Norris Hall had been chained shut from the inside during the shooting rampage.

Cho's roommates and professors on Wednesday described him as a troubled, very quiet young man who rarely spoke to his roommates or made eye contact with them.

His bizarre behavior became even less predictable in recent weeks, roommates Joseph Aust and Karan Grewal said.

Grewal had pulled an all-nighter on homework the day of the shootings and saw Cho at around 5 a.m.

''He didn't look me in the eye. Same old thing. I left him alone,'' He told CNN. He said when he saw Cho that morning and during the weekend, Cho didn't smile, didn't frown and didn't show any signs of anger. Grewal also said he never saw any weapons.

Several students and professors described Cho as a sullen loner. Authorities said he left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News reports said that Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly erratic.

Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings -- pages filled with twisted, violence-drenched writing.

''It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating,'' poet Nikki Giovanni, one of his professors, told CNN Wednesday.

''I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk and jump off buildings,'' she said. ''There was something mean about this boy. It was the meanness -- I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people -- it was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak.''

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to class and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken out of her class, saying she would quit if he wasn't removed.

Lucinda Roy, a co-director of creative writing at Virginia Tech, said she tutored Cho after that.

''He was so distant and so lonely,'' she told ABC's ''Good Morning America'' Wednesday. ''It was almost like talking to a hole, as though he wasn't there most of the time. He wore sunglasses and his hat very low so it was hard to see his face.''

Roy also described using a code word with her assistant to call police if she ever felt threatened by Cho, but she said she never used it.

Cho's writing was so disturbing, though, he was referred to the university's counseling service, said Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department.

In screenplays Cho wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall. In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

''When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare,'' former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site.

''The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of.''

He said he and other students ''were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter.''

''We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did,'' said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. ''But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling.''

Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off.

Cho -- who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaners -- left a note that was found after the bloodbath.

A law enforcement official described it Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rant against rich kids and religion. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

''You caused me to do this,'' the official quoted the note as saying.

Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own religion, and made several references to Christianity, the official said.

The official said the letter was either found in Cho's dorm room or in his backpack. The backpack was found in the hallway of the classroom building where the shootings happened, and contained several rounds of ammunition, the official said.

Eight wounded students remain hospitalized Wednesday at Montgomery Regional Hospital, which took in 17 people after the shootings, CEO Scott Hill said in a news conference with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

''The students are doing generally well,'' Kaine said after visiting with them. ''Some of them walked for the first time today.''

The governor said some students had had life-threatening injuries. One young man knew enough from being in Boy Scouts to put a finger in the wound in his leg to limit the bleeding and tie it off with electrical tape, Kaine said. He said doctors told him that probably saved the student's life.

Five other victims were hospitalized in two other medical centers in either good or serious condition.

Monday's 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. Two handguns -- a 9 mm and a .22-caliber -- were found in the classroom building.

According to court papers, police found a ''bomb threat'' note -- directed at engineering school buildings -- near the victims in the classroom building. In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit with two other bomb threats. Investigators have not connected those earlier threats to Cho.

Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.

At least one of those killed in the rampage, Reema Samaha, graduated from Westfield High in 2006. But there was no immediate word from authorities on whether Cho knew the young woman and singled her out.

''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.

Some classmates said that on the first day of a British literature class last year, the 30 or so students went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.

On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. ''Is your name, `Question mark?''' classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. ''He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked,'' Poole said.

''We just really knew him as the question mark kid,'' Poole said.

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. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.

Tuesday night, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty and area residents poured into the center of campus to grieve together. Volunteers passed out thousands of candles in paper cups, donated from around the country. Then, as the flames flickered, speakers urged them to find solace in one another.

As silence spread across the grassy bowl of the drill field, a pair of trumpets began to play taps. A few in the crowd began to sing Amazing Grace.

Afterward, students, some weeping, others holding each other for support, gathered around makeshift memorials, filling banners and plywood boards with messages belying their pain. With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many students left town.

''I think this is something that will take a while. It still hasn't hit a lot of people yet,'' said Amber McGee, a freshman from Wytheville, Va.

Kaine said he would appoint a panel at the university's request to review authorities' handling of the disaster. Parents and students had complained that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire and did not do enough to warn people.

''I'm satisfied that the university did everything they felt they needed to do with the heat on the table,'' Kaine told CBS' ''The Early Show'' on Wednesday. ''Nobody has this in the playbook, there's no manual on this.''

Congress planned to hold its first hearing on the shootings Thursday, focusing on law enforcement resources needed to protect the country.

Virginia Tech students got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president's office.

''They were just screaming, 'Get off the sidewalks,''' said Terryn Wingler-Petty, a junior from Wisconsin. ''They seemed very confused about what was going on. They were just trying to get people organized.''

The threat targeted the university president but was unfounded and the building was reopened, Flinchum said.

One officer was seen escorting a crying young woman out of Burruss Hall, telling her, ''It's OK. It's OK.''

Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Centreville, Va.; Matt Barakat in Richmond, Va.; Lara Jakes Jordan and Beverley Lumpkin in Washington; and Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey, Matt Apuzzo and Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.

Va. Gunman Had 2 Past Stalking Cases, NYT, 18.4.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Students Annoyed by Him but Didn’t Press Charges

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN and JOHN M. BRODER

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 19 — Two female students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute complained to authorities about the behavior of Cho Seung-Hui, the killer in the shooting rampage there, when he contacted them in separate incidents in 2005, and he was later sent to a mental health facility but no charges were filed against him.

In a news conference today, the police revealed more details about the 23-year-old student who was the gunman in the shooting rampage in which 32 people were killed. Mr. Cho also died, shooting himself in the face at the end of the spree.

The new information raises questions about whether warning signs about Mr. Cho’s behavior and problems were effectively handled by police and the university.

Also in 2005, Lucinda Roy, an English professor, shared her concerns with the authorities, but no official report was filed. The writings did not express threatening intentions, the police said today.

In the incidents involving the female students, the police said that on November 27, 2005, Mr. Cho contacted a fellow female student, by phone and in person, and she notified the campus police. She later declined to press charges.

In December, a second female student complained to the police about an instant message Mr. Cho sent to her by computer. Police then spoke with Mr. Cho and asked him to have no further contact with the student. Police said the message was not threatening, and the student characterized it as “annoying.”

The police spoke with acquaintances of Mr. Cho’s and became concerned that Mr. Cho might be suicidal. Officers suggested to Mr. Cho that he speak to a counselor and he did so on Dec. 13. He was transported the same day to a mental health facility.

Neither of the female students who complained about Mr. Cho were among the shooting victims, and the police said they did not know if they were in the vicinity of the shootings.

There were no further referrals to the police before Mr. Cho was named on Tuesday in connection with the deaths of the students and teachers on the sprawling campus.

Mr. Cho has been described as a troubled young man known by few on campus.

Federal investigators said Mr. Cho — a South Korean immigrant who Americanized his name and preferred to be known as Seung Cho — left behind a note that they described as a lengthy, rambling and bitter list of complaints focusing on moral laxity and double-dealing he found among what he viewed as wealthier and more privileged students on campus.

And new information emerged that may help explain a fateful two-hour delay by university officials in warning the campus of a gunman at large. According to search warrants and statements from the police, campus investigators had been busy pursuing what appears to have been a fruitless lead in the first of two shooting episodes Monday.

After two people, Emily Jane Hilscher, a freshman, and Ryan Clark, the resident adviser whose room was nearby in the dormitory, were shot dead, the campus police began searching for Karl D. Thornhill, who was described in Internet memorials as Ms. Hilscher’s boyfriend.

According to a search warrant filed by the police, Ms. Hilscher’s roommate had told the police that Mr. Thornhill, a student at nearby Radford University, had guns at his town house. The roommate told the police that she had recently been at a shooting range with Mr. Thornhill, the affidavit said, leading the police to believe he may have been the gunman.

But as they were questioning Mr. Thornhill, reports of widespread shooting at Norris Hall came in, making it clear that they had not contained the threat on campus. Mr. Thornhill was not arrested, although he continues to be an important witness in the case, the police said.

At the time of the dormitory shootings, Col. W. Steven Flaherty, the superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said, “There was certainly no evidence or no reason to think that there was anyone else at that particular point in time.”

State officials continued to defend the actions of the campus authorities. John W. Marshall, the Virginia secretary of public safety, said Charles W. Steger, the president of Virginia Tech, and Chief Wendell Flinchum of the campus police “made the right decisions based on the best information that they had available at the time.”

At an afternoon news briefing, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Dr. Steger had asked him to appoint a committee to examine the university’s response and try to answer some of the remaining questions about the gunman’s actions.

Governor Kaine said today in an interview on CNN that he was appointing W. Gerald Massengill, former superintendent of Virginia State Police, to head the independent panel that would conduct the review.

After the shootings, the state police executed another search warrant, this time for Mr. Cho’s dormitory room. The warrant said a bomb threat against the engineering school buildings was found near Mr. Cho’s body. The warrant mentioned two other bomb threat notes against the campus received over the past three weeks.

Mr. Cho had used two handguns, a 9-millimeter and a .22-caliber, to shoot dozens of rounds, leaving even those who survived with multiple bullet wounds, officials said. The guns were bought legally in March and April. Colonel Flaherty said that although one of those guns had been used in the dormitory shooting, investigators were not ready to conclude that the same gunman was responsible for both episodes. But he said there was no evidence of another gunman or an accomplice.

Among the central unknowns is what prompted the gunman to move to Norris Hall, which contains engineering and other classrooms, where all but the first two killings took place. The authorities said Mr. Cho’s preparations, including chaining the doors, suggested planning and premeditation, rather than a spontaneous event.

Bodies were found in four classrooms and the stairwell of the building, Colonel Flaherty said.

“You all have reported that this is the most horrific incident that’s occurred on a college campus in our country, and the scene certainly bore that out,” he said. “Personal effects were strewn about the entire second floor at Norris Hall. So it made it much more difficult for us to identify students and faculty members that were victims.”

Officers also found several knives on Mr. Cho’s body. They first identified him by a driver’s license found in a backpack near the scene of the shootings, although it was not clear at first whether the backpack belonged to the gunman. But the name was checked against a visa application, and when a fingerprint on one of the weapons matched a print on the visa application, the authorities made a positive identification. The print matched another print left in the first shooting location.

Prescription medications said to be related to treatment of psychological problems were found among Mr. Cho’s effects, but officials did not specify what drugs they were.

Mr. Cho’s effects, but officials did not specify what drugs they were.

In addition, investigators were reviewing recent bomb threats at the university in an effort to determine whether the gunman might have been involved in them, as an effort to test the university’s emergency response procedures.

Ms. Roy said Mr. Cho’s writing, laced with anger, profanity and violence, concerned several faculty members. In 2005, she sent examples to the campus police, the campus counseling service and other officials. All were worried, but little could be done, she said.

Ms. Roy said she would offer to go with Mr. Cho to counseling, just to talk. “But he wouldn’t say yes, and unfortunately I couldn’t force him to do it,” she said. Students were also alarmed that Mr. Cho was taking inappropriate pictures of women under desks, she said.

In all, 33 people died Monday, including Mr. Cho and at least four faculty members. The victims’ names were not officially released, but most appeared to be in their late teens or early 20s. They included Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, and Reema Samaha, a freshman and a devoted dancer. Ms. Hilscher wanted to be a veterinarian; Mr. Clark was a member of the marching band. “This is a grief that does not know an international boundary,” Governor Kaine said.

By Tuesday afternoon there were still 14 injured victims at four hospitals, out of 28 initially transported from the scene, two of whom died. The 14 included two at a Level 1 trauma center in Roanoke, one in critical condition and the other in serious condition.

One of the luckier ones was Kevin Sterne, a senior who will graduate in a few weeks. He was hit twice in the right thigh, piercing an artery.

Mr. Sterne grabbed an electrical cord and fashioned a tourniquet until help arrived. “I think there’s a good chance he would have died,” said Dr. David B. Stoeckle of Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg.

Classes at Virginia Tech were canceled for the rest of the week, and Dr. Steger announced that Norris Hall would remain closed for the rest of the semester.

Thousands of students and faculty and staff members gathered Tuesday afternoon at Cassell Coliseum, the university’s basketball arena, for a solemn convocation. President Bush and Laura Bush attended the gathering and then spent much of the afternoon consoling members of the university family.

“This is a day of mourning for Virginia Tech, and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation,” Mr. Bush said in his remarks.

The president said that Monday began like any other school day, but then took a dark turn.

“By the end of the morning,” he said, “it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history — and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives.”

But Mr. Bush’s consoling words, and those of various campus religious leaders and the poet Nikki Giovanni, could not silence the questions of at least some of the stricken families.

“I guess we’re a little curious as to why it took so long” to lock down the campus after the first two fatal shootings, said Kim Tate, the mother of a sophomore. Ms. Tate contrasted Monday’s response to the rapid closing of the entire campus last summer after an incident involving an escaped convict in the area.

Asian-American students at Virginia Tech reacted to news about the gunman’s identity with shock and a measure of anxiety about a possible backlash against them.

“My parents are actually worried about retaliation against Asians,” said Lyu Boaz, a third-year accounting student who was born in South Korea and became an American citizen a year ago. “After 9/11, a lot of Arabs were attacked for that reason.”

Mr. Boaz, a resident adviser at Pritchard Hall, said many Korean-American students had left campus immediately. Parents of other Korean-American students were preparing to pick up their children on Tuesday afternoon and take them home.

Dr. Steger, the university president, has been at the center of this week’s trauma, which he described as a horrible nightmare from which he hoped to awake. Friends said that despite his stoic demeanor, the campus deaths had exacted a heavy toll on a man who has spent his entire adulthood at Virginia Tech, as a student, professor, dean and administrator.

“I think he’s grieving beyond belief,” said Alan Merten, the president of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who described himself as a colleague and old friend. “I think he’s suffering beyond belief.”

Christine Hauser contributed reporting for this article.

    Students Annoyed by Him but Didn’t Press Charges, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18cnd-virginia.html?hp

Family of Shooter Struggled in SKorea

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:39 a.m. ET
The New York Times

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The family of the gunman in the Virginia Tech shootings struggled while living in South Korea and emigrated to the U.S. to seek a better life, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The shooter was identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a senior in the university's English department, who the South Korean Foreign Ministry said had been living in the United States since 1992. Cho was the only suspect named in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, which left 33 dead including himself.

South Korea's largest newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that Cho's family was poor when they lived in a Seoul suburb and decided to emigrate to seek a better life.

The family lived in a rented, basement apartment -- usually the cheapest unit in a multi-apartment building, the newspaper reported quoting building owner Lim Bong-ae, 67. Police identified the shooter's father as Cho Seong-tae, 61.

''I didn't know what (Cho's father) did for a living. But they lived a poor life,'' Lim told the newspaper. ''While emigrating, (Cho's father) said they were going to America because it is difficult to live here and that it's better to live in a place where he is unknown.''

The small apartment where the family lived is now vacant and its front door was left unlocked Wednesday. Mildew stains mark the pale blue walls of the three-room residence, which is no larger than 430 square feet.

At the Shinchang Elementary School that Cho attended for first grade and half of second grade, there were no records of the former student besides that he left school Aug. 19, 1992, officials said. Cho's former homeroom teacher was no longer working at the school and other teachers did not remember Cho.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun held a special meeting with aides Wednesday to discuss the shooting, as the public expressed shame over a South Korean citizen being identified as the gunman.

''I and our people cannot contain our feelings of huge shock and grief,'' said Roh during a news conference. ''I pray for the souls of those killed and offer words of comfort from my heart for those injured, the bereaved families and the U.S. people.''

It was the third time that Roh has offered condolences since Tuesday. Roh also sent a similar message Wednesday to President Bush, his office said.

The case topped the front pages of nearly all South Korean newspapers Wednesday, which also voiced worries that the incident may trigger racial hatred in the U.S. and worsen relations between the strong allies.

''We hope that this incident won't create discrimination and prejudice against people of South Korean or Asian origin,'' said the Hankyoreh newspaper in an editorial.

A sense of despair prevailed among South Korean public that sent an outpouring of sympathy online.

''I'm too shameful that I'm a South Korean,'' wrote an Internet user identified only by the ID iknijmik on the country's top Web portal site, Naver -- among hundreds of messages on the issue. ''As a South Korean, I feel apologetic to the Virginia Tech victims.''

A South Korean also launched an online campaign Tuesday to offer condolences to the victims, setting up a Web page where users left more than 8,500 messages by Wednesday.

''I feel distressed to learn that it was a South Korean that threw the world into shock,'' said the site's operator, identified only by the ID Hangukin, which means South Korean. ''I pray for the souls of all those killed and let's say to them that we, as South Koreans, regret'' the tragedy.

Some college students voiced concern the case may taint South Korea's image.

''This is what an individual did wrong and nationality isn't important,'' said Park Joon-beom, a freshman at Seoul's Yonsei University. ''I don't think South Koreans deserve blame.''

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday night, expressing condolences and sympathy for the victims, the ministry said.

Cho Seung-Hui was in the U.S. as a resident alien with a home in Centreville, Va., and lived on campus, the university said. School spokesman Larry Hincker said Cho was a ''loner.''

South Korea has more students studying in the United States than any other country, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The number of South Korean students reached 93,728 as of the end of last year, 14.9 percent of the total, ahead of India at 76,708 and China at 60,850, according to a February report from the agency.

South Korea remains technically at war with neighboring North Korea but citizens are banned from privately owning guns. However, it has not been immune from shooting rampages.

South Korea was the scene of one of the world's deadliest shooting sprees, when police officer Woo Beom-gon went on an eight-hour overnight rampage in 1982 in the southeastern village of Euiryeong, killing 55 people and wounding 35 others.

Associated Press reporter Bo-mi Lim in Seoul contributed to this report.

    Family of Shooter Struggled in SKorea, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Virginia-Tech-SKorea.html

Student Wrote About Death

and Spoke in Whispers,

But No One Imagined

What Cho Seung Hui Would Do


Wednesday, April 18, 2007; A01
Washington Post Staff Writers
By Ian Shapira and Michael E. Ruane

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 17 -- They met across the professor's desk. One on one. The chairman of the English department and the silent, brooding student who never took his sunglasses off.

He had so upset other instructors that Virginia Tech officials asked whether the professor wanted protection. Lucinda Roy declined. She thought Cho Seung Hui exuded loneliness, and she volunteered to teach him by herself, to spare her colleagues. The subject of the class was poetry.

Roy, other officials, investigators, acquaintances and neighbors helped fill in a dark portrait Tuesday of the bespectacled young South Korean citizen who had sought bizarre expression in literature and then massacred 32 fellow students and teachers here Monday in the worst shooting rampage in U.S. history. As police closed in, he shot himself and was found on the floor of a classroom building with his weapons nearby.

Cho, of Centreville, the son of immigrants who run a dry cleaning business and the brother of a State Department contractor who graduated from Princeton, was described by those who encountered him over the years as at times angry, menacing, disturbed and so depressed that he seemed near tears.

He often spoke in a whisper, if at all, refused to open up to teachers and classmates, and kept himself locked behind a facade of a hat, sunglasses and silence.

Authorities still are not sure what set him off and what propelled him Monday as he stalked the halls and classrooms of Norris Hall with two semiautomatic pistols, chaining doors closed and murdering and maiming as he went.

Authorities found two three-page notes in his dorm room after the shootings. They weren't suicide notes and provided no clue about why he did what he did. Instead, they were expletive-filled rants against the rich and privileged, even naming people who he thought had kept him down, federal and state law enforcement sources said. Two government officials said he had been treated for mental health problems.

Police also are uncertain why Cho stopped and shot himself to death in Norris Hall, where most of his victims lay scattered around him.

Any comprehension of what happened seemed to come only in hindsight.

Cho (whose full name is pronounced joh sung-wee) appears first to have alarmed the noted Virginia Tech poet Nikki Giovanni in a creative writing class in fall 2005, Giovanni said.

Cho took pictures of fellow students during class and wrote about death, she said in an interview. "Kids write about murder and suicide all the time. But there was something that made all of us pay attention closely. None of us were comfortable with that," she said.

The students once recited their poems in class. "It was like, 'What are you trying to say here?' It was more sinister," she said.

Days later, seven of Giovanni's 70 or so students showed up for a class. She asked them why the others didn't show up and was told that they were afraid of Cho.

"Once I realized my class was scared, I knew I had to do something," she said.

She approached Cho and told him that he needed to change the type of poems he was writing or drop her class. Giovanni said Cho declined to leave and said, "You can't make me."

Giovanni said she appealed to Roy, who then taught Cho one-on-one. Roy, 51, said in a telephone interview that she also urged Cho to seek counseling and told him that she would walk to the counseling center with him. He said he would think about it.

Roy said she warned school officials. "I was determined that people were going to take notice," Roy said. "I felt I'd said to so many people, 'Please, will you look at this young man?' "

Roy, now the alumni distinguished professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program, said university officials were responsive and sympathetic to her warnings but indicated that because Cho had made no direct threats, there was little they could do.

"I don't want to be accusatory or blaming other people," Roy said. "I do just want to say, though, it's such a shame if people don't listen very carefully and if the law constricts them so that they can't do what is best for the student."

Cho wrote poems, a novel and two plays, acquaintances and officials said, in addition to the rambling multipage "manifesto" directed against the rich, the spoiled and the world in general, which police found in his dorm room.

Paul Kim, a senior English major, said Cho was so withdrawn on campus that he did not know "we had a Korean person who was in the English department and was male until I met him in class."

"He never spoke a word," Kim said. "Even when the professor asked questions, he never spoke. He constantly looked physically and emotionally down, like he was depressed. I had a strong feeling to talk to him on the first day of class, but I didn't get to talk to him because he sat right beside the door, and as soon as class was over, he left."

For Kim, one detail stood out. The classroom was rectangular. The class was split in half, with one half facing the other. "I always sat directly across, looking directly at him," Kim said. "He never looked up."

Kim said he might have seen signs of Cho's deterioration: He disappeared from class.

"For the past month, he stopped coming," Kim said.

Charlotte Peterson, a former Virginia Tech student, said she shared a British literature class with Cho in 2005. On the first day, when the instructor asked students to write their names on a sheet of paper and hand it up, Cho wrote a question mark.

"Even the teacher laughed at him," Peterson said. "Nobody understood him."

Brooke Kistner, 22, a senior English major from Chester, Va., said she had three classes with Cho.

"He would keep his headphones on a lot," she said. "I remember one instance where the teacher had addressed a question to him and he really just stared off into space. He didn't even recall acknowledging that she was talking to him. We were like, 'What are you doing?' The teacher said, 'Will you please see me after class?' and he still didn't even acknowledge her. It was an awkward silence, and then she went back to lecturing."

In his Centreville community, residents recalled him as a strange young man.

"He just seemed odd," said Greg Kearns, a neighbor who tried unsuccessfully now and then to strike up conversations with Cho.

Kearns recalled seeing Cho in front of his parents' townhouse a few years ago. Kearns was walking his dog. When he said hello, Cho turned his head and shoulders away. "It was like he was carrying on a conversation with himself," Kearns said.

Abdul Shash, who lives next door to the Chos, said Cho never seemed to have any friends over the years.

"If you walk and you come close to him, he'd walk away," Shash said. "I have kids, and he never talked to them."

Shash described Cho's parents as quiet, modest and hardworking people who seemed devoted to helping their son. During his years at Virginia Tech, his parents regularly shuttled him to and from Blacksburg, more than four hours each way.

"Nobody knows him really," Shash said. "He's always quiet. When I talk to him, there's no response."

Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly in 2003. He turned 23 on Jan. 18 and had lived as a legal permanent resident since entering the United States through Detroit on Sept. 2, 1992, when he was 8 years old, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Cho held a green card through his parents, and he renewed it Oct. 27, 2003, according to Homeland Security. He listed his residence as Centreville.

Cho's sister, Sun Cho, graduated from Princeton University with a degree in economics in 2004 after she completed summer internships with the State Department in Washington and Bangkok.

A State Department spokesman said Sun Cho works as a contractor specializing in personnel matters.

Investigators said Cho procured one of the guns he used in the rampage, a Walther .22-caliber pistol, Feb. 9 from a pawnshop on Main Street in Blacksburg near the Virginia Tech campus.

On March 16, he bought the second gun, a 9mm Glock 19, from Roanoke Firearms, a gun shop on Cove Road in Roanoke.

He used his driver's license as identification and had no problem buying the guns because he was complying with Virginia law, which permits the purchase of one gun a month, investigators said.

The Glock was used in two shootings, first in a dormitory and then in Norris Hall more than 2 1/2 hours later, officials said. A surveillance tape, which has now been watched by federal agents, shows Cho buying the Glock, sources said. Both guns are semiautomatic, which means that one round is fired for every finger pull.

Cho reloaded several times, using 15-round magazines for the Glock and 10-round magazines for the Walther, investigators said, adding that he had the cryptic words "Ismale Ax" tattooed on one arm. Although there are many theories, sources said, no one knows what it means.

As the university mourned Tuesday and the identities of the dead were made public, more details of Monday's tragedy emerged.

One of Cho's suitemates in Harper Hall said the killer began the day looking like he had every other day since moving in. Karan Grewal said Cho's face was blank and expressionless. "He didn't have a look of disgust or anger," Grewal said. "He never did. There was always just one look on his face."

In August, when Grewal, Cho and four others moved in, Cho's suitemates tried to talk to him but never got a word in return.

"My impression was that he's shy," said Grewal, 21, a senior accounting major who lived in a room across the hall. "He never looked anyone in the eye. If you even say hi, he'd keep walking straight past you."

The six students lived two to a room in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom suite. The others never saw Cho with any women or friends. He would turn his head away to avoid conversation. His room had the typical college dorm look, strewn with cereal boxes and clothes, Grewal said.

Recently, Cho had started going to the gym. Other than that, his suitemate had been behaving exactly as he always had.

"He had that blank expression," Grewal said, "nothing else."

Ruane reported from Washington.

    Student Wrote About Death and Spoke in Whispers, But No One Imagined What Cho Seung Hui Would Do, WP, 18.4.2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041800162.html?hpid=topnews

John Trever

New Mexico, The Albuquerque Journal        Cagle        18.4.2007

2008 Candidates

on Spot Over Gun - Control

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:00 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gun control has been treated with a mix of silence and discomfort in the presidential campaign, a stance that may become insupportable once the nation finds its voice in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech mass murder.

Democrats have been deliberately muted for months on an issue that, by their own reckoning, contributed to and perhaps sealed their defeat in the 2000 presidential election. That's when Al Gore's call for gun registration cost him votes in rural America and dulled the party's appetite for taking on the gun lobby.

Top Republicans in the race are trying to close ranks with their party's conservative base on a variety of issues, making gun control an unusually sensitive one for them, too, thanks to their liberal views in the past.

Enter the massacre at Blacksburg, Va., an attack so horrific it froze the presidential campaign in place. Candidates called off events and expressed only sorrow, not opinion, in the first hours.

Advocates of any stripe raised their gun agenda at their peril.

''I think that people who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride ... I've got nothing but loathing for them,'' Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said. ''To those who want to try to make this into some little crusade, I say take that elsewhere.''

But the bloodiest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, with 33 dead, is certain to set off a debate that those who would be president can hardly sit out in the days and weeks ahead.

Rudy Giuliani waded gently into it Wednesday, a day after GOP rival John McCain said that the attack did not throw him off his support for constitutional gun rights.

''Obviously, this tragedy does not alter the Second Amendment,'' Giuliani said in a statement. ''People have the right to keep and bear arms and the Constitution says this right will not be infringed.''

His emphasis on state-by-state solutions to gun control in the GOP primaries contrasts with his past enthusiasm for a federal mandate to register handgun owners -- an even stiffer requirement than registering guns.

Giuliani, as New York mayor and former Senate candidate, and Mitt Romney, as Massachusetts governor, supported the federal ban on assault-type weapons, background checks on gun purchases and other restrictions reviled by many gun-rights advocates.

The other New Yorker in this race, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also supported proposals for state-issued photo gun licenses, as well as a national registry for handgun sales, in positions laid out for crime-weary New Yorkers in 2000.

In this campaign, candidates in both parties who've ever taken a shot at a prey are playing up their hunting credentials. Others are highlighting their allegiance to the constitutional right to bear arms or avoiding the question altogether.

Now such questions are unavoidably in their face.

''Not talking about an issue may be successful in the short term but it's never a successful long-term strategy,'' said James Kessler, policy and gun-control specialist at Third Way, a Democratic centrist group. ''I don't think that a candidate will be punished for supporting gun safety measures this time around.''

But, he said he thought that after Columbine, lawmakers could pass legislation requiring background checks on weapons bought at gun shows ''and we didn't.''

Mass shootings have often been the catalyst for legislative action on gun control, with mixed results.

And with Democrats controlling Congress partly on the strength of new members from rural parts of the country, few lawmakers were expecting the Virginia Tech assault to revive the most far-reaching gun-control proposals of the past, such as national licensing or registration.

In 1999, after the Columbine High School killings in Colorado left 15 dead,lawmakers unsuccessfully introduced dozens of bills to require mandatory child safety locks on new handguns, ban ''Saturday night specials,'' increase the minimum age for gun purchases and require background checks on weapons bought at gun shows.

A month after the Columbine shootings, then-Vice President Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to advance a juvenile crime bill that included gun show restrictions. But the bill died in negotiations with the House.

McCain has a long record of voting for gun rights in the Senate but changed some of his views, sponsoring legislation to support the gun show restrictions he once opposed.

And Democratic candidate John Edwards, despite recently highlighting his boyhood outings hunting birds, rabbits and deer as well as his respect for gun ownership rights, backed his party's main gun control measures when he was in the Senate.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, as a state lawmaker in the 1990s, supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tougher state restrictions on firearms.

Gun control seemed far from the minds of voters before the murders Monday. In an AP-Ipsos poll taken last week in which respondents were asked to name the most important problem facing the country, few if any spontaneously mentioned guns or gun control. That's likely to change in response to the Blacksburg rampage.

The Virginia Tech senior and Korean native identified as the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was a legal permanent resident of the U.S., meaning he could legally buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony. The campus killings were carried out with 9 mm and .22-caliber handguns.

''I think when a guy walks in and shoots 32 people it's going to cause there to be a lot of policy debate,'' President Bush said. ''Now is not the time to do the debate until we're actually certain about what happened and after we help people get over their grieving.''

Associated Press writers Liz Sidoti and Ann Sanner contributed to this story.

    2008 Candidates on Spot Over Gun - Control, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Gun-Control-2008.html

Guy Badeaux (Bado)

Ottawa - Journal LeDroit        Cagle        18.4.2007

Va. Tech Students

Hold Vigil for Victims

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:59 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Virginia Tech students and supporters lifted thousands of candles to a sapphire sky to remember the 32 people killed by a campus gunman.

The vigil Tuesday evening testified to the unity on which the mountain campus prides itself. But in the hours after Cho Seung-Hui's rampage, it was obvious the close-knit school was a community of which he never felt a part.

The gunman, who turned his gun on himself after carrying out the worst shooting massacre in modern U.S. history, was a sullen loner who left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News reports said that Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic.

Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings -- pages filled with twisted, violence-drenched writing.

In screenplays he wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall. In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

''When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare,'' former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site.

''The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of.''

He said he and other students ''were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter.''

Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho 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.

''We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did,'' said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. ''But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling.''

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university's counseling service.

''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,'' Rude said. ''But we're all alert to not ignore things like this.''

With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many students left town in a hurry, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks.

On Tuesday night, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty and area residents poured into the center of campus to grieve together. Volunteers passed out thousands of candles in paper cups, donated from around the country. Then, as the flames flickered, speakers urged them to find solace in one another.

''We will move on from this. But it will take the strength of each other to do that,'' said Zenobia Hikes, vice president for student affairs. ''We want the world to know we are Virginia Tech, we will recover, we will survive with your prayers.''

As silence spread across the grassy bowl of the drill field, a pair of trumpets began to play taps. A few in the crowd began to sing Amazing Grace.

Afterward, students, some weeping, others holding each other for support, gathered around makeshift memorials, filling banners and plywood boards with messages belying their pain.

''Our hearts will be heavy, our tears will fall and our questions never really answered,'' one wrote.

''I think this is something that will take a while. It still hasn't hit a lot of people yet,'' said Amber McGee, a freshman from Wytheville, Va.

As this campus takes stock of the tragedy, it will be forced to confront the thinking that drove Cho's rage.

Cho -- who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaners -- left a note that was found after the bloodbath.

A law enforcement official who read Cho's note described it Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rant against rich kids and religion. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

''You caused me to do this,'' the official quoted the note as saying.

Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own religion, and made several references to Christianity, the official said.

The official said the letter was either found in Cho's dorm room or in his backpack. The backpack was found in the hallway of the classroom building where the shootings happened, and contained several rounds of ammunition, the official said.

Monday's 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. Two handguns -- a 9 mm and a .22-caliber -- were found in the classroom building.

According to court papers, police found a ''bomb threat'' note -- directed at engineering school buildings -- near the victims in the classroom building. In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit with two other bomb threats. Investigators have not connected those earlier threats to Cho.

Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.

At least one of those killed in the rampage, Reema Samaha, graduated from Westfield High in 2006. But there was no immediate word from authorities on whether Cho knew the young woman and singled her out.

''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.

Some classmates said that on the first day of a British literature class last year, the 30 or so students went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.

On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. ''Is your name, `Question mark?''' classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. ''He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked,'' Poole said.

''We just really knew him as the question mark kid,'' Poole said.

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. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.

Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the Glock and a box of practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571.

''He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any idea at all that a purchase is suspicious,'' Markell said.

Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But State Police ballistics tests showed one gun was used in both.

And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were on both guns. Their serial numbers had been filed off.

Gov. Tim Kaine said he will appoint a panel at the university's request to review authorities' handling of the disaster. Parents and students bitterly complained that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire and did not do enough to warn people.

Kaine warned against making snap judgments and said he had ''nothing but loathing'' for those who take the tragedy and ''make it their political hobby horse to ride.''

At a Tuesday afternoon memorial service attended by President Bush and the first lady, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger received a 30-second standing ovation, despite the criticism of the school administration.

''As you draw closer to your families in the coming days, I ask you to reach out to those who ache for sons and daughters who are never coming home,'' Bush said.

------

Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Centreville, Va.; Matt Barakat in Richmond, Va.; Lara Jakes Jordan and Beverley Lumpkin in Washington; and Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey, Matt Apuzzo and Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.

    Va. Tech Students Hold Vigil for Victims, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

World Reacts

to Virginia Tech Shootings

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:57 a.m. ET
The New York Times

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- An Indonesian mother bemoaned the availability of guns in the United States after learning her son was among those killed in a school massacre, while South Koreans expressed shame and shock that one of their own was the gunman.

Sympathetic messages for the 32 who died Monday along with the gunman at Virginia Tech University -- the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history -- continued to ring out from London to Beijing. But few were surprised, pointing to liberal American gun control laws.

''We took action to limit the availability of guns and 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 Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who staked his political career on promoting tough gun laws after a gunman went on shooting spree 11 years ago.

The tragedy in a Tasmanian tourist resort left 35 people dead. Afterward, Australia's gun laws were changed to prohibit automatic weapons and handguns and toughen licensing and storage restrictions.

Sugiyarti, an Indonesian woman who learned late Tuesday that her 34-year-old stepson was among those killed, broke down in tears as she begged for answers.

''Why can people bring guns to campus?'' she said, recalling third-year doctoral student Partahi Lumbantoruan, who showed so much promise for the future. The family had sold property and a car to finance his civil engineering studies.

''How is it possible that so many innocent people could be killed? How could it happen?'' asked Sugiyarti, who goes by only one name.

Other foreign victims included Peruvian student Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, according to his mother Betty Cueva, who said her son was studying international relations.

Professors from Israel and Canada also were killed.

India -- which lost a lecturer -- added a second victim to its toll: Minal Panchal, a 26-year-old master's student in building sciences, CNN-IBN news said Wednesday. She had been listed as missing before her body was found at Norris Hall.

The shootings were carried out by South Korean Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English student who killed himself after police closed in, and the case topped the front pages of nearly all newspapers there on Wednesday.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun offered condolences to victims for a third time and, among the South Korean public, a sense of despair prevailed.

''I and our people cannot contain our feelings of huge shock and grief,'' said President Roh Moo-hyun. ''I pray for the souls of those killed and offer words of comfort from my heart for those injured, the bereaved families and the U.S. people.''

Hundreds left messages on the country's top Web portal site, Naver.

''I'm too shameful that I'm a South Korean,'' wrote an Internet user identified only by the ID iknijmik. ''As a South Korean, I feel apologetic to the Virginia Tech victims.''

Virginia Tech classmates and professors painted Cho as a sullen loner, and said they were alarmed by his class writings -- pages filled with twisted, violence-drenched writing.

In screenplays he wrote last fall, characters threw hammers and attacked with chainsaws, said a recent graduate. In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasized about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

''When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare,'' former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog. ''The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of.''

Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul, Korea, Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, India, Rohan Sullivan, in Sydney, Australia, Adam Geller in Blacksburg, Va., and Paisely Dodds in London contributed to this report.

    World Reacts to Virginia Tech Shootings, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Virginia-Tech-World-View.html

Dick Locher        Chicago -- The Chicago Tribune        Cagle        18.4.2007

Students turn to God

in wake of Virginia shooting

Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:32AM EDT
Reuters
By Andrea Hopkins

BLACKSBURG, Va (Reuters) - By all accounts, the prayers started even before the gunshots stopped at Virginia Tech university, and the pleas to God from grief-stricken survivors of the massacre have continued ever since.

"God cares about Virginia Tech," said Megan Martin, 24, joining about a dozen fellow students in a traveling prayer vigil that rambled across the sprawling campus a day after the worst U.S. shooting spree in modern history.

Carrying placards reading: "Jesus loves you," "God knows and He cares," and "Can we pray with you?" the small knot of students worked their way through the university grounds in Blacksburg, a Bible Belt town in the mountains of southwest Virginia.

At a memorial service on Tuesday, speakers including U.S. President George W. Bush urged students to persevere in hope or comfort one another in prayer as they struggled to cope.

"As the scripture tells us, don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good," Bush told the emotional students a day after Cho Seung-Hui, 23, an English literature student, gunned down 32 students and professors before killing himself.

Makeshift memorials have sprung up across the campus as students scrawled messages on banners in remembrance of the dead.

"God bless you Jarrett, your family, friends, and all of the victims and those around you. Enjoy the Lord's kingdom," read one note, referring to Jarrett Lane, an engineering student killed in the massacre.

"Be strong and courageous, Do not be terrified; for the Lord God is with you wherever you go," read another, quoting the Bible.

"God is on our side," said a third, signed only "Shawn B."

CHURCHES OPEN

Churches all over Blacksburg, a pretty mountain town, opened their doors the day of the shooting and have been welcoming mourners ever since.

At St. Francis Anglican Church a block from campus, a sign welcomed all for prayers throughout the day, adding: "priest available." Inside, Vicar Chip Sills greeted a slow trickle of visitors with a handshake.

"I'm really just poised and ready for anything. Many people have a delayed reaction," said Sills.

At a massive candlelight vigil on Tuesday, female students knelt before Pastor Josh Akin as he sang "Amazing Grace."

"This is the Bible Belt, a lot of these young people already know the love of God," Akin said.

After the vigil, 22-year-old Adam Henry said he always prayed, but that this week his prayers had been "a little longer" than usual.

"You've got to keep your focus on faith," he said.

John Stremlau, associate director of peace programs at The Carter Center in Atlanta, said Americans will look to religion to help them cope with the massacre, as they have in dealing with past shocks like the September 11 attacks.

"The terrible scale of this forces people to go back to their souls," said Stremlau in a telephone interview. Because the gunman was not motivated by religion, Stremlau said the nation might find it easier to unite.

"There is no sectarian aspect ... so we can seek solace in a common faith that there is still meaning out there."

While most students at Virginia Tech are Christian, the Jewish community also mourned the loss of friends and a beloved professor, Israeli Holocaust survivor Liviu Libresco.

"They are not so much looking for answers or philosophical insight, they're looking for a shoulder to cry on," Rabbi Yossel Kranz said of the students he's comforted. "That's really what we need to do right now. We need to mourn."

    Students turn to God in wake of Virginia shooting, R, 18.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/gc07/idUSN1719281920070418?src=041807_0717_TOPSTORY_search_for_a_motive

Kevin Siers

North Carolina, The Charlotte Observer        Cagle        18 April 2007

Horror at Virginia Tech,

Then the Hard Questions (11 Letters)

April 18, 2007
The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “32 Shot Dead in Virginia” (front page, April 17):

Virginia Polytechnic Institute’s students and faculty will forever be changed after the massacre on April 16, 2007. College students around the country are shocked and horrified.

In 2002, a man shot four people, including two professors, at my school, the University of Arizona. Although the attack in Virginia was more a massacre than a shooting, students experience a similar gut-wrenching feeling as they realize that their college campus is a vulnerable environment.

Campuses are not as safe as in the past. We constantly hear about sexual assaults, rapes and even shootings on our campuses.

I, for one, am worried about the possible increases in danger that threaten future college students if schools do not maintain a safer environment.

Carolyn Regan
Tucson, April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

How many mass shootings, how much loss, how much grief will it take before our legislators are finally willing to stand up to the National Rifle Association and pass meaningful gun control legislation?

The University of Texas shooting more than 40 years ago, Columbine High School in 1999 and now Virginia Tech.

Isn’t that enough tragedy to impel action?

The majority of Americans support gun control. What do we have to do to make it happen?

Eileen B. Entin
Lexington, Mass., April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

In “Eight Years After Columbine” (editorial, April 17), you call for more gun control. With 40 states permitting law-abiding citizens to carry handguns for protection, the evidence teaches that prohibiting carrying such weapons leads to tragedy.

Virginia Tech is one of the “gun free” zones in Virginia where gun possession is prohibited — a place criminals know that they need not fear an armed response. The prohibition did not stop the gunman, but it did prevent anyone on that campus from stopping his murder spree.

Daniel Schmutter
West Orange, N.J., April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

When will our legislators be able to summon the political will to control the availability of guns and address violence in the media? How many more people will have to die before our leaders will have the sense and the guts to take on the National Rifle Association and honor the wishes of a majority of Americans who want gun control?

(Rev.) Stephen L. White
Princeton, N.J., April 17, 2007
The writer is the Episcopal chaplain at Princeton University.

•

To the Editor:

When will America join the civilized world and realize the absolute stupidity of its gun laws?

Your leaders are not brave enough to stand up to the gun lobby; therefore, shootings like Monday’s will continue to occur.

Years ago, we in Australia banned unregistered users and guns after a similar occurrence, despite the gun lobby; it has made for less gun crime and a safer existence for our citizens.

I feel very sorry for the parents of the kids who lost their lives in this incident; they will suffer forever.

Wayne Ellis
Sydney, Australia, April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Interesting. Your first reaction to the Virginia Tech shooting (editorial, April 17) is to increase gun control. My first reaction was, “I wish there were more kids in that school who had a concealed carry license and a firearm to protect themselves.”

Here in Vermont, we have the fewest gun restrictions of any state in the Union and the third lowest rate for violent crime.

So is your way really better? Is there really convincing data to show that restricting firearms reduces violence? Or is it just the opposite?

Making firearms accessible to lawful citizens actually decreases violence. If you were living and working in Iraq or Israel right now, and you were concerned about your safety and that of your family, would you want your firearm taken away from you? I don’t think so.

Josh C. Manheimer
President
Handgun Club of America
Norwich, Vt., April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Why is it that my phone company can call me with a text message to let me know that my bill is due, but universities that charge thousands of dollars a year in tuition can only send an e-mail message warning students to stay at home?

Emergency notifications should be sent to student cellphones in the form of a call or a text message that rings. Every college professor and parent knows that students rarely check e-mail and are glued to their phones every waking minute.

If such a system had been in place at Virginia Tech, dozens of lives may have been saved. Jon Reinhardt

State College, Pa., April 17, 2007

The writer is an instructor at Pennsylvania State University.

•

To the Editor:

Surely every campus should have a loud alert siren that could be set off in the case of a shooting or any other peril.

The sending of e-mail messages by the school administration seems ridiculous to me. A loud, general alarm is not so expensive; it should be mandatory in schools and universities.

Christina Allison
Santa Barbara, Calif., April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

A suggestion for a way to warn people on large campuses:

The University of Illinois or Indiana University (which three of our children attended) located emergency boxes throughout the campus. As I recall, they were located on poles and had a blue light to be pushed if you had an emergency and needed help.

I would think that there must be a way to incorporate a loudspeaker around campus in the same fashion. It could be used for emergencies to warn everyone immediately of imminent danger. Sherry Brown

San Diego, April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

It was shocking to hear Virginia Tech officials say they did not shut down the campus in response to the first shooting because they believed that it was just a domestic quarrel. It sounds as if they are accustomed to domestic quarrels on the campus’s being settled by shootings and they are therefore not worthy of anyone’s attention. What kind of an excuse was that?

Evelyn Wolfson
Wayland, Mass., April 17, 2007

•

To the Editor:

I urge the American people to work through the tragedy at Virginia Tech to begin an honest and open discourse about mental health in our country, especially on our college campuses.

During my senior year of school, a young woman committed suicide on campus. These shootings and suicides illuminate the fact that we do not adequately address mental health in the United States. We do not battle the stigmas against getting counseling or asking for help.

We are failing our young people by not getting to the root of why things like this happen. How do these young people get to that point where murder and suicide are the only options they feel they have left?

Let’s not just scratch the surface by calling for stricter gun control. I pray that our nation will dig deep as a community, confront taboo issues and try to prevent future tragedies.

Bailey Childers
Washington, April 17, 2007
The writer is national training manager for Progressive Majority.

    Horror at Virginia Tech, Then the Hard Questions (11 Letters), NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/opinion/l18virginia.html

Names of Victims at Virginia Tech

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:17 a.m. ET
The New York Timers

A list of some of the victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech:

Killed:

-- Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., according to his mother, Lynnette Alameddine.

-- Christopher James Bishop, 35, according to Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany, where he helped run an exchange program.

-- Ryan Clark, 22, of Martinez, Ga., biology and English major, according to Columbia County Coroner Vernon Collins.

-- Austin Cloyd, an international studies major from Blacksburg, Va., according to Terry Harter, senior pastor at First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., where Cloyd and her family lived before moving to Blacksburg.

-- Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor, according to her husband, Jerzy Nowak, the head of the horticulture department at Virginia Tech.

-- Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, killed in his French class, according to his mother, Betty Cueva, of Peru.

-- Kevin Granata, age unknown, engineering science and mechanics professor, according to Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

-- Caitlin Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to Minisink Valley, N.Y., school officials who spoke with Hammaren's family.

-- Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, of Bellefonte, Pa., according to Penn State University, his alma mater and his father's employer.

-- Rachael Hill, 18, of Glen Allen, Va., according to her father, Guy Hill.

-- Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman from Woodville, according to Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.

-- Jarrett L. Lane, according to Riffe's Funeral Service Inc. in Narrows, Va.

-- Matthew J. La Porte, 20, a freshman from Dumont, N.J., according to Dumont Police Chief Brian Venezio.

-- Liviu Librescu, 76, engineering science and mathematics lecturer, according to Puri.

-- G.V. Loganathan, 51, civil and environmental engineering professor, according to his brother G.V. Palanivel.

-- Partahi Lumbantoruan, 34, of Indonesia, civil engineering doctoral student, according to Kristiarto Legowo, a spokesman for the foreign ministry.

-- Lauren McCain, 20, of Hampton, Va., international studies major, according to a statement from the family.

-- Daniel O'Neil, 22, of Rhode Island, according to close friend Steve Craveiro and according to Eric Cardenas of Connecticut College, where O'Neil's father, Bill, is director of major gifts.

-- Juan Ramon Ortiz, a 26-year-old graduate student in engineering from Bayamon, Puerto Rico, according to his wife, Liselle Vega Cortes.

-- Mary Karen Read, 19, of Annandale, Va. according to her aunt, Karen Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.

-- Reema J. Samaha, 18, a freshman from Centreville, Va., according to her family.

(This version corrects the home country and spelling for Partahi Lumbantoruan.)

    Names of Victims at Virginia Tech, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Names.html

Steve Kelley        The New Orleans Times-Picayune        Cagle        18 April 2007

Threats Rattle Schools in 10 States

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:14 a.m. ET
The New York Times

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities, high schools and middle schools in at least 10 states on Tuesday, a day after a Virginia Tech student's shooting rampage killed 33 people.

Threats in Louisiana, Montana and Washington state directly mentioned the massacre in Virginia, while others were reports of suspicious activity in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan.

In Louisiana, parents picked up hundreds of students from Bogalusa's high school and middle school amid reports that a man had been arrested Tuesday morning for threatening a mass killing in a note that alluded to the murders at Virginia Tech.

Schools Superintendent Jerry Payne said both schools were locked down and police arrested a 53-year-old man who allegedly made the threat in a note he gave to a student headed to the private Bowling Green School in Franklinton. Both towns are in southeastern Louisiana.

''The note referred to what happened at Virginia Tech,'' Payne said. ''It said something like, 'If you think that was bad, then you haven't seen anything yet.''

A Great Falls, Mont., high school was locked down for a time Tuesday after a threatening note was found in a girls' bathroom.

A student found the threatening note at about 12:15 p.m. on a toilet paper dispenser. It stated, ''the shooting would start at Great Falls High at 12:30 and it would be worse than Virginia Tech,'' Assistant Superintendent Dick Kuntz said. He said it was a hoax.

Washington State University's branch campus in Vancouver was evacuated because of graffiti discovered in a campus restroom threatened harm likened to the Virginia slayings around 8 p.m., around the time a conference on the Patriot Act and the war on terror was scheduled, authorities said. The event was to be rescheduled.

In Rapid City, S.D., schools were locked down after receiving reports of a man with a gun in a parking lot at Central High. No shots were fired and no injuries were reported, police said. The high school students were taken to the nearby Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, where parents were allowed to pick up their children.

In Austin, authorities evacuated buildings at St. Edward's University after a threatening note was found, a school official said.

Police secured the campus perimeter and were searching the buildings, St. Edward's University spokeswoman Mischelle Amador said. She declined to say where the note was found and said its contents were ''nonspecific.''

Amador said the university's reaction was not influenced by Monday's attack at Virginia Tech.

''No matter what day or when this would have happened, we will always take the necessary precautions to protect our students, our faculty, our staff, the entire university community,'' she said.

Seven North Dakota State University buildings in Fargo were evacuated after a duffel bag was found outside a bus shelter in the main part of the campus. NDSU spokesman Dave Wahlberg said the shootings in Virginia reinforced the need to ''err on the side of safety.''

In Bloomfield Hills, Mich., police attributed a 30-minute lock-down at the exclusive Cranbrook Schools complex in response to jittery nerves following the Virginia slayings.

School officials called police after parents and students reported spotting a 6-foot-tall man in a skirt, high heels, lipstick and a blond wig near a school drop-off area outside Cranbrook's Kingswood Upper School, Lt. Paul Myszenski said. Police were unable to find anyone meeting the man's description.

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, officials ordered three campus administration buildings evacuated for almost two hours Tuesday morning in response to a telephone bomb threat. The city's bomb squad searched the buildings but found nothing, campus spokesman Chuck Cantrell said.

Cantrell said there was no reason to believe the bogus threat was related to the shootings at Virginia Tech, but ''we just chose to err on the side of caution today.''

In Arizona, classes were canceled at Estrella Mountain Community College in Avondale, a suburb of Phoenix, after a note threatening a shooting was delivered via intercampus mail.

Avondale police conferred with campus officers and staff and decided the threat was ''serious and immediate'' and ordered the evacuation, said Amy Boulton, a police spokeswoman. Officers searched the campus looking for evidence or any threat but nothing was found, Boulton said.

A scare at the University of Oklahoma at Norman started with a report of a man spotted on campus carrying a suspicious object, officials said.

The man was carrying an umbrella, not a weapon, and he later identified himself to authorities, University of Oklahoma President David Boren said in a statement. Boren initially had said the person was believed to carrying a yoga mat.

''We now consider the matter closed,'' Boren said. ''We always want to err on the side of caution in a situation like this.''

    Threats Rattle Schools in 10 States, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-University-Bomb-Threat.html

Unsettled Day on Campuses Around U.S.

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By TAMAR LEWIN

Universities in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas canceled classes yesterday, searched campuses or evacuated buildings in response to threats, and a Louisiana public school district locked down its middle school and high school.

After the shootings at Virginia Tech on Monday, nerves were on edge at universities nationwide, as security officials worried about copycat incidents, even as they acknowledged it was almost impossible to prevent shootings by a deranged student. Universities also reviewed their emergency preparedness plans, considering new technologies to reach students and faculty members in case of danger.

“We have a full-fledged police force with 74 sworn officers; we have a SWAT team; we have bomb dogs,” said Chief Jimmy Williamson, of the University of Georgia Police. “But there’s no way to prevent shootings by a crazed person with a gun. With a tornado in the middle of the night, at least you have a Doppler system.”

The high school and middle school in Bogalusa, La., were locked down after rumors spread about a note threatening mass killing and alluding to the Virginia Tech shootings. The note was given to a private-school student, who gave it to his bus driver, who gave it to the principal, who passed it on to the police. So many parents arrived to pull their children out that school officials ordered the lockdown.

“We have arrested the person who wrote the note,” said Chief Jerry Agnew of the Bogalusa Police Department. “The school went into lockdown mode because of a roller-coaster dynamic, with rumors circulating by e-mail and cellphones and parents coming to school to get their kids. It all generated itself.”

Most of the worries yesterday were baseless. At the University of Oklahoma, the police responded to reports of a suspicious person with a weapon. Officials first issued a statement saying the person was “possibly carrying a yoga mat, which was mistaken for a weapon,” but ultimately concluded that the person was carrying an umbrella.

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, officials evacuated three buildings for two hours yesterday morning after receiving a telephoned bomb threat. “I have to admit we were erring on the side of caution in light of the tragedy in Virginia,” said Chuck Cantrell, a university spokesman.

In Austin, Tex., where 40 years ago a gunman shooting from a tower on the University of Texas campus killed 14 people, St. Edward’s University, a private Roman Catholic university, evacuated buildings and canceled classes in response to a threatening note.

“It was a nonspecific bomb threat, which is why all the buildings had to be evacuated,” said Mischelle Amador, director of communications at St. Edward’s.

Although the Virginia Tech shootings brought emergency preparedness into the spotlight yesterday, at many universities these concerns — prompted by school shootings, the Sept. 11 attacks, hurricanes and talk of a possible flu pandemic — had already led to more rigorous planning. “Since right after Columbine, all our people are trained in active shooter response,” said Jeff McCracken, interim director of public safety at the University of North Carolina.

At the University of Florida, emergency communications planning has been substantially upgraded in the last two years, with a new blast e-mail system, electronic signs on campus and a text-messaging service for those who sign up.

    Unsettled Day on Campuses Around U.S., NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18campus.html

For School,

Several Ties to Shootings

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA and SUEVON LEE

CHANTILLY, Va., April 17 — “Heaven gained an amazing angel” was written in black marker on a boulder next to Westfield High School that became a makeshift shrine of plastic flowers and candles for Reema Samaha, one of the victims of Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech. “We love you,” read a note written on a boulder for another of the high school’s victims, Erin Peterson.

As students filed past the boulders here on their way out Tuesday, they looked dazed as they grappled with the loss of two of their former classmates while also coming to terms with the school’s connection to a third graduate of Westfield, Cho Seung-Hui, the killer in the worst campus shooting rampage in United States history.

The attack occurred less than a year after another Westfield graduate, Michael W. Kennedy, 18, shot and killed two officers at a police station about five miles away.

“It’s as though we’re getting a reputation for being that school where all this violence happens,” said Natalia MaLaret, 17, a junior.

Opened in 2000, Westfield High had a graduating class of about 800 students last year, about 45 of whom attended Virginia Tech. With about 3,200 students, Westfield is one of the largest schools in Fairfax County, which is one of the fastest-growing counties in Virginia.

Mr. Cho was a 2003 graduate of Westfield, while Ms. Peterson and Ms. Samaha both graduated last year, school officials said. Mr. Kennedy, who was killed by the police in the shootings last May, graduated from Westfield in 2005, police officials said.

“Mostly, people are confused,” said Steve Webb, who dropped out of Westfield last year to become a professional juggler, as he left campus after visiting friends. “It seems like a lot of bad things to happen to one place.”

As students filed out of the school, heads bowed, the police kept the news media at bay. Some students wore ribbons in the high school’s colors, black and gold, in honor of the victims.

Mary Shaw, a spokeswoman for Fairfax County schools, said counseling services were being provided throughout the week.

    For School, Several Ties to Shootings, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18school.html

Taking a Break Between Shootings Is Unusual,

but Not Unheard of, Experts Say

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By BENEDICT CAREY

The long delay between the first and the second set of killings at Virginia Tech on Monday — presuming there was only one gunman — puts the attacker in a small minority of mass killers.

In a database of murder and mayhem that goes back more than 100 years, Dr. Michael Stone, an expert on personality disorders and killers, said he found only a few apparent delays among more than 40 rampage killings, at offices and schools.

Several experts said yesterday that the nearly three-hour delay between shootings may have been a matter of nerves, or practical necessity. The gunman may have gone into hiding or abandoned one plan for another, for maximum effect.

The police have identified the gunman in the second shootings as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student who systematically moved through an engineering department building, apparently shooting students and professors at random.

It was reported yesterday that guns found with Mr. Cho, one of which was used in the first killings, had their serial numbers scratched out, suggesting that the killer may have had two plans, not just one, said Roger Depue, former chief of the behavioral science unit at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and founder of Academy Group Inc., of Manassas, Va., which advises corporations and schools on security.

If it was the same person, Mr. Depue said: “One possibility is that he had a primary target and a secondary one. If the first shooting had gone as planned, maybe he doesn’t do the second one. If it doesn’t go well, he thinks, ‘Well, if they’re going to take me, then I’m going to plan B.”

Mr. Depue added, “There’s a suicidal idea as well as a homicidal one.”

A rush of commentary on the Internet and elsewhere portrays Mr. Cho as consumed by dark thoughts; in an obscenity-laced play posted on AOL.com and attributed to Mr. Cho, an angry 13-year-old accuses his stepfather of murdering his real father. But little about Mr. Cho has been confirmed.

The details that have emerged from Monday’s rampage portray the gunman as a generic malcontent. He reportedly left a note with a list of grievances against “charlatans” and “rich kids” on campus. He was angry at a former girlfriend, fellow students have suggested. And, inevitably, he was described as “troubled” and a “loner.”

Another mass killer who took a break between killings was Charles Whitman, who in 1966 killed his wife and his mother. Hours later he climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of the clock tower at the University of Texas and opened fire, killing 14 people before he was killed by the police.

Mr. Cho does not shatter the mold for mass murderers. A 2000 analysis of 102 rampage killings by The New York Times found that most were perpetrated during the day, by educated white men. Seven of the 102 killers were Asian men. About a third took their own lives.

Many others die in a hail of police gunfire, a kind of provoked suicide, Dr. Stone said. For both groups, the rampage may be fundamentally a suicide mission, some experts said.

“I think that a person can be so humiliated, mortified and enraged, and lack the language or the skills to deal with that, and in rare cases what begins as a suicidal urge then becomes homicidal,” said Dr. Frank Ochberg, chairman emeritus of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, who worked with officials at Columbine High School.

Suicide bombers provide a telling contrast to suicide mass killers. They are chosen for their mental stability, while rampage killers are typically mentally troubled, said Dr. Jerrold Post, a psychiatrist who directs the political psychology program at George Washington University. Suicide bombers are usually directed by a commander, and believe in a fundamental sense they are acting to save the world, Dr. Post said.

Mass killers like Mr. Cho operate on their own, and are likely to want to end the world, their own and others’. They do not snap, so much as collect perceived injustices and insults and grievances, plot carefully and act deliberately, said Dewey Cornell, a clinical psychologist who runs the Virginia Youth Violence Project at the University of Virginia. “There’s a grandiosity in some of these cases, a contrast between the reality of who the person is, and who they aspire to be, how they expect to be treated and how they are treated, a contrast that magnifies their depression and anger,” Dr. Cornell said.

He said the project advised teachers and administrators on how to investigate and act on threats before they are carried out. But the school has to identify a threat before it can do anything.

Despite the familiar descriptions in the Virginia Tech mass killings and other recent ones — by “troubled loners” with grievances — there is no profile of a potential mass killer.

“Trying to draw up a catalog or ‘checklist’ of warning signs to detect a school shooter can be shortsighted, even dangerous,” cautioned a report by the F.B.I. compiled after the Columbine shootings, because when publicized, such lists “can end up unfairly labeling many nonviolent students as potentially dangerous or even lethal.”

    Taking a Break Between Shootings Is Unusual, but Not Unheard of, Experts Say, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18mental.html

Inside Room 207,

Students Panicked at Rampage

and Then Held Off Gunman’s Return

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 17 — “He never said a word the whole time. I’ve never seen a straighter face.”

That is how Trey Perkins, a student at Virginia Tech, recalled the gunman who burst into his German class here on Monday, pointed a handgun at each student and pulled the trigger.

In the end, Mr. Perkins, who crouched behind desks in the back of the classroom, managed to escape uninjured. But he was one of the few. The classroom on the second floor of Norris Hall appears to be where the gunman, a 23-year-old South Korean student identified as Cho Seung-Hui, exacted his greatest toll, as many as a dozen people.

Room 207 was a scene of utter terror and panic, with students trying to escape out windows or cowering under desks as the gunman, dressed in a black leather jacket and wearing a maroon baseball cap, fired, reloaded and then fired again.

At one point, the gunman left inexplicably only to return, with students wedging themselves against the door to block his entry. “The guy tried to come back in, and we were able to hold him off,” Mr. Perkins said.

Before the initial attack, witnesses said, the class of as many as 20 students had been gathered for about an hour as the professor, Christopher Bishop, known as Jamie, delivered a lesson on the rudiments of German.

At that point, there was nothing out of the ordinary, except when someone opened the door and peeked in. The class assumed a lost student was looking for a classroom.

About 10 minutes later, though, the door swung open, the gunman entered and took direct aim at Mr. Bishop, a popular 35-year-old professor known for riding his bicycle around the campus, killing him.

Mr. Cho then quickly turned on the horrified students — who hit the floor and turned over desks to shield themselves — starting with those in the front rows, the witnesses said.

“We got down, tried to get on the ground,” Mr. Perkins, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student from Yorktown, Va., said in an interview. “There were a couple of screams, but for the most part it was eerily silent, other than the gunfire.”

In an interview, Derek O’Dell, a 20-year-old biology student who was in the classroom, said: “He came into our room, he didn’t say anything. He was very calm, very determined, methodical in his killing. He shot as he opened the door.”

Then, for reasons that are unclear, Mr. Cho suddenly stopped firing and left the room, as the students lay bleeding on the floor.

At the time, Mr. Perkins said, he was fearful that Mr. Cho was still nearby and might return if he thought anyone in the classroom remained alive.

“I told people that were still up and conscious, ‘Just be quiet because we don’t want him to think there are people in here because he’ll come back in,’ ” he said.

Then, with gunshots ringing down the hall, Mr. O’Dell, who had been shot in the arm, and other students shut the classroom door and pushed themselves against it to prevent the gunman from getting back in.

A few minutes later, the gunman tried to force his way back inside the classroom, where Mr. Perkins was using his jacket and sweatshirt to stanch the wounds of bleeding students. Mr. Cho managed to open the door a crack, but the students pushed back hard enough to stop him.

“I sprinted on top of the desk to the door, because the aisle was clogged with people, and I used my foot as a wedge against the door,” recalled Mr. O’Dell. “It was almost like you had to fight for your life. If you didn’t, you died.”

Mr. Perkins said he was struck at how Mr. O’Dell managed to help hold back the gunman, given his injury.

“It was just amazing to me that he was still up and leaning against the door,” he said. “Derek was able to hold him off while I was helping other people.”

Mr. ODell said that initially at least he had not noticed he had been shot. “I looked down and realized I was bleeding,” he said. “That’s when I took off my belt and used it as a tourniquet and called 911 on my cell.”

Still, the gunman was determined to get into the room, firing repeatedly at the door. “He tried to shoot through a couple of times, probably six shots,” Mr. Perkins said. “I’m not sure if they went through or not. I mean, there were holes on the other side, like indentations.”

But at least two students were apparently injured by the shots at the door. Kevin Sterne, a senior, suffered a pierced artery when he was struck twice in the right thigh, doctors and his mother said. Mr. Sterne, an Eagle Scout, had the sense to grab an electrical cord and fashion a tourniquet to stem the bleeding until help arrived, they said.

The other was Katelyn Carney, a junior from Sterling, Va., majoring in international business, who was shot in the left hand.

Mr. O’Dell said others helped him block Mr. Cho from re-entering. “Trey and Erin helped keep the door closed,” he recalled, referring to another student. “One helped while the other went to the window and yelled for help. There was also another student who was shot in the hand who helped keep the door closed.”

Eventually Mr. Cho left. He was later found dead, a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, in another Norris Hall classroom, alongside the bodies of some other victims.

Looking back, Mr. Perkins said he could not get over how methodical Mr. Cho had been. “He was just disgusting; he just had no facial expression, showed no signs of emotion or anything,” he said.

“I don’t understand how someone could do that and not have any——” he said, searching for the right word. “I guess there has to be something terribly wrong with you to do something like that in the first place.”

    Inside Room 207, Students Panicked at Rampage and Then Held Off Gunman’s Return, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18german.html

Two-Hour Delay Is Linked to Bad Lead

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN and JOHN M. BRODER

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 17 — The police identified Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student, as the killer of 32 people in the shooting rampage at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, releasing new information on Tuesday about the troubled mind of a young man few people on campus knew.

Federal investigators said Mr. Cho — a South Korean immigrant who Americanized his name and preferred to be known as Seung Cho — left behind a note that they described as a lengthy, rambling and bitter list of complaints focusing on moral laxity and double-dealing he found among what he viewed as wealthier and more privileged students on campus.

And new information emerged that may help explain a fateful two-hour delay by university officials in warning the campus of a gunman at large. According to search warrants and statements from the police, campus investigators had been busy pursuing what appears to have been a fruitless lead in the first of two shooting episodes Monday.

After two people, Emily Jane Hilscher, a freshman, and Ryan Clark, the resident adviser whose room was nearby in the dormitory, were shot dead, the campus police began searching for Karl D. Thornhill, who was described in Internet memorials as Ms. Hilscher’s boyfriend.

According to a search warrant filed by the police, Ms. Hilscher’s roommate had told the police that Mr. Thornhill, a student at nearby Radford University, had guns at his town house. The roommate told the police that she had recently been at a shooting range with Mr. Thornhill, the affidavit said, leading the police to believe he may have been the gunman.

But as they were questioning Mr. Thornhill, reports of widespread shooting at Norris Hall came in, making it clear that they had not contained the threat on campus. Mr. Thornhill was not arrested, although he continues to be an important witness in the case, the police said.

At the time of the dormitory shootings, Col. W. Steven Flaherty, the superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said, “There was certainly no evidence or no reason to think that there was anyone else at that particular point in time.”

State officials continued to defend the actions of the campus authorities. John W. Marshall, the Virginia secretary of public safety, said Charles W. Steger, the president of Virginia Tech, and Chief Wendell Flinchum of the campus police “made the right decisions based on the best information that they had available at the time.”

At an afternoon news briefing, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Dr. Steger had asked him to appoint a committee to examine the university’s response and try to answer some of the remaining questions about the gunman’s actions.

After the shootings, the state police executed another search warrant, this time for Mr. Cho’s dormitory room. The warrant said a bomb threat against the engineering school buildings was found near Mr. Cho’s body. The warrant mentioned two other bomb threat notes against the campus received over the past three weeks.

Mr. Cho had used two handguns, a 9-millimeter and a .22-caliber, to shoot dozens of rounds, leaving even those who survived with multiple bullet wounds, officials said. The guns were bought legally in March and April. Colonel Flaherty said that although one of those guns had been used in the dormitory shooting, investigators were not ready to conclude that the same gunman was responsible for both episodes. But he said there was no evidence of another gunman or an accomplice.

Among the central unknowns is what prompted the gunman to move to Norris Hall, which contains engineering and other classrooms, where all but the first two killings took place. The authorities said Mr. Cho’s preparations, including chaining the doors, suggested planning and premeditation, rather than a spontaneous event.

Bodies were found in four classrooms and the stairwell of the building, Colonel Flaherty said.

“You all have reported that this is the most horrific incident that’s occurred on a college campus in our country, and the scene certainly bore that out,” he said. “Personal effects were strewn about the entire second floor at Norris Hall. So it made it much more difficult for us to identify students and faculty members that were victims.”

Officers also found several knives on Mr. Cho’s body. They first identified him by a driver’s license found in a backpack near the scene of the shootings, although it was not clear at first whether the backpack belonged to the gunman. But the name was checked against a visa application, and when a fingerprint on one of the weapons matched a print on the visa application, the authorities made a positive identification. The print matched another print left in the first shooting location.

Prescription medications said to be related to treatment of psychological problems were found among Mr. Cho’s effects, but officials did not specify what drugs they were.

In addition, investigators were reviewing recent bomb threats at the university in an effort to determine whether the gunman might have been involved in them, as an effort to test the university’s emergency response procedures.

Lucinda Roy, an English professor, said Mr. Cho’s writing, laced with anger, profanity and violence, concerned several faculty members. In 2005, she sent examples to the campus police, the campus counseling service and other officials. All were worried, but little could be done, she said.

Ms. Roy said she would offer to go with Mr. Cho to counseling, just to talk. “But he wouldn’t say yes, and unfortunately I couldn’t force him to do it,” she said. Students were also alarmed that Mr. Cho was taking inappropriate pictures of women under desks, she said.

In all, 33 people died Monday, including Mr. Cho and at least four faculty members. The victims’ names were not officially released, but most appeared to be in their late teens or early 20s. They included Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, and Reema Samaha, a freshman and a devoted dancer. Ms. Hilscher wanted to be a veterinarian; Mr. Clark was a member of the marching band. “This is a grief that does not know an international boundary,” Governor Kaine said.

By Tuesday afternoon there were still 14 injured victims at four hospitals, out of 28 initially transported from the scene, two of whom died. The 14 included two at a Level 1 trauma center in Roanoke, one in critical condition and the other in serious condition.

One of the luckier ones was Kevin Sterne, a senior who will graduate in a few weeks. He was hit twice in the right thigh, piercing an artery.

Mr. Sterne grabbed an electrical cord and fashioned a tourniquet until help arrived. “I think there’s a good chance he would have died,” said Dr. David B. Stoeckle of Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg.

Classes at Virginia Tech were canceled for the rest of the week, and Dr. Steger announced that Norris Hall would remain closed for the rest of the semester.

Thousands of students and faculty and staff members gathered Tuesday afternoon at Cassell Coliseum, the university’s basketball arena, for a solemn convocation. President Bush and Laura Bush attended the gathering and then spent much of the afternoon consoling members of the university family.

“This is a day of mourning for Virginia Tech, and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation,” Mr. Bush said in his remarks.

The president said that Monday began like any other school day, but then took a dark turn.

“By the end of the morning,” he said, “it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history — and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives.”

But Mr. Bush’s consoling words, and those of various campus religious leaders and the poet Nikki Giovanni, could not silence the questions of at least some of the stricken families.

“I guess we’re a little curious as to why it took so long” to lock down the campus after the first two fatal shootings, said Kim Tate, the mother of a sophomore. Ms. Tate contrasted Monday’s response to the rapid closing of the entire campus last summer after an incident involving an escaped convict in the area.

Asian-American students at Virginia Tech reacted to news about the gunman’s identity with shock and a measure of anxiety about a possible backlash against them.

“My parents are actually worried about retaliation against Asians,” said Lyu Boaz, a third-year accounting student who was born in South Korea and became an American citizen a year ago. “After 9/11, a lot of Arabs were attacked for that reason.”

Mr. Boaz, a resident adviser at Pritchard Hall, said many Korean-American students had left campus immediately. Parents of other Korean-American students were preparing to pick up their children on Tuesday afternoon and take them home.

Dr. Steger, the university president, has been at the center of this week’s trauma, which he described as a horrible nightmare from which he hoped to awake. Friends said that despite his stoic demeanor, the campus deaths had exacted a heavy toll on a man who has spent his entire adulthood at Virginia Tech, as a student, professor, dean and administrator.

“I think he’s grieving beyond belief,” said Alan Merten, the president of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who described himself as a colleague and old friend. “I think he’s suffering beyond belief.”

    Two-Hour Delay Is Linked to Bad Lead, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18virginia.html?hp

Gunman Showed Hints of Anger and Isolation

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By MANNY FERNANDEZ and MARC SANTORA

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 17 — Cho Seung-Hui rarely spoke to his own dormitory roommate. His teachers were so disturbed by some of his writing that they referred him to counseling. And when Mr. Cho finally and horrifyingly came to the world’s attention on Monday, he did so after writing a note that bitterly lashed out at his fellow students for what he deemed their moral decay.

Mr. Cho’s eruption of violence, in which 32 victims and himself were killed on the Virginia Tech campus here in a rampage of gunfire, was never directly signaled by his actions or words, several of his acquaintances said Tuesday. But those acquaintances were frequently disturbed by his isolation from the world and his barely concealed anger.

Joe Aust, who shared Room 2121 at Harper Hall with him, said he had spoken to Mr. Cho often but had received only one-word replies. Later, Mr. Aust said, Mr. Cho stopped talking to him entirely. Mr. Aust would sometimes enter the room and find Mr. Cho sitting at his desk, staring into nothingness.

“He was always really, really quiet and kind of weird, keeping to himself all the time,” said Mr. Aust, a 19-year-old sophomore, who, though finding Mr. Cho strange, had not thought him menacing.

Yet there were signs that his behavior was more than just bizarre.

Lucinda Roy said that in October of 2005 she was contacted as head of the English Department by a professor who was disturbed by a piece of his writing. Ms. Roy, rebuffed by Mr. Cho, contacted the campus police, counseling services, student affairs and officials in her department. Ms. Roy described the writing as a “veiled threat rather than something explicit.”

University officials told her that she could drop Mr. Cho from the class. Or, they said, she could tutor him individually, and she agreed to do so three times from October to December 2005. During those sessions, she said in an interview, he always wore sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low.

“He seemed to be crying behind his sunglasses,” she said.

Ms. Roy said she had been so nervous about taking him on as an individual student that she worked out a code with her assistant: if she mentioned the name of a dead professor, her assistant would know it was time to call security.

In another writing class, Mr. Cho submitted two profoundly violent and profane plays. Ian MacFarlane, a classmate who now works for America Online, posted the plays on the company’s Web site Tuesday, saying they had horrified the rest of the students.

“When we read Cho’s plays, it was like something out of a nightmare,” Mr. MacFarlane wrote. “The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn’t have even thought of.”

As a result of them, Mr. MacFarlane added, “we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter.”

In one play, called “Richard McBeef,” Mr. Cho wrote of a teenage boy who accuses his stepfather of murdering the boy’s father and of trying to molest the boy himself.

“I hate him,” the boy says of the stepfather in a copy of the play on the Web site. “Must kill Dick. Must kill Dick. Dick must die.”

Though the level of anger was clear to those who knew Mr. Cho, there is little that points to a precise motive for Monday’s events. Or, as a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity put it: “What was this kid thinking about? There are no indications.”

There are just the snippets of a lonely young life: prescription medicines, ominous words and two newly bought handguns.

Mr. Cho was a 23-year-old senior, skinny and boyish-looking, his hair cut in a short, military-style fashion. He was a native of South Korea who grew up in Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington, where his family owns a dry-cleaning business. He moved with his family to the United States at age 8, in 1992, according to federal immigration authorities, and was a legal permanent resident, not a citizen.

In the suite in Harper Hall where he lived with five other students, he was known as a loner, almost a stranger, amid a student body of 26,000. He ate his meals alone in a dining hall. Karan Grewal, 21, another student in the suite, recalled that when a candidate for student council visited there this year to pass out candy and ask for votes, Mr. Cho refused even to make eye contact.

On Tuesday, investigators were examining a note Mr. Cho had left behind in his dorm room, a rambling and bitter list of the moral laxity he found among what he considered the more privileged students on campus.

Centreville is an unincorporated community of 48,000 about 20 miles from Washington in Fairfax County. Mr. Cho graduated in 2003 from Westfield High School in nearby Chantilly, a large school that sends dozens of its students to Virginia Tech. At least two of Mr. Cho’s victims had also attended Westfield.

The Cho residence in Centreville is on Truitt Farm Drive in a subdivision of attached townhouses called Sully Station II. The family was not at home on Tuesday. But neighbors said three unmarked police cruisers arrived at the house about 10:30 p.m. Monday, and came and went throughout the rest of the evening. The neighbors had only nice things to say about the Cho family; the father sometimes cleaned the snow off his neighbor’s car across the street.

Every 10 years, lawful permanent residents are required to renew their green cards. Mr. Cho did so, and was issued a new card on Oct. 27, 2003. Applicants seeking a green-card renewal undergo a criminal background check through various law enforcement databases, said Chris Bentley, a spokesman for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. “Nothing showed up in those checks that told us he couldn’t have his green-card renewal,” Mr. Bentley said.

Mr. Cho went to bed early by college standards, about 9 p.m. He often rose early, but in recent weeks he had been doing so even earlier, frequently before dawn, said Mr. Aust, his roommate. Such was the case Monday.

Mr. Cho awoke before 5 a.m., then sat down to work on his computer and awakened Mr. Aust in the process. Mr. Grewal, who shares a room in the same suite, saw Mr. Cho in the bathroom shortly after 5 a.m.

As usual, Mr. Cho did not say anything to Mr. Grewal. No good morning, no hello, Mr. Grewal said. Mr. Cho stood in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, wetting his contact lenses and applying a moisturizer.

He also took a prescription medicine. Neither Mr. Aust nor Mr. Grewal knew what the medicine was for, but officials said prescription medications related to the treatment of psychological problems had been found among Mr. Cho’s effects.

    Gunman Showed Hints of Anger and Isolation, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18gunman.html?hp

Jimmy Margulies        New Jersey -- The Record        Cagle        18.4.2007

NRA = National Rifle Association

Shooting Rekindles

Issues of Gun Rights and Restrictions

April 18, 2007
The New York Times
By LESLIE EATON and MICHAEL LUO

Five weeks ago, a Virginia Tech student walked into a nondescript gun store next to a pawn shop in Roanoke, Va., and paid $571 for a Glock 9-millimeter handgun and a box of ammunition.

On Monday, the student, Cho Seung-Hui, made a horrible kind of history by using that gun and another pistol to go on a murderous rampage at the university, in Blacksburg, Va., before taking his own life.

As described by John Markell, the owner of the store, Roanoke Firearms, the purchase was a routine transaction. Virginia requires residents to present two forms of identification to buy a gun, as well pass a computerized background check, and Mr. Cho showed a salesman his driver’s license, a checkbook and his green card, because he had immigrated with his family from South Korea.

“He must have bought a lot more ammo somewhere else,” Mr. Markell said.

But this unremarkable purchase by Mr. Cho is drawing attention to Virginia’s gun laws, which some gun-control advocates described as lax. The purchase has prompted calls from several Democrats and at least one leading presidential candidate, John Edwards, for measures to restrict gun sales, even as they proclaimed their support for the Second Amendment.

But Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who is also running for president, said, “This brutal attack was not caused by nor should it lead to restrictions on the Second Amendment, which guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Some commentators who oppose what they see as unconstitutional limits on gun ownership said they feared gun control advocates would successfully use the Virginia tragedy to bolster their position, especially with Democrats’ new power in Washington. “We see calls for gun control but we may not see as much empathy for calls for armed self-defense,” said David Codrea, a blogger and a columnist for Guns Magazine.

Many advocates on both sides of this debate, including the National Rifle Association and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, suggested they were waiting for more information about the gunman and how he acquired his weapons.

It remained unclear yesterday how and when Mr. Cho got another gun, described in a search warrant as a Walther .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol, although one law enforcement official suggested that he might have purchased it at a pawnshop in February. At a news conference yesterday, local officials said both weapons appeared to have been acquired legally.

Virginia restricts gun buyers to the purchase of one handgun a month, in an effort to prevent bulk re-sales; law enforcement officers must issue a concealed carry permit to almost anyone who applies.

In Congress, perhaps the strongest response to the Virginia shootings came from Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat whose husband was killed and son was seriously wounded by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road more than a decade ago. Ms. McCarthy pushed House leaders on Tuesday to move quickly on a bill, stalled in previous Congresses that would improve databases used to conduct criminal background checks on gun purchaser.

For the most part, Congressional leaders limited themselves to expressing their condolences to the victims, their families and the students and faculty at Virginia Tech. Several suggested that it was too soon to make policy decisions.

“I hope there’s not a rush to do anything,” said the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. “We need to take a deep breath.”

Even Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who helped spearhead a ban on assault weapons more than a decade ago, said it was too early to discuss additional gun control measures.

The muted political response was a testament to political realities in which many Democrats who came to Congress as part of the new majority were elected on pro-gun platforms, and at a time when the party is trying to reach out to voters in the South and the West.

“There are several gun control advocates who have behind their name today, r-e-t, retired,” said Senator Larry E. Craig, an Idaho Republican who has long been a vocal pro-gun voice in Congress. “Some of it was voluntary. Some of it was involuntary.”

In Virginia and on gun-rights blogs, some critics were challenging Virginia Tech rules that prohibit gun owners from carrying their weapons on campus. A committee of the State House of Delegates has considered legislation to override the ban, which is common at many other colleges.

No one can say for sure if allowing students and faculty members to carry arms would have prevented the rampage on Monday, said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. “But they wouldn’t die like sheep, at least, but more like a wolf with some fangs, able to fight back.”

But Blaine Rummel, a board member of Virginians for Public Safety, an anti-gun group, disputed the notion that arming more people would reduce violence. “Virginia is second in the nation in the ease of getting handguns,” Mr. Rummel said. “If easy availability was a solution, Virginia Tech wouldn’t be in mourning today.”

    Shooting Rekindles Issues of Gun Rights and Restrictions, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18pistols.html

Mass murderers

painted as loners bent on revenge

Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:57PM EDT
Reuters
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who commit mass murders like the one at Virginia Tech university often are frustrated loners bent on revenge who blame others for their own failures, experts in such crimes said on Tuesday.

When Charles Whitman shot dead 13 people from a University of Texas tower in 1966, he triggered "an age of mass murder" in the United States, said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston.

Since then, there have been about two dozen U.S. cases annually of murders with at least four victims, Fox said. The frequency of these crimes has remained steady over four decades, but the lethality has risen with the greater availability of high-powered firearms, Fox said.

Authorities identified the gunman in Monday's Virginia Tech killings as student Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a South Korean who was a legal U.S. resident. They say he killed 32 people and himself.

"What motivates most mass murderers is the desire for revenge. They see themselves as victims. They see injustice around them and that they've been dealt a raw deal," Fox said.

"They blame others for their own failures and feel that life is just not worth living. Before they take leave of this life, usually by their own hand, they need to get some satisfaction by taking others with them, punishing those they hold responsible," Fox added.

Experts described differences between serial killers, who kill numerous people over a span of time, and mass murderers, who kill a number of people at one time like at Virginia Tech.

Arnett Gaston, a University of Maryland's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice psychologist, said a serial killer may commit murder as an expression of power over others, and may pick victims at random.

American examples of these killers include Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Dennis Rader.

COMMON QUALITIES

Fox and Jack Levin, director of Northeastern's Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence, listed five factors common to many mass killers:

-- a long history of frustration and failure;

-- a tendency to blame other people and never accept blame for their own shortcomings or failures;

-- a tendency to be socially isolated and loners;

-- some kind of a "final straw" event occurs that triggers the crime like being dumped by a girlfriend or fired from a job;

-- and access to firearms, preferably high-powered ones.

Fox and Levin, co-authors of the 2005 book "Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder," described three types of revenge that can motivate mass killers.

There is "specific revenge" in which particular people blamed for a slight are slain. For example, software engineer Michael McDermott killed seven employees at his Massachusetts job in 2000, targeting human resources workers.

There is "category revenge" in which groups like women or blacks or Asians are targeted. For example, Marc Lepine killed 14 women at a Montreal university in 1989, believing feminists had wrecked his life.

And there is revenge against the world with indiscriminate targeting of victims. For example, George Hennard in 1991 indiscriminately killed more than 20 people at a Texas restaurant.

"The more indiscriminate the murders, the more likely it is that insanity plays a role," Levin said.

Fox said bombs can be used in mass murder, citing 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bomber Timothy McVeigh, but guns generally are the choice.

"These guys seem to enjoy the idea of dispassionately shooting at the victims," Fox said.

    Mass murderers painted as loners bent on revenge, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/gc07/idUSN1742049520070417

Technology becomes a coping mechanism

17.4.2007
By Martha Irvine, AP writer
USA Today

CHICAGO — Horrible, real-world happenings are unfolding almost simultaneously in the virtual world, as Virginia Tech students and people from all over the world gather online to grieve and vent.

From blogging to cellphone video, technology has forever changed the way we process and communicate about tragedy — in good ways, and perhaps bad.

Almost immediately after Monday's deadly shootings, Virginia Tech students created an "I'm OK" page on Facebook to let one another and their loved ones know that they survived. Other students posted photos and cellphone video on their own sites, or shared it just hours after the shootings with news organizations.

Thanks to the portability and speed of today's technology, the students' shots are likely to become some of the "defining images" of the tragedy, says Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which monitors high-tech culture.

And nowhere, she says, has the impact of the Internet been seen more than on social networking sites, most often frequented by young people.

"What better place to mourn someone than a place that they themselves build to express who they are, and a place where the deceased and his or her friends may have spent a great deal of time interacting?" Lenhart asks.

Since Monday, there has been a non-stop flood of postings on the popular Facebook student site, on MySpace and LiveJournal, and on personal blogs — expressing everything from grief to anger to confusion.

Jesse Connolly, a 21-year-old from Lynn, Mass., made a posting Tuesday on the Myspace page of Ross Alameddine, one of the VT students who died. The pair worked together last summer at an electronics store in their home state.

"If only you were here to read this Ross... You'd know what an imaginative, intelligent, compassionate and most of all hysterically funny human being you were, and how appreciative I am to have spent last summer working with such a great kid," Connolly wrote. "My every thought is with you and your family."

Even before names of the victims were officially released, a few students created Facebook memorial pages for some of the dead — though others worried that it was too soon, since family and friends were still being notified.

There are myriad other ways the Internet continues to shape the grieving process.

In addition to using the university's website to communicate with the world, Virginia Tech officials planned to set up a site where families of the victims could post photos.

TechSideline.com, a site for VT sports fans, also quickly morphed into a meeting place where students, family and friends could communicate — especially when phones were jammed.

And as a show of support, many students, including scores from other colleges, replaced their Facebook profile photos with a VT logo shrouded in a black ribbon.

Patti Jacobs, a junior at Canisius College in Buffalo, was among them. Saddened by the shootings, she went searching for memorial pages on Facebook Tuesday morning.

Jacobs was alarmed when she also came across several pages that included hateful, sometimes racist remarks toward shooter Cho Seung Hui, other Asians and his family.

"This is not about just one guy and his problems," Jacobs wrote. "Yes — he alone is accountable for all the damage and pain caused yesterday — but the reason for this was not his race, his child-rearing by his family or his girlfriend breaking up with him....

"How much of our society is accountable as well?"

Some of the hateful postings were removed, likely after other Facebook users flagged them — a process of communal self-editing used on some sites.

Those kinds of entries are a product of the open nature of the Internet, where rumors and inaccuracies also can linger.

Such was the case for 23-year-old Wayne Chiang, who was mistaken by some as the shooter — partly because his Facebook profile includes references to graduating from Virginia Tech and several photos of him with his gun collection.

At first, Chiang says he "played along with it" on his personal Web page, partly to see how much money he could make, since payment from the ads he places on his site are based on the number of hits the site gets. (He claims he's going to donate the proceeds to a fund for the shooting victims at his alma mater.)

Chiang decided to post the truth after he received death threats. But many of those who thought he was the shooter had the same question: Why did the killings happen?

"I always knew the Internet was very powerful, just not to this extent," Chiang, who lives in suburban Washington, D.C., said in a telephone interview.

"People just want to blame it on somebody in order to understand the situation. It's completely understandable."

Despite technology's darker side, Lenhart at Pew says the help the Internet provides during tragedies like these is undeniable.

"No longer do you need to drive to a headstone in a cemetery or a roadside flower strewn-cross, or fly across the country to a funeral," she says, "but you can log on and express yourself, and interact with others who are feeling the same thing."

Contacted through his MySpace page, Connolly, the 21-year-old in Massachusetts, agreed with that sentiment.

"Reading everyone's thoughts and communicating with friends makes that lonely, empty feeling inside a little bit easier to deal with," he says, "knowing you're not alone."

    Technology becomes a coping mechanism, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-technology-coping_N.htm

Should college applicants

get background checks?

17.4.2007
USA Today
By Mary Beth Marklein

The Virginia Tech student who went on a shooting rampage Monday before killing himself may have had a troubled past, but it's not yet clear whether he had a criminal one. Even so, the tragedy has prompted some calls for background checks on college applicants.

"It's an idea whose time has come," says Catherine Bath, executive director of Security On Campus, a national advocacy group based in Pennsylvania that has pushed for federal legislation aimed at keeping students safe.

A number of colleges, including Virginia Tech, ask applicants whether they have been subjected to any disciplinary action by a high school, college or university; whether they have been convicted of a violation of any state or federal law, other than a minor traffic violation; and whether they are on probation or suspension. Applicants are asked to explain any "yes" answers. Similar questions were added this year to The Common Application, a form accepted by 298 colleges and universities.

But formal background checks are another story. Many colleges don't want to be accused of "profiling" or discriminating against students who have records. And checks probably would find little on students whose juvenile court records are sealed.

"It's a difficult, imperfect process and not one that yields obvious benefits," says Ada Meloy of the American Council on Education, a non-profit Washington-based umbrella group for colleges and universities.

Even so, the idea appears to be gaining steam. Three years ago, Certified Background, a company in Wilmington, N.C., was doing background checks on students for fewer than a dozen colleges; today it does student checks for about 500 colleges, says Joseph Finley, vice president for sales.

In most cases, it conducts routine checks on students in health fields as required by hospitals or clinics. But schools are "moving in the direction of doing (checks) at the admissions level," Finley says. Among key reasons, he says: to protect schools' reputations and "to cover themselves" legally.

After the shooting death of basketball player Patrick Dennehy in 2003 — former teammate Carlton Dotson eventually pleaded guilty to murder — Baylor University began conducting criminal background checks of some potential student athletes in 2005. The University of Oklahoma also began checks of all potential student athletes in spring 2005. Others, including Kansas State University and the University of Kansas, also have begun screening some student athletes.

Recently, some states also have tried to tighten the reins. Virginia passed a law last year requiring colleges to provide information to police on incoming students, who are then cross-checked with sex-offender lists.Meanwhile, the North Carolina Legislature recently considered whether to require that college students be fingerprinted.

That didn't go anywhere, but last fall, the 16-campus University of North Carolina system began ordering background checks on certain students, usually because they had unexplained gaps in their applications or admitted involvement in a crime.

University of North Carolina officials developed the policy after two students on its Wilmington campus were killed in unrelated incidents in 2004. In both cases, the killers were or had been students, and both had failed to disclose past records to the university. Last year, the father of one of the slain students sued the university.

The system asks six questions on its application form, including whether criminal charges are pending or whether the applicant has ever pleaded no contest to a crime. It also has created a database that enables system campuses to find out whether a student had been expelled or suspended for violent behavior on another UNC campus.

Based on the checks, 101 applicants were denied admission, 30 of whom had applied to Wilmington.

Kemal Atkins, director for student academic affairs for the North Carolina system, says the decision to do the checks came only after a number of "tough conversations."

"There needs to be consistent application of this (and) a due-process mechanism," he says. Another concern, he says, is finding a "balance between trying to keep people off our campuses who may be a threat and also maintain the openness of a college or university campus."

Louis Hirsch, director of admissions at the University of Delaware, agrees. "Our instincts are to be cautious and to exercise due diligence," he says, noting that Delaware's application asks about a student's discipline or criminal history. "The problem is this: How do you distinguish between students whose behaviors present a current threat from students who have merely done something stupid in their teenage lives that they now regret? How serious was the crime? How long ago did it happen? Are we talking about a single offense or something that is part of a recurrent pattern?"

Rob Killion, executive director of The Common Application Inc., the non-profit group that provides The Common Application, says the discipline-related questions are designed not to weed out all students with a record but to help admissions officials build "a cohesive campus community."

"It doesn't mean (admissions officials) don't know the difference between an alcohol violation and a felony," he says.

Says Karl Stumo, associate vice president for admission and financial aid at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash.: "Our process evaluates academic preparedness as well as personal character."

That's why, two years ago, the school began asking students who had been convicted of a felony or gross misdemeanor, or who had a case pending against them, to identify themselves and explain. If necessary, Stumo says, his staff will gather additional information. Since then, he says, the school has admitted some of those students and denied some. "It's not the only thing being evaluated, but it's very important," Stumo says.

Bath, of the campus safety group, says she is not advocating that colleges deny admission to applicants because of their record. "We're not saying don't admit felons, we're saying just know that you have them on campus."

    Should college applicants get background checks?, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-blcover_N.htm

Professor who 'did not fear death'

likely saved students

17.4.2007
USA Today
By Barbara Slavin
 

An Israeli Holocaust survivor died shielding his students from a mass murderer on the day that Jews who were mass murdered during World War II are remembered each year.

Liviu Librescu, 76, was an internationally renowned professor of aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech.

Librescu's son, Joe, who lives outside Tel Aviv, said his father "barricaded the door and blocked the shooter from entering. …This was typical of him. He did not fear death and at all times tried to do the right thing."

Librescu was apparently shot by a bullet that pierced the classroom door. His heroism gave students time to climb out the window, on the second floor of Norris Hall, said Sean Beliveau, a friend of the family who lives in Blacksburg, Va.

Beliveau said students have been e-mailing Librescu's widow, Marlena, to tell her of Librescu's courage.

Joe Librescu said his father was sent to an internment camp near Focsani, Romania, when he was 10.

After World War II, Librescu returned to the Romanian capital, Bucharest, where he studied mechanics and aviation construction. He was fired from Romania's aerospace agency when his employers discovered he was Jewish and a supporter of Israel, his son said. In 1978, Librescu was allowed to emigrate to Israel, where he taught at Tel Aviv University and the Technion in Haifa.

Librescu moved to Virginia Tech in 1985 for what was to be a one-year sabbatical but stayed after receiving a full-time position. A specialist in composite structures and aeroelasticity, he received many awards from around the world, including grants from NASA.

"His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures," said Ishwar Puri, head of Virginia Tech's department of engineering science and mechanics.

Charles Camarda, a NASA astronaut who got his doctorate in aerospace engineering from Virginia Tech, called Librescu "a brilliant professor. … He was also a gentleman … very statesmanlike, very articulate, just a pleasure to work with."

Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which combats anti-Semitism and other prejudice, said, "Destiny came knocking on his door. Any survivor of the Holocaust knows how helpless he felt. This man decided he would not let this act of evil occur. He was not going to be a bystander."

Joe Librescu called his father's death on Holocaust Remembrance Day "symbolic."

"Many circles closed along with his tragic death," the son said. "He died in the city he called home, where he loved what he did and what he stood for, and in front of his students, to whom he had dedicated his entire life."

Librescu's body was being flown to Israel for burial Thursday at a cemetery outside Tel Aviv.

    Professor who 'did not fear death' likely saved students, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-vt-victims-librescu_N.htm

Koreans who live in shooter's hometown

wary of backlash

17.4.2007
USA Today
By Oren Dorell

CENTREVILLE, Va. — The town where Cho Seung Hui lived as a boy is home to thousands of South Korean immigrants whose businesses and churches dot the main streets.

Several said Tuesday that they have always felt welcome in the community but fret that people will look at them differently now that one of their own has caused such grief in Virginia.

"I didn't want to believe it was a Korean," Jung Choon, 43, said as she worked at a flower shop at Grand Mart.

"Part of the Korean culture is when kids do something wrong, they think it is the parents' fault," she said. "People are worried about their business, that other Americans won't go to their businesses."

Pastor Cha Young Ho of the Korean Presbyterian Church said that the family once belonged to his church and that Cho was a quiet boy. He, too, was wary of how others would react.

"We were worried because we heard the shooter was Korean," he said. "I don't think the Korean community experiences any kind of racism before this incident."

Even South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun issued a statement on Korean television expressing concern for the 100,000 Korean students at American universities.

Yoga instructor Kim Root, 48, of Vienna, said no one would blame Koreans. "People are smart enough to see that it's one person," said Root, who works in Centreville.

Brent Mickey, 28, manager of Legacy Furniture, agreed. "In this day and age, all the different shootings that happen, the shooters are all races," he said. "It's just another crazy individual."

Jai Kim, 48, a real estate agent at New Star Realty, said she has never experienced racism here and didn't expect to now.

"I feel shame, too, because it happened to the Korean community, but he didn't do it because he's Korean," said Kim, who has a son planning to enroll at Virginia Tech.

Esther Chang, pastor for the Korean Central Presbyterian Church, agreed that no one would blame the Korean community.

"We're not worried," she said. "This was a very sad young man."

Choon was worried mostly that both Koreans and non-Koreans would blame Cho's parents.

"They're victims too," she said.

    Koreans who live in shooter's hometown wary of backlash, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-koreans-backlash_N.htm

A day of hell:

Details emerge of Va. Tech rampage

17.4.2007
AP
USA Today

BLACKSBURG, VA. (AP) — Janitor Gene Cole was cleaning bathrooms on the first floor of Virginia Tech's Norris Hall when a colleague told him there had been a shooting on campus.

We have to evacuate, the colleague said.

Cole headed for the second floor to look for a co-worker. As he walked down the hall, he saw a shape on the floor — a student, covered in blood, his body jerking.

Then, from a door about 20 feet away, the black-clad gunman burst out. Gripping the gun in both hands, the man assumed a police stance and began firing.

"He's going to kill me! He's going to kill me!" the 52-year-old Cole screamed as he spun and sprinted down the hall, a half-dozen bullets whizzing by his head.

He took the stairs two and three at a time, ran through an auditorium and into a neighboring building.

For Cole and others in Norris Hall on this picturesque southwest Virginia campus, the nightmare began around 9:45 a.m. Monday. Only later would the full chronology of the two-tier burst of terror became clear: a day of horror that actually began more than two hours earlier with two students shot dead in a dormitory, and ended across campus with an even greater bloodbath.

In the end, 33 people would be dead in what has become the nation's deadliest shooting spree.

Just before 7:45 a.m. Monday, Josh Ball shut the door to his fourth-floor West Ambler Johnston dorm room and headed toward the elevator. When the freshman got to the double wooden doors between the men's and woman's wings, he met a paramedic.

"You shouldn't go that way," the man said. "Just use the other stairs."

Outside, the 19-year-old from Vail, Colo., saw a stretcher being loaded onto an ambulance. He assumed there had been a fight, and kept walking. He had just a few minutes to make it a half-mile across the Drillfield to his German class in Norris Hall.

Ball had no idea that a fellow student had just unleashed hell — and that he was headed into the maw.

He wasn't alone in not knowing.

It wasn't until 9:26 a.m. that the university sent out the first e-mail to students and faculty. The subject line read, "Shooting on campus."

"The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case," the message read.

About 20 minutes later, junior Alec Calhoun was in professor Liviu Librescu's solid mechanics class on the second floor of Norris when shots rang out from the German class next door.

It sounded like the pounding of an enormous hammer, so Calhoun thought it was just construction. Then he heard the screams, and realized the sounds were gunfire.

With no locks on the doors to shut out the gunman, Calhoun began flipping over desks to make hiding places.

As the shooter — armed with two semiautomatic pistols, a .22-caliber and a 9 mm — moved to the room across the hall, several classmates dashed to the windows, kicked them open and pulled out the screens. Then they jumped from the second-story ledge to the cold ground below — breaking legs and ankles in the process.

Calhoun decided to abandon his makeshift fort and jump.

As he reached the ledge, the two people immediately behind him were shot. Calhoun landed in a bush, then ran to safety.

The diminutive Librescu — who had survived the Nazi Holocaust — stayed behind in an apparent attempt to bar the door. He was killed.

Freshman Hilary Strollo was in her intermediate French class when the gunman entered the classroom. He moved methodically through the room, firing several bullets into each victim — emptying five or six clips in all.

Strollo was shot in the abdomen, head and buttocks. One bullet passed through her liver and exited out her side. She was hospitalized Tuesday near Blacksburg.

Virginia Tech Police received the first 911 call from Norris at 9:45 a.m. When they arrived, they found the front doors chained shut from the inside.

Outside Norris, there was also pandemonium.

The wind was blowing hard and cold for a mid-April morning, and it was spitting snow.

Senior Ben Anderson of Burke, Va., was on the Drillfield with two fraternity brothers collecting donations for a local fire department when the shooting started. Police cars careened in from both directions, and officers jumped out with guns drawn, running for Norris Hall.

Freshman Andrew Huang was on his way to class when he heard shots and saw police. Unsure what to do, he followed a gang of fellow students into the center of the Drillfield, assuming that was as safe a spot as any.

At 9:50 a.m., a second e-mail went out warning students and staff to "stay put."

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

In the third-floor provost's office in neighboring Burruss Hall, administrative assistant Nadine Hughes fielded calls from concerned colleagues at colleges around the country.

Helpless to assist the wounded and dying next door, Hughes did the only thing she could think of: She pulled a miniature tract from her purse and began to pray.

But even then, much of the campus was oblivious to the carnage playing out just buildings away.

As SWAT teams were retaking Norris, Katrina Broas, a junior from Middletown, N.Y., chatted with classmates about humid temperate zones in her World Crops class in Litton-Reaves Hall. She heard sirens, but wasn't too concerned.

When class ended at 10:10 a.m., students and faculty filed out to find the building locked down. They gathered in a conference room and watched the events unfolding on television.

When an announcer said the death toll had surpassed 20, the group let out a collective gasp. Broas called her mother to tell her she was OK, then wept silently with the others.

A third e-mail, time stamped at 10:16 a.m., announced that classes were canceled.

Not until 10:52 a.m. was the fourth e-mail issued, this one informing students of the shootings at Norris.

"Police have one shooter in custody and as part of routine police procedure, they continue to search for a second shooter," it said.

Finally, around mid-afternoon, authorities announced that the gunman — later identified as Cho Seung Hui, a senior with a history of bizarre, anti-social behavior — had apparently acted alone, and that he had taken his own life.

Throughout the afternoon, a steady stream of students emerged from the West AJ dorm, shouldering backpacks and dragging suitcases, unable to bear the thought of spending the night in the charnel house that their dorm had become.

Brittany Zachar had left her dorm room Monday morning knowing from a pink notice in the sixth-floor bathroom that something had happened on campus. She had no idea two students had been shot to death just two floors below her.

Hours later, Zachar left campus for the safety of a friend's apartment in town. Clutched tightly to her breast was "Hokie," a stuffed dog her boyfriend had given her.

On the dormitory's deserted fourth floor, yellow police tape hung from the double doors leading to the area where Resident Assistant Ryan Clark and another student were killed.

The hall smelled vaguely of incense.

As he loaded a car for the trip home to Martinsville, Va., Billy Bason chastised the administration for not locking down the campus immediately after the first shootings.

"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," the 18-year-old freshman said.

At 7 p.m., as darkness enveloped the campus, shell-shocked students, faculty and residents gathered in the sanctuary of Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. But even as the weeping, sniffling faithful tried to pray, wailing sirens pierced the solemnity.

"Death has come trundling into our life ... laying waste to our hearts and making desolate our minds," associate pastor Susan Verbrugge said, gazing out at some 150 bowed heads.

Pastor Alex Evans invited the crowd to name their loved ones. After long moments of silence, they spoke.

"For Ryan and Emily," a young woman said, "and for those whose names we do not know."

"For Heidi, and her doctors and nurses and friends and families," added another.

"For all the children in our community who are afraid," said a third woman.

Then a man: "Lord, I pray for the family of the gunman, who will forever be searching for answers I know they'll never find."

Sitting alone in his home in nearby Radford, Cole, the Norris janitor, not usually a drinking man, was finishing his 12th beer. It would be another three hours before he fell into a fitful sleep.

In the shadow of Tech's iconic War Memorial Chapel, at one end of the Drillfield about midway between the West AJ dorm and Norris, students erected a makeshift monument to the casualties of Seung Hui's attack.

The cardboard and wood "VT" — maroon edged with Hokie orange tape — was lashed to a tree. By day's end, nearly every inch was covered with black and silver writing.

"We'll never forget you," pledged one mourner.

"Hokies forever stand together," declared another.

"Dr. Librescu," read another, "Your heart was bigger than your stature."

At the memorial's base stood several tiers of white and red candles, along with several butane lighters. But they remained unused.

The cold wind blowing across campus was just too strong.

    A day of hell: Details emerge of Va. Tech rampage, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-day-of-hell_N.htm

Steve Sack        Minnesota, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune        Cagle        17.4.2007

Editorial

Eight Years After Columbine

April 17, 2007
The New York Times

Yesterday’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech — the worst in American history — is 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.

Not much is known about the gunman, who is reported to have killed himself, or about his motives or how he got his weapons, so it is premature to draw too many lessons from this tragedy. But it seems a safe bet that in one way or another, this will turn out to be another instance in which an unstable or criminally minded individual had no trouble arming himself and harming defenseless people.

In the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre — in which two alienated students plotted for months before killing 12 students, a teacher and themselves — public school administrators focused heavily on spotting warning signs early enough to head off tragedy.

As the investigation of the Virginia Tech shootings unfolds in coming days, it will be important to ascertain whether there were any hints of the tragedy to come and what might be done to head off such horrors in the future. Campuses are inherently open communities, and Virginia Tech has some 26,000 students using hundreds of buildings over 2,600 acres. It is not easy to guarantee a safe haven.

The investigations will also need to look into the response by the campus and local police. The initial shootings killed two students in a dormitory around 7:15 a.m., prompting a 911 call and a police response. Tragically, the police assumed that was the end of it and thought the shooter might have left the campus and even the state. Two hours later a second, more lethal round of shooting claimed some 30 lives in an engineering building across campus. If the same gunman was responsible for both incidents, the police will have to explain why they failed to intercept his second foray or did not lock down the whole campus.

Our hearts and the hearts of all Americans go out to the victims and their families. Sympathy was not enough at the time of Columbine, and eight years later it is not enough. What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

    Eight Years After Columbine, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/opinion/17tue1.html

Mike Lane        Baltimore, Maryland        Cagle        17.4.2007

Center: President George W. Bush

NRA = National Rifle Association

President Bush's

remarks at Virginia Tech

17.4.2007
The Associated Press
USA Today

President Bush's remarks Tuesday in Blacksburg, Va., as transcribed by the White House:

Governor, thank you. President Steger, thank you very much. Students, and faculty, and staff, and grieving family members, and members of this really extraordinary place.

Laura and I have come to Blacksburg today with hearts full of sorrow. This is a day of mourning for the Virginia Tech community — and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation. We've come to express our sympathy. In this time of anguish, I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking about you, and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected.

Yesterday began like any other day. Students woke up, and they grabbed their backpacks and they headed for class. And soon the day took a dark turn, with students and faculty barricading themselves in classrooms and dormitories — confused, terrified, and deeply worried. By the end of the morning, it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history — and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives.

It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone — and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.

In such times as this, we look for sources of strength to sustain us. And in this moment of loss, you're finding these sources everywhere around you. These sources of strength are in this community, this college community. You have a compassionate and resilient community here at Virginia Tech. Even as yesterday's events were still unfolding, members of this community found each other; you came together in dorm rooms and dining halls and on blogs. One recent graduate wrote this: "I don't know most of you guys, but we're all Hokies, which means we're family. To all of you who are okay, I'm happy for that. For those of you who are in pain or have lost someone close to you, I'm sure you can call on any one of us and have help any time you need it."

These sources of strength are with your loved ones. For many of you, your first instinct was to call home and let your moms and dads know that you were okay. Others took on the terrible duty of calling the relatives of a classmate or a colleague who had been wounded or lost. I know many of you feel awfully far away from people you lean on and people you count on during difficult times. But as a dad, I can assure you, a parent's love is never far from their child's heart. And as you draw closer to your own families in the coming days, I ask you to reach out to those who ache for sons and daughters who will never come home.

These sources of strength are also in the faith that sustains so many of us. Across the town of Blacksburg and in towns all across America, houses of worship from every faith have opened their doors and have lifted you up in prayer. People who have never met you are praying for you; they're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers, real power. In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. As the Scriptures tell us, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

And on this terrible day of mourning, it's hard to imagine that a time will come when life at Virginia Tech will return to normal. But such a day will come. And when it does, you will always remember the friends and teachers who were lost yesterday, and the time you shared with them, and the lives they hoped to lead. May God bless you. May God bless and keep the souls of the lost. And may His love touch all those who suffer and grieve.

    President Bush's remarks at Virginia Tech, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-virginia-tech-bush-remarks_N.htm

Sandy Huffaker        Cagle        17.4.2007

L: President George W. Bush

R: Senator McCain

Va. governor promises probe of shooting

17.4.2007
By USA TODAY staff

BLACKSBURG, Va. — An independent panel will conduct "a very thorough after-action review" of the events surrounding Monday's mass shooting at Virginia Tech, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday as investigators probed further into the background student believed responsible for more than 30 deaths.

"The idea is to do this after any significant incident," Kaine said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. Virginia Tech police and administrators have come under criticism for their decision to keep classes in session after the first of two campus shootings Monday, in which two people died in a dormitory. That shooting was followed two hours later by a rampage in a campus building, in which 31 people died, including Cho Seung Hui, the student believed responsible for the deaths. Cho committed suicide, police said.

Kaine's decision was one of many developments the day after the most deadly shooting rampage in American history. Tuesday morning, police identified Cho as the person responsible for the clasroom shooting, and said one of the two guns he owned also was used in the dormitory shooting. Cho was a senior English major from Centreville, Va., and a permanent resident from South Korea, police said.

Also Tuesday, the Virginia Tech community assembled at an on-campus sports arena to mourn the deaths of the victims. President Bush told the mourners that it was "impossible to make sense" of the massacre, but added, "I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking about you and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected."

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hinker said Cho, who lived in a dorm on campus, "was a loner and we are having difficulty finding any information about him."

The Associated Press reported Cho's creative writing for his English classes was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, told the AP 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 told the AP. "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 told the AP that 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.

A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of," former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL website. He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."

"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling."

Immigration records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security show that Cho was born in South Korea on Jan. 18, 1984 and entered the United States through Detroit on Sept. 2, 1992. He had last renewed his green card on Oct. 27, 2003.

The South Korean native was believed to have calmly killed 30 people in a rampage at Norris Hall, an engineering building, around 9:50 a.m. and was linked to the deaths of two people at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dorm, around 7:15 a.m. the same morning.

Witnesses said that Cho, wearing a cap, a jacket and a dark vest that was apparently laden with ammunition, strode into several classrooms and opened fire on students and faculty, reloaded and fired again. He also shot at, and missed, a custodian who came upon a victim in the hallway.

Erin Sheehan, who was in the German class at Norris Hall, 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's family lived in an off-white, two-story town house in Centreville, Va., in the suburbs of Washington. "He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said of the gunman. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball, and wouldn't respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.

But police were careful not to definitively declare Cho as the shooter in both killings, which occurred two hours and a half-mile apart.

"The evidence does not conclusively identify Cho Seung Hui as the gunman at both locations," said Col. W. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police.

He said only that Cho was found with two handguns — a 22-caliber and a 9 mm — and that one of them was also used in the dorm slayings.

"With this newfound ballistics evidence, we are now able to proceed to the next level of this complex investigation," Flaherty said.

One law enforcement official told the AP that Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, told the AP that Cho's fingerprints were found on the two guns used in the rampage. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

Shortly after the dorm killings, police said, they detained a "person of interest" who had been an acquaintance of the female victim there. He was stopped in his vehicle off campus, police said. While he was being questioned, they said, the second shootings occurred at Norris Hall.

Chief Wendell Flinchum, of the Virginia Tech police department, said authorities were "still looking to him for information" as the investigation continues.

So far, only a handful of the 32 victims have been identified. Authorities said the process could take several days.

"Personal effects were thrown about the entire second floor of Norris Hall, which made it much more difficult to identify victims," said Flaherty. He referred to the classrooms as a "horrific crime scene."

At least 15 people were injured in the second attack, some seriously. At least 12 remained hospitalized Tuesday, with three in critical condition.

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., 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," he said.

As relatives and friends grieved, this university of some 23,000 students began the painful process of trying to cope with the tragedy.

Thousands gathered for a memorial service Tuesday afternoon, with President Bush, and first lady Laura Bush in attendance. Kaine cut short a trade mission to Asia to be at the convocation.

As Bush spoke, some students in the packed auditorium wiped away tears or embraced each other.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said the university community had "come together to mourn and to grieve, all the while hoping that we will be waking from what is a horrible nightmare."

"There are no real words to express the depth of sadness that we feel," Steger said. "Words are very weak symbols of our true emotions at times like this."

Classes at the university have been canceled for the rest of the week and Norris hall, site of most of the killings, will be closed for the rest of the semester.

Some students bitterly complained they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that 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 said authorities believed 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 noted that only 9,000 of the university's approximately 25,000 students live on campus, meaning that many of the rest — along with about 8,000 teachers and employees — were en route to the university Monday when the first shootings occurred.

"We warned the students we thought were immediately impacted," he said on CNN, noting campus police closed off the area around the dormitory immediately after the shooting.

When pressed on CNN about whether Virginia Tech police "blew it," Steger responded, "I don't think it's fair at all" to characterize the situation that way.

Contributing: Gary Strauss and Donna Leinwand in Blacksburg, Va.; David Jackson in Washington; Douglas Stanglin and Randy Lilleston in McLean, Va.; the Associated Press.

    Va. governor promises probe of shooting, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-virginia-tech_N.htm

2nd crisis in year for police chief

17.4.2007
USA Today
By Martha T. Moore

By the time Wendell Flinchum was officially named chief of the Virginia Tech police department in December, he already had led the department through one violent crisis.

In August, on the first day of the semester at Virginia Tech, classes were canceled as hundreds of police combed the campus looking for a local jail inmate who had escaped by overpowering a police officer. Police thought he may have hidden on campus.

The suspect, who was later charged with killing two people during his escape, was not captured on campus. But Flinchum, then acting chief, received a commendation from the Virginia governor for his leadership during the crisis, according to the university's announcement of his appointment as police chief.

Flinchum, 45, now faces a far worse tragedy: the shooting deaths of 32 people. This time, Flinchum has been criticized, along with the Virginia Tech administration, for not immediately canceling classes and warning students more quickly about the shooting deaths.

Two students were discovered to have been shot at 7:15 a.m., but an e-mail telling students of that shooting was not sent by the university until 9:26 a.m., after the second shooting. Classes were underway when the alleged gunman, later identified as Cho Seung Hui, again began shooting at a classroom building across campus from the dorm where the first shooting occurred.

On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said he will appoint a panel at the university's request to review authorities' handling of the disaster. Some parents and students complained that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire and did not do enough to warn people.

Flinchum said Monday that police originally believed the first two killings were a "domestic incident" and that the gunman had left campus, perhaps even the state, making it unnecessary to close the campus.

Virginia Tech's 40-member police force is a nationally accredited police force just like a municipal department, said former chief Debra Duncan, now police chief in Monroe, N.C.

Most colleges and universities with more than 7,000 students — Virginia Tech has 25,000 — have police forces with sworn, armed officers, said Steven Healy, chief of the Princeton University police force and president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies. Healy said it's a "myth" that campus police are glorified security guards, a notion that is clouding the debate over the campus response.

Nor can a sprawling college campus be locked down the way a high school could, he said.

Flinchum has spent his entire career on the Virginia Tech force. He began working there part-time as a student in 1983, then joined full-time in 1985 after dropping out of the university, according to the Virginia Tech announcement of his hiring. He trained at the FBI National Academy. He is working on getting his undergraduate degree.

He was named to the top job over more than 90 candidates in a nationwide search, the university said.

"He loves the university, he loves the students. And he knows the university," Duncan said Tuesday.

"This is one of the worst things I've ever seen," Flinchum said Monday evening. "It's been a very trying day."

Flinchum is known for a low-key demeanor and an attention to detail, Duncan said. His off-duty love is riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

"He thinks things through, he's analytical. He's quiet. Yes, he does hold his emotions in check, but that's not a bad thing. He's calm and he's even tempered," Duncan said.

"He's capable and he's qualified, but he's not a flashy type in your face kind of person."

Contributing: Gary Strauss in Blacksburg; the Associated Press

    2nd crisis in year for police chief, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-second-crisis_N.htm






 

John Markell

holds a Glock pistol similar to the one his business,

Roanoke Firearms,

sold Cho Seung Hui last month.

By Don Petersen, AP

  'Signs were there,' shooter's classmates say

NYT        18 April 2007

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-cover-shooter-signs_N.htm

'Signs were there,' shooter's classmates say

17.4.2007
USA Today
By Ken Dilanian

To many who knew him, Virginia Tech senior Cho Seung Hui was a taciturn loner who rebuffed attempts to draw him out. Those who got a glimpse of his college writings had another impression: They saw him as profoundly disturbed.
In a playwriting class last fall, students reacted with nervous laughter as they read aloud Cho's play depicting scenes of violence with chainsaws and hammers, said Stephanie Derry, a 21-year-old senior classmate.

"I guess you could say the signs were there, and now they're just clear in retrospect," Derry said.

Cho, a 23-year-old native of South Korea, was identified by authorities Tuesday as the gunman in Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

Using two handguns that Virginia State Police said he purchased legally, the English major is suspected of shooting two students in a dorm early Monday, and then, two hours later, methodically ending the lives of 30 others in four classrooms across campus before turning a gun on himself.

Much about Cho's motives and movements is still being pieced together by local, state and federal investigators — including the reason for the long gap between the shootings. The snippets about Cho that are emerging in interviews with Virginia Tech students and faculty members who knew him paint a portrait of a distant young man who communicated little and seemed deeply troubled.

Lucinda Roy, a professor in the English Department, told CNN that she became so concerned about Cho's writings that she showed them to campus police and university officials. She said they told her nothing could be done because his writings did not include specific threats.

Roy tutored Cho one-on-one for a year, she said, but never broke through his emotional wall. She called him the most disturbed student she had seen in two decades of teaching.

"There were several of us in English who became concerned when we had him in class for various reasons, and so I contacted some people to try to get some help for him," Roy said. "The writings seemed very angry."

Roy said she urged Cho to seek counseling but did not know whether he did. Cho appears to not have had a criminal record.

"You can't force a kid to come in for counseling just because of his creative writing," said Martin Greenberg, a psychiatrist who counsels students at San Diego State University. Even if Virginia Tech officials had asked police to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of Cho, authorities typically "are very, very reluctant to do that," Greenberg said. "We don't have an effective way to intervene in a case like this."

'It was sad, how lonely he was'

Described by campus police on a speeding ticket he received April 7 as 5-foot-8, 150 pounds, Cho had come to the USA as a child in 1992.

A legal permanent resident, he grew up in Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C., that is home to a thriving Korean community. His parents worked as dry cleaners, according to the Associated Press.

Cho attended Westfield High School in Northern Virginia's Fairfax County. Several former Westfield classmates interviewed Tuesday described him as alienated from other students.

"In all the years, I've heard maybe 50 words out of him — from classroom answers," said John Dantonio, a Centreville resident. "He always mumbled. They were usually one-word answers. He was always alone. Westfield is a populous school and he used to eat by himself. It was sad, how lonely he was."

David Schott, who graduated from Westfield High in 2003, said other students were friendly to Cho, but he rarely replied.

"On the few occasions he did speak, his voice was so low that no one could understand him," said Schott, now a student at Virginia Commonwealth University. "When a teacher would ask him a question, he would answer with what sounded like a grunt."

At Virginia Tech, Shane Moore, a 21-year-old senior, said Cho resisted attempts to befriend him.

"He was very quiet. Every time we saw him — at least three times — we tried to say 'hi' to him, and he wouldn't say anything to us. He'd just look away."

A link to bomb threats?

In Cho's room in Virginia Tech's Harper Hall, investigators found a note that amounted to a rambling screed against corruption and the privileged, according to a federal law enforcement official who said he was briefed on its contents.

That official and another federal law enforcement official confirmed the existence of the note, which they said was undated. The officials declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, would not comment on the note. "There is considerable writing that we are reviewing," he said.

Investigators are examining whether Cho was linked to recent bomb threats at the university, according to court records. Documents filed in support of a Virginia State Police request to search Cho's room indicated that investigators were seeking, among other things "weapons, ammunition, (and) explosives."

The police said in the court papers that they were seeking materials that might have been used to "communicate threats to the Virginia Tech campus in the recent past," and that they viewed Cho as a suspect in those threats.

Investigators recovered a "bomb threat (note) directed at Engineering School Department buildings" at Norris Hall, where Cho killed himself and 30 others, according to the documents.

"Over the preceding three weeks, Virginia Tech received two other bomb threat notes," the court documents state. "A bomb threat note was found in the close vicinity of the shooting, which occurred near the victims and the presumed suspect who is deceased."

During a news conference late Tuesday, Flaherty shed no light on several looming questions about what happened Monday, including Cho's movements during the two hours between the slayings of students Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher on the fourth floor of the West Ambler Johnston dorm and the killings at Norris Hall.

Flaherty said Tuesday that it was "reasonable to assume" that Cho was the shooter at both locations, but that investigators had not determined that conclusively.

It remained unclear whether Hilscher, the first victim Monday, was targeted by her killer.

Hilscher's roommate, Heather Haugh, told the Los Angeles Times that she knew of no connection between Cho and her friend.

"I've never seen him," Haugh said. "I don't know his name. Emily didn't know him, as far as I know."

Shootings to be reviewed

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday afternoon that he will appoint an "assessment team" to review the school's handling of the slayings and the events leading up to them.

Cho bought the more deadly of his two weapons, the Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, last month at a gun store on the fringes of Roanoke, about a 40-minute drive from the Virginia Tech campus.

He presented a Virginia driver's license, a personalized checkbook to verify his name and address, and an immigration card certifying his status as a legal permanent resident, said John Markell, owner of Roanoke Firearms.

"Nothing made him seem out of the ordinary," Markell recalled.

A criminal and mental health background check took about 30 minutes and cleared Cho to buy the $535 Glock, along with a 50-round box of practice ammunition. Cho paid the $571 bill with a credit card, Markell said.

"I feel just terrible," Markell said, "but I don't feel responsible."

Back in Blacksburg, Cho's former classmates continued to wrestle with the many unanswered questions concerning what might have led to his attack on the campus.

One classmate, Julie Poole, remembered Cho refusing to sign his name on a roster of students in one class, and instead writing a question mark.

"Is your name, Question mark?' " Poole recalled the professor asking.

Cho didn't reply.

Contributing: Thomas Frank, Kevin Johnson, Alan Levin, Alan Gomez, Brad Heath, Andrea Stone, Donna Leinwand, Marilyn Elias, Cindy Clark, Chris Colston, Roger Yu, Alan Gomez and Jessica Calefati.

    'Signs were there,' shooter's classmates say, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-cover-shooter-signs_N.htm

Massacre triggers world criticism of U.S. gun laws

Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:58PM EDT
Reuters
By Ralph Gowling

LONDON (Reuters) - World leaders and media commentators criticized what many called the gun culture in the United States on Tuesday after 33 people were killed in the country's worst shooting rampage.

The world, including U.S. arch-foe Iran, united in sympathy.

European newspapers saw a grim inevitability about the killings because the U.S. constitution enshrined the right to bear arms, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard pointed to the tough laws on gun ownership in his country as a solution.

South Korea said it was worried about a possible racial backlash in the United States after U.S. police identified the gunman who killed 32 people then himself at the Virginia Tech university on Monday as a South Korean student.

Media commentators in Europe were quick to blame permissive U.S. gun laws for the massacre.

Italy's leftist Il Manifesto newspaper said the shooting was "as American as apple pie". France's Le Monde newspaper said such episodes frequently disfigured the "American dream".

"It would be vain to hope that even so destructive a crime as this will cool the American ardor for guns," Britain's Independent newspaper said in a commentary.

Howard, a close U.S. ally over Iraq and Afghanistan, was a leading voice suggesting Washington should tighten its gun controls. Australia banned almost all types of semi-automatic weapons after a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996.

"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," Howard told reporters.

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 has largely thwarted efforts to tighten controls.

PRECAUTIONS

South Korea said it was taking precautions against any possible backlash in the United States but that it regarded the shooting rampage by 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui as an "extremely isolated incident".

"We are working closely with our diplomatic missions and local Korean residents' associations in anticipation of any situation that may arise," said a South Korean Foreign Ministry official, without elaborating.

Iran, at loggerheads with Washington over its nuclear program, joined other countries round the world in expressing sympathy. "Iran condemns (the killings) and expresses its condolences to the families of victims and the American nation," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Pope Benedict were among those who sent condolences.

"I feel very much sorry and troubled, and any such rampant killing of innocent citizens and children is totally not acceptable," Ban told reporters.

The Pope called the killings a "senseless tragedy" and said he was praying for the victims and their families.

In Romania, people mourned Romanian-born Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu, who was among the 32 people killed by the gunman. Flowers and a photograph of the professor were placed at the entrance to his old school.

Anti-gun campaigners in other countries where ownership is common expressed fears of a similar massacre.

Nandy Pacheco, head of the Philippines anti-gun lobby Gunless Society, said: "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."

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

    Massacre triggers world criticism of U.S. gun laws, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/gc07/idUSSYD24612820070417

Gun Control Is Tough Sell in Congress

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:33 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gun control advocates made little headway after another bloody April shootout eight years ago and acknowledged Tuesday they face similarly tough odds in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.

''It is a tough sell,'' said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., the House's most ardent proponent of gun control legislation.

In 1999, after the Columbine High School killings in Colorado left 15 dead, including the two shooters, lawmakers unsuccessfully introduced dozens of bills to require mandatory child safety locks on new handguns, ban ''Saturday night specials,'' increase the minimum age for gun purchases and require background checks on weapons bought at gun shows.

A month after the Columbine shootings, then Vice President Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to advance a juvenile crime bill that included gun show restrictions. But the bill died after a year of on-and-off negotiations with the House, where gun rights lawmakers held sway.

Gun control became an issue in the 2000 election and many political analysts say Gore, assailed by the National Rifle Association for supporting gun control, lost critical votes in rural states where voters are strong supporters of gun rights.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sponsored the 1994 federal assault weapons ban that Congress allowed to expire in 2004, said in a statement that she believed the killings at Virginia Tech would ''re-ignite the dormant effort to pass commonsense gun regulations in this nation.''

But while Democrats now control the Congress, many of its new members are gun rights supporters from rural states.

McCarthy said she is trying to promote legislation that will be acceptable to gun rights people, including a bill that would require instant background checks for gun purchases rather than making buyers wait a day or more.

    Gun Control Is Tough Sell in Congress, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Gun-Control.html

Campus Goes Online for Information and Comfort

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By SARAH WHEATON

For the Virginia Tech community, changing information created emotional roller coasters both during and after Monday’s attack by a gunman who killed 32 people and then himself.

Initial warnings of caution belied the ultimate massacre. Likewise, the search for missing people left friends and loved ones relying on gossip and speculation.

Fueled by technology, the level of available information — just enough to cause fear, but not enough to really know — has been contributing to both false hope and unnecessary anguish among those involved.

Lauren McCain, a freshman majoring in international studies, according to her MySpace profile, was among those unaccounted for in the immediate wake of the shootings. Her friends’ efforts to figure out what happened to her are heart-wrenching, and outsiders can go along for the rollercoaster ride, eavesdropping through Facebook and other forums.

Courtney Treon, a high school student, started a thread within a Facebook group called Prayers for VT” asking for “any kind of information on Lauren McCain.” Posting at around 11 p.m. on Monday, she added, “It is believed that she was at Norris Hall at the time of the shooting and she is missing at the moment.”

Over the next 14 hours, friends and acquaintances responded with bits of information from various sources. Shortly after the original posting, someone reported that she was either dead or at the hospital. Then she was in critical condition. People posted expressions of relief, and the discussion seemed to subside.

But before noon on Tuesday, Alex Grant posted a conversation indicating that unidentified bodies remained in Norris Hall, and that Ms. McCain was neither in the hospital nor the morgue. By around 1 p.m., Rachael Leach wrote in: “My roommate is her friend, and she called me this morning to tell me Lauren was identifiable and dead. Pray for that situation.”

At 4:37 p.m. Ms. Treon posted at a different Facebook group that she started, VT Victim Information: Lauren McCain is not alive. She was not found at the hospital or the morgue. Since Norris Hall was locked down for the night, her parents are not able to identify her body...

Tuesday evening, Ms. McCain was listed among those confirmed dead on the Web site of The Collegiate Times, the student newspaper at Virginia Tech.

For other families, worst fears turned out not to be warranted.

“When I looked at the map of where our daughter is staying and where her dorm lies in the path of the shootings — where the gunman may have traveled to get to Norris Hall, my wife and I were just torn emotionally during the news casts like other Virginia Tech parents,” wrote William S. on an “Online Vigil” run by The Virginian-Pilot. “But now that she is safe, we can only feel sadness for those victims of this senseless act and the pain their families are going through.”

Paul, a Virginia Tech student, blogged about searching for his girlfriend, Katelyn Carney:

“I try calling Kate but she isn’t answering her phone. I am assuming she is in Mcbride because I have had a few German classes in that building but I’m not sure. We check her schedule to find out that she in fact had her German class in Norris Hall. Now I’m freaked out, and franticly try to call her, but she isn’t picking up.

“Fast forward a couple minutes, I get a call from Montgomery Hospital. A very kind nurse wanted to give me a message from Katelyn Carney. I obviously oblige and ask what the message is. She says, ok, the message is ‘I’ve got red on me.’ Of course I instantly think, what a hilarious thing to say in a situation like this, but at the same time, I’m now MORE worried than I was before, and ask the nurse if she is able to patch me through to Kate.

“Right as she picks up the phone she tells me, ‘I got red on me.’ I laugh, and immediately try to find out if she’s hurt or what to expect, and she lets me know that she’s fine, stable, good, not hurt ... only slightly. ”Technology failed some students at key moments. On a forum at FARK.com, user WhenWillThenBeNow wrote at 12:47 p.m. on Monday, “But I live on campus ... we are getting nothing, and just as they had announced that there were 20+ dead, everyone on campus lost cable ... just saying.”

The university’s failure to keep students updated during the two hours between shootings has drawn considerable criticism. “Ironic,” writes RonJ, a Virginia Tech employee, “that we’ve been having meetings about redesigning our emergency notification systems, to be able to include mass-blasting cell phones and stuff. I suspect that will be made a higher priority.”

But while technology failures left some on campus in the dark, it did help Ms. Treon, who attends Loudon Valley High School, over 200 miles away, feel connected. She said that after she created her victim-search Facebook group, a relative of Ms. McCain asked for her help.

“Throughout the night, I kept saying, ‘This is amazing, just amazing’ at the outpour of love and support that I was receiving from strangers,” she wrote in a Facebook message to NYTimes.com. “My heart aches at” the most recent information about Ms. McCain, she said, “because throughout the hours last night, I came to a real connection with her, and I felt like I was one of her friends.”

    Campus Goes Online for Information and Comfort, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/18bloggerscnd.html

Threatening Note Closes Texas University

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:50 p.m. ET
The New York Times

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Authorities evacuated buildings Tuesday at St. Edward's University after a threatening note was found, a school official said.

The bomb threat came a day after a Virginia Tech student killed at least 30 people locked inside a classroom building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

Police officers had secured the perimeter of the campus and were searching the buildings, university spokeswoman Mischelle Amador.

She declined to say where the note was found and said its contents were ''nonspecific.''

Students who live on campus were being allowed to return to their dormitories as police finished searching each building, Amador said. Faculty, staff and all other students were asked to stay away from the campus, and morning and afternoon classes were canceled.

About 5,200 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled at the Catholic university south of downtown Austin.

Amador said the university's reaction was not influenced by Monday's attack at Virginia Tech.

''No matter what day or when this would have happened, we will always take the necessary precautions to protect our students, our faculty, our staff, the entire university community,'' she said.

    Threatening Note Closes Texas University, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-University-Bomb-Threat.html

Heroic acts bright spot amid campus tragedy

Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:55PM EDT
Reuters
By Patricia Zengerle
 

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Amid the horror at Virginia Tech were tales of heroism during the rampage, including an older professor -- himself a Holocaust survivor -- who gave his life to protect his students.

Romanian-born Liviu Librescu, an Israeli citizen, moved two decades ago to the United States where he taught in the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Although he was 76, long past the usual retirement age, he was still teaching at Virginia Tech on Monday when chaos erupted in Norris Hall, the campus building where a gunman identified as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, opened fire, killing 30 people before committing suicide.

Students described how Librescu barricaded the door against Cho so that they could escape by jumping out the classroom's second-floor window. Some broke legs in the fall, but they survived. Librescu was shot dead during the rampage.

An impromptu shrine to the dead professor was set up on the campus, with flowers and his picture.

"He was an exceptionally tolerant man who mentored scholars from all over our troubled world," Ishwar Puri, his department head, said in a written statement released to the media.

Students who survived the massacre at Norris Hall spoke of school janitors who, as Cho opened fire upstairs, ran to help others instead of saving themselves.

"The janitors came running through, and told everyone to get out," said Nick Vozza, 20, of Burke, Virginia, who was in the Norris Hall basement when Cho began his attack two floors above.

In a German class upstairs, a few students tried to barricade the door against the onslaught of bullets, and then tried to help their injured classmates while they waited for help, Trey Perkins, 20, told Fox News.

Of 15 students in his class, he said only about six came out alive.

Many students wore the school's colors of orange and maroon in a sign of solidarity on Tuesday. Many said they were shocked and exhausted, as the names of the victims began to trickle out, and they faced an onslaught of media and investigators.

But they said they were heartened by the stories of heroism.

"It's one of those things where every little thing you do can save somebody's life," Vozza said. "The only thing we can do to get through this thing is to be nice to each other."

    Heroic acts bright spot amid campus tragedy, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1723680320070417?src=041707_1257_TOPSTORY_gunman_identified

Campus Gunman Lived in U.S. 14 Years

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:28 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Virginia Tech student identified as the assailant in Monday's deadly gun rampage was a South Korean immigrant who had been in the United States since 1992 and who held a green card signifying his status as a legal permanent U.S. resident, federal officials said Tuesday.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, was listed with a home address in Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C., not far from Dulles International Airport.

Immigration records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security show that Cho was born in South Korea on Jan. 18, 1984 and entered the United States through Detroit on Sept. 2, 1992. He had last renewed his green card on Oct. 27, 2003.

University officials said he lived in a dormitory on the Virginia Tech campus, but could shed no light on a motive for the shooting spree that left 33 dead. ''He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him,'' said Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker.

Cho's fingerprints were found on two handguns used in the rampage, said two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

Ballistics tests by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms showed that one of the guns was used in both of Monday's separate campus attacks that happened two hours apart.

Cho was found with a backpack containing a receipt for a Glock 9mm pistol that he had bought in March.

As a legal permanent U.S. resident, Cho had the same rights as a citizen for the purposes of buying and possessing firearms. In Virginia, a green card holder must establish that he has been a resident of the state for at least 90 days by providing a valid photo ID plus documentation such as a utility bill or lease.

The state's firearms purchase eligibility test lists 16 questions that all must be answered ''no'' for the purchase to go forward, including whether the applicant is under indictment for a felony or has been convicted of a felony; has been adjudicated a delinquent as a juvenile; is subject to an outstanding protective or restraining order; is an unlawful user of any controlled substance; or has ever been judged legally incompetent or mentally incapacitated or been involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

Since 1993 it has been illegal for any person not a licensed firearms dealer to purchase more than one handgun within any 30-day period. The state does not maintain registration lists of firearms owners.

    Campus Gunman Lived in U.S. 14 Years, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-The-Shooter.html

Gunman Is Described as Quiet and 'Always by Himself'

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and MARIA NEWMAN

Cho Seung-Hui, who was identified today as the gunman who killed at least 30 people at Virginia Tech before killing himself, was a 23-year-old South Korean who moved to the United States with his family in 1992, according to South Korean officials, and who was living here as a legal resident.

Mr. Cho, who was majoring in English, had lived with his family in Centerville, Va., a suburb near Washington. He also had a room in one of the dormitories on the university campus, Harper Hall.

In Centerville, Mr. Cho’s family lived in a small, two-level townhouse in an upper-middle-class development. Coincidentally, one of the victims lived less than a mile from the Cho family home.

The yellow aluminum-sided home was shuttered and police said they had removed the family from their home last night.

Outside the home, a local postman, Rod Wells, said that the family was “very quiet, very polite. They always had a smile on their face. I know they are a nice family. They have been very good to me.”

Mr. Cho was a 2003 graduate of Westfield High School in Clifton, Va., according officials of the Fairfax County Public Schools said, who added that other graduates from its schools might have been among those killed or injured in Monday’s shooting.

"He was very quiet, always by himself," Abdul Shash, a neighbor, said of Mr. Cho, according to The Associated Press.

Mr. Shash said Mr. Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball, and wouldn’t respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.

Marshall Main, who lives across the street, told The A.P. that the family had lived in the townhouse for several years.

Earlier this morning, a single spent long-rifle shell found was discovered on the sidewalk near the entrance to the house. After the discovery, by news cameramen, police immediately moved reporters back and took the round away for investigation.

Officials in Blacksburg said Mr. Cho was registered in his senior year at Virginia Tech, majoring in English and living on campus. According to CNN, Harry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations, described Mr. Cho as a loner.

According to court records, the Virginia Tech Police issued a speeding ticket to Mr. Cho on April 7 for going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone, and he had a court date set for May 23, The A.P. said.

Mr. Cho was discovered on Monday among the dead at the scene of the second shooting at Virginia Tech. Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of Virginia State Police, said it was ”a reasonable assumption “ that Mr. Cho was responsible for both shootings at Virginia Tech.

Colonel Flaherty said that the evidence "has not led us to where we can say with all certainty that the same shooter was involved in both instances, so we are now exploring that evidence and trying to make that trail."

He added: "We also have no evidence to indicate that there was any accomplice at either event, but we are exploring whether or not there was someone who may or may not have helped Cho at any point during his planning or during his execution of this particular event."

CBS News reported that paperwork found in the gunman’s backpack allowed authorities to trace one of the two handguns used in the shootings, though the serial numbers for both weapons had been removed.

Colonel Flaherty said Mr. Cho was “discovered among several of the victims in one of the classrooms. He had taken his own life."

Virginia Tech is quite well-known in South Korea. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry expressed its condolences, and said South Korea hoped that the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."

"We are in shock beyond description," said Cho Byung-se, a ministry official handling North American affairs. "We convey deep condolences to victims, families and the American people."

Thousands of South Korean students go to the United States annually to get American college diplomas. Diplomas from Ivy League universities and other well-known American schools, as well as English proficiency, are coveted in the South Korean job market.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Ian Urbina in Centerville, Va., and by Choe Sang-Hun in Seoul.

    Gunman Is Described as Quiet and 'Always by Himself', NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17cnd-shooter.html

S.Korean student blamed for shooting rampage

Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:20PM EDT
Reuters
By Andrea Hopkins and Patricia Zengerle

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 behavior, 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 hospitalized 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 canceled 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.

    S.Korean student blamed for shooting rampage, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1631133620070417?&src=041707_1257_TOPSTORY_gunman_identified

Va. Tech Gunman Writings Raised Concerns

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:04 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- 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 identified 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 the two guns used in the rampage. 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., a Washington suburb.

''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.

Marshall Main, who lives across the street, said the family had lived in the townhouse for several years.

According to court records, 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's Foreign Ministry expressed its condolences, and said South Korea hoped that the tragedy would not ''stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.''

''We are in shock beyond description,'' said Cho Byung-se, a ministry official handling North American affairs. ''We convey deep condolences to victims, families and the American people.''

A memorial service was planned for the victims Tuesday afternoon at the university, and President Bush planned to attend, the White House said. 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. 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.

The victims in Norris Hall were found in four different 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.

University 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. 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.

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 Writer Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.

    Va. Tech Gunman Writings Raised Concerns, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Bill Schorr        United Media        Cagle        17.4.2007

A Look at Some Virginia Tech Victims

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:10 p.m. ET
The New York Times

A look at some of the victims killed in the Virginia Tech massacre:

Ross Abdallah Alameddine

Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., was a sophomore who had just declared English as his major.

Friends created a memorial page on Facebook.com that described Alameddine as ''an intelligent, funny, easygoing guy.''

''You're such an amazing kid, Ross,'' wrote Zach Allen, who along with Alameddine attended Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Mass. ''You always made me smile, and you always knew the right thing to do or say to cheer anyone up.''

Alameddine was killed in the classroom building, according to Robert Palumbo, a family friend who answered the phone at the Alameddine residence Tuesday.

Alameddine's mother, Lynnette Alameddine said she was outraged by how victims' relatives were notified of the shooting.

''It happened in the morning and I did not hear (about her son's death) until a quarter to 11 at night,'' she said. ''That was outrageous. Two kids died, and then they shoot a whole bunch of them, including my son.''

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Ryan Clark

Clark was called ''Stack'' by his friends, many of whom he met as a resident assistant at Ambler Johnson Hall, where the first shootings took place.

Clark, 22, was from Martinez, Ga., just outside Augusta. He was a fifth-year student working toward degrees in biology and English, and a member of the Marching Virginians band.

''He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know,'' friend Gregory Walton, 25, said after learning from an ambulance driver that Clark was among the dead.

''He was always smiling, always laughing. I don't think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him.''

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Daniel Perez Cueva

Perez Cueva, 21, from Peru, was killed while in a French class, said his mother, Betty Cueva, who was reached by telephone at the youth's listed telephone number.

Perez Cuevas as a student of international relations, according to the Virginia Tech Web site.

His father, Flavio Perez, spoke of the death earlier to RPP radio in Peru. He lives in Peru and said he was trying to obtain a humanitarian visa from the U.S. consulate here. He is separated from Cueva, who said she had lived in the United States for six years.

A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Lima said the student's father ''will receive all the attention possible when he applies'' for the visa.

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Kevin Granata

Granata, a professor of engineering science and mechanics, served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before coming to Virginia Tech, where he and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics.

The head of the school's engineering science and mechanics department called Granata one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.

Engineering professor Demetri P. Telionis said Granata was successful and kind.

''With so many research projects and graduate students, he still found time to spend with his family, and he coached his children in many sports and extracurricular activities,'' Telionis said. ''He was a wonderful family man. We will all miss him dearly.''

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Caitlin Hammaren

Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., was a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to officials at her former school district.

''She was just one of the most outstanding young individuals that I've had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator,'' said John P. Latini, principal of Minisink Valley High School, where she graduated in 2005. ''Caitlin was a leader among our students.''

Minisink Valley students and teachers shared their grief Tuesday at a counseling center set up in the school, Latini said.

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Emily Jane Hilscher

Hilscher, a freshman majoring in animal and poultry sciences, was known around her hometown as an animal lover.

''She worked at a veterinarian's office and cared about them her whole life,'' said Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.

Hilscher, 19, of Woodville, was a freshman majoring in animal and poultry sciences. She lived on the same dorm floor as victim Ryan Clark, McCarthy said.

A friend, Will Nachless, also 19, said Hilscher ''was always very friendly. Before I even knew her, I thought she was very outgoing, friendly and helpful, and she was great in chemistry.''

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Liviu Librescu

Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was known for his research, but his son said he will be remembered as a hero for protecting students as the gunman tried to enter his classroom.

Librescu taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and had an international reputation for his work in aeronautical engineering.

''His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures,'' said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

Librescu's son, Joe, said his father's students sent e-mails detailing how the professor saved their lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before he was fatally shot.

''My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,'' Librescu's son, Joe Librescu, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. ''Students started opening windows and jumping out.''

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G.V. Loganathan

Loganathan was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai and had been a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.

Loganathan, 51, won several awards for excellence in teaching, had served on the faculty senate and was an adviser to about 75 undergraduate students.

''We all feel like we have had an electric shock. We do not know what to do,'' his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. ''He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force.''

------

Mary Karen Read

Read was born in South Korea into an Air Force family and lived in Texas and California before settling in the northern Virginia suburb of Annandale.

Read, 19, considered a handful of colleges, including nearby George Mason University, before choosing Virginia Tech. It was a popular destination among her Annandale High School classmates, according to her aunt Karen Kuppinger.

She had yet to declare a major.

''I think she wanted to try to spread her wings,'' said Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.

Kuppinger said her niece had struggled adjusting to Tech's sprawling 2,600-acre campus. But she had recently begun making friends and looking into a sorority.

Kuppinger said the family started calling Read as news reports surfaced.

''After three or four hours passed and she hadn't picked up her cell phone or answered her e-mail ... we did get concerned,'' Kuppinger said. ''We honestly thought she would pop up.''

(A previous version of this story referred incorrectly to Martinez, Ga., as an Atlanta suburb. It is a suburb of Augusta.)

    A Look at Some Virginia Tech Victims, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Victim-Vignettes.html

Jack Ohman        Portland, OR, The Portland Oregonian        Cagle        17.4.2007

Bush Orders Flags to Half Staff

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:27 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Expressing the nation's sorrow, President Bush ordered flags flown at half staff Tuesday in honor of those killed in the nation's deadliest shooting spree.

''Our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech,'' Bush said in a proclamation. ''We lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering.''

Bush planned to travel Tuesday afternoon to speak at Virginia Tech, where 32 people were gunned down in two separate attacks. He and first lady Laura Bush were to attend a campus convocation ''as representatives of the entire nation,'' the White House said.

''They will be there as the national representatives on a day that is full of sorrow for every American,'' she said. ''He will remark about the amazing strength of the community, and I'm not just talking about the city limits of Blacksburg, but as you seen that's there's been an outpouring of support.''

Bush directed flags to remain in the lowered position through sunset Sunday.

Meanwhile, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has sent 12 agents to Virginia Tech and the FBI has contributed some 15 agents as well for the investigation. The federal help, including input from the U.S. Attorney's office in the Western District of Virginia, is being coordinated at a command center set up on the campus.

In addition to helping with the crime scene, the Department of Justice is making counselors available to victims and their families through a special office and the Education Department is offering assistance as well.

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, just back from Japan to deal with the tragedy, was traveling with Bush on Air Force One to the convocation.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino deflected any questions about Bush's view of needed changes to gun control policy, saying the time for that discussion is not now.

''We understand that there's going to be and there has been an ongoing national discussion, conversation and debate about gun control policy. Of course we are going to be participants in that conversation,'' she said. ''Today, however, is a day that is time to focus on the families, the school, the community.''

Perino added: ''Everyone's been shaken to the core by this event and so I think what we need to do is focus on support of the victims and their families and then also allow the facts of the case to unfold before we talk any more about policies.''

In times of tragedy, Americans turn to the president to be the nation's consoler and comforter.

Bush rallied the nation after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. One of the most enduring images of his presidency is Bush standing atop a pile of rubble in New York with a bullhorn in his hand. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Bush made repeated trips to the region but wound up criticized for the government's sluggish response to the storm.

President Clinton went to Oklahoma City in 1995 after the bombing of the federal building there, and his on-the-scene empathy was later viewed as the key factor in reviving his presidency and helping him win re-election.

After the shooting on Monday, Bush expressed shock and sadness about the killings. He lamented that schools should be places of ''safety, sanctuary and learning.''

    Bush Orders Flags to Half Staff, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Virginia-Tech.html

Victims of Shooting Are Remembered

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

Ryan Clark was known as Stack here on the rolling campus of Virginia Tech, an amiable senior memorable for his ready smile and thoughtful ways.

He was also among the first victims of the deadliest school rampage in the nation’s history.

A student resident adviser at West Ambler Johnston Hall, Mr. Clark was apparently rushing over to investigate what was going on when he came upon the gunman, according to a student who lives on the fourth floor, where the first shootings took place.

In the end, as the people here struggled to come to grip with the tragedy, it fell to Vernon W. Collins, the coroner in Mr. Clark’s hometown in Columbia County, Ga., to deliver the news of his death to his mother.

“She was in shock,” Mr. Collins said. “It started out in disbelief. She was praying what I was telling her was wrong, and I felt the same way. I wished I didn’t have to tell her that.”

“It was horrible, you know, to walk up to somebody you don’t know and tell them they’ve lost a loved one,” he added. “It’s the hardest part of my job.”

Tall and thin, Mr. Clark, a resident of Augusta, Ga., was well-liked and a member of the university’s marching band, the Marching Virginians, students in the dorm said.

The band’s Web site has an image of him participating in a food drive and says that he enjoyed, among other things, “making t-shirts with his partner in crime, Kim Daniloski, and haggling with street vendors.”

He also studied biology and English and had hoped to pursue a doctorate in psychology, with a focus on cognitive neuroscience.

Courtney Dalton, who met Mr. Clark two years ago when the two worked together at a campus restaurant, described him as helpful and a good listener. “When I was upset about something, he would come over and ask, ‘Are you O.K.?’” she said. “If you ever needed to talk about your problems, he’d listen.”

Ms. Dalton said that he stopped working at the restaurant shortly after they met but that he continued to stop by and visit. “I used to talk to him every day,” she said. “He used to come in, get a drink, a pizza or a rotini and cheese.”

Ms. Dalton said she was stunned by the news of his death and wondered how such a tragedy could befall a person as kind as Mr. Clark. “It’s horrible, it’s hitting us all pretty hard,” she said.

Emily Jane Hilscher: Wanted to be a veterinarian.

Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman studying veterinary science, lived next door to Ryan Clark in Ambler Johnston Hall and was among the first killed in the rampage, right before Mr. Clark was.

Ms. Hilscher was from Woodville, Va. Friends say she dreamed of becoming a horse veterinarian. One picture of her posted in an online tribute shows her jumping over fences on the back of a horse; another shows her standing in a stable beside a horse, a wide smile on her face.

In a telephone interview, Molly Mills, 18, a friend and fellow student, said she rode horses with Emily in the equestrian club.

“Emily was an absolutely amazing girl,” she said.

Kevin P. Granata: A world-class researcher

One of two engineering professors killed was Kevin P. Granata, 46, a teacher described today by the dean of engineering, Ishwar K. Puri, as a “world-class” researcher and mentor to students. Dr. Granata and his students studied neuromuscular control, researching robotics, muscle and reflex response, and the mechanics of how people walk and run.

He served in the military, earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at Ohio State University, and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals. He taught at the University of Virginia between 1997 and 2003, before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech. His office was in room 307 on the third floor of Norris Hall, the building where the second round of shooting took place.

“He was one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy,” Dr. Puri, the dean of engineering, said in a statement. “The use of his research by other scholars worldwide had put him on a trajectory to become a notable star in these fields.”

Reema Samaha: A dancer and actor

Reema Samaha, 18, a freshman from Centreville, Va., was shot and killed in her French class. According to tributes posted by friends online, she was an avid dancer and actor who devoted much of her time to the school’s Contemporary Dance Ensemble, a student organization. As a high school student, she won awards for her performances, including one for her role in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Nicole Bonfiglio, a fellow student at Virginia Tech, remembered Reema in a tribute on the website Facebook as “one of my first friends in high school,” adding, “We sat next to each other in bio freshman year. Reema...you were so kind...you were one of the kindest people i met that year and throughout high school. Nobody ever had anything but good things to say about you.”

Her brother, Omar Samaha, told MSNBC: “I couldn’t sleep last night. Every time I was trying to fall asleep, more things would pop into my head.

“I know I’ll get through it,” he added, “and I’m going to pray for everyone else.”

Liviu Librescu: A holocaust survivor

Liviu Librescu, 75, a senior researcher and lecturer in engineering, was a Holocaust survivor. He had immigrated to Israel from Romania with his wife Marlina, also a survivor, in 1978. He was an expert in aeronautics at Tel Aviv University and the Haifa Technion before moving to the United States in 1984.

The couple’s elder son lives in the town of Ra’anana, near Tel Aviv. Joe, the younger son, splits his time between the United States and Israel, where he was when news of his father’s death arrived.

According to media accounts quoting students, Mr. Librescu and the class heard shooting in a nearby room. The students said their professor blocked the door to prevent the gunman from entering while some students took cover underneath desks and others leaped out from windows.

Reached by telephone in Ra’anana today, Ayala Librescu, one of his daughters-in-law, said the family “had no time to deal with the loss” and turned down requests for interviews. She confirmed that family members were making plans to fly to America Tuesday night and that they would be bringing Mr. Librescu’s body back to Israel for burial.

Earlier today, Joe Librescu told Ynet, the website of the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot: “I understand from friends that my father was a hero. By blocking the door with his body he saved all the students who were in the classroom. Joe Librescu studied at Virginia Tech from 1989 to 1994, according to Israeli media reports.

Reporting was contributed by Raymond Hernandez, from Blacksburg, Va., Isabel Kershner, from Jerusalem, and Anahad O’Connor, John Holusha and Cate Doty from New York.

    Victims of Shooting Are Remembered, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17cnd-victims.html?hp

Virginia Gunman Identified as a Student

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

The gunman who killed 32 people and himself on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute Monday was identified today as a student who lived in a dormitory on campus but kept to himself.

Law enforcement authorities said the gunman was Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a South Korean who was a resident alien in the United States and in his senior year as an English major.

Mr. Cho was described by fellow students in television interviews broadcast today as being “thorough” as he moved through the classrooms opening fire. He was wearing an outfit that resembled a boy scout and trying to push through doors that were barricaded by students.

In a photograph distributed by the police after his identity was released, Mr. Cho is shown wearing eyeglasses with close cropped hair, staring directly into the camera with little expression.

At least 15 were also injured after the two shooting attacks at the university on Monday during three hours of horror and chaos on this sprawling campus.

In a news conference today, authorities said ballistic tests showed that one of two weapons found in Norris Hall, a classroom building where most of the killing took place, had also been used in the other location, West Ambler Johnston Hall, a 900-student freshman dormitory where the first shootings took place.

Mr. Cho moved to the United States with his family as a grade school student in 1992, government officials in South Korea said.

While he had a residence established in Centreville, Va., Mr. Cho was living on campus in Harper Residence Hall. He was described as a “loner” by the university’s associate vice president, Harry Hincker, on CNN.

It was the deadliest shooting rampage in American history and came nearly eight years to the day after 13 people died at Columbine High School in Colorado at the hands of two disaffected students who then killed themselves.

The police and witnesses said some victims were executed while other students were hurt jumping from upper-story windows of the classroom building where most of the killings occurred. After the second round of killings, the gunman killed himself, the police said.

Investigators were trying to sift through what Col. W. Steve Flaherty, the state police superintendent, described as a “horrific crime scene” at Norris Hall, where the shooting had caused tremendous chaos and panic. A 9-millimeter handgun and 22-caliber handgun were recovered from the building

Personal belongings were strewn about on the second floor. Victims were found in four classrooms and a stairwell.

“We know that there were a number of heroic events took place,” he said.

Today, the university’s president, Charles W. Steger, said that the campus would host a convocation attended by President Bush later in the day. Classes have been canceled for the week to allow students to grieve. Norris Hall would be closed completely for the semester.

“I want to assure you that we are doing everything possible to move forward,” he said.

Survivors told dramatic stories of the events.

Zach Petkewicz, a student, said he barricaded a classroom door to keep the gunman out, and the gunman shot through the door.

“Me and two others got up, threw a couple of tables in front of it and had to physically hold it there while there were gunshots going on,” he said on CNN. “He came to our door and tried the handle. He couldn’t get it in because we were pushing up against it. He tried to force his way in and got the door to open up about six inches and then we just lunged at it and closed it back up. That’s when he backed up and shot twice into the middle of the door, thinking we were up against it trying to get him out.”

Mr. Petkewicz said the gunman reloaded and “kept firing down the hall.”

“He seemed very thorough about it,” said a student, Erin Sheehan, who said in an interview with CNN that she was in a classroom where the gunman opened fire, and then later tried to break his way back into the room as students inside barricaded the door.

Joseph Cacioppo, a surgeon at Montgomery Regional Hospital who treated some of the injured, said on CNN that the injuries showed that the gunman was “brutal.” None of the injured that he treated had “less than three to four wounds in them,” he said.

According to the college newspaper, The Collegiate Times, many of the deaths took place in a German class in Norris Hall.

At least 17 of the wounded were still in the hospital this morning. One of them was the girlfriend of a student, Paul Geiger, 21, who was at Montgomery Regional Hospital this morning to visit her.

“She was part of the German class that got hit,” he said of his girlfriend, who had been shot in the hand. “She helped barricade the door. For me, she is my hero.” On Monday President Bush sent his condolences to the families of the victims and the university community. “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning,” Mr. Bush said. “When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community.”

Mr. Bush has ordered flags at half-staff through Sunday at sunset.

They are going to the convocation “as representatives of the entire nation,” said Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary. “They are going to be there to express the sympathies, the support and the prayers of the country.”

A university spokeswoman, Jenn Lazenby, said the university was looking into whether two bomb threats at the campus — one last Friday, the other earlier this month — might be related to the shootings.

Questions have been raised about whether university officials had responded adequately to the shootings.

There was a two-hour gap between the first shootings, when two people were killed, and the second, when a gunman stalked through the halls of an engineering building across campus, shooting at professors and students in classrooms and hallways, firing dozens of rounds and killing 30. Officials said he then shot himself so badly in the face that he could not be identified.

The university did not send a campus wide alert until the second attack had begun, even though the gunman in the first had not been apprehended.

“We had one shooting early in the morning that initially, and we don’t know the answer to this, appeared to be a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide,” Mr. Steger said. “It was characterized by our security people as being contained to that dorm room.”

“As we were working through what we were going to do to deal with that, the message came on over the radio that another shooting across campus was taking place, and that’s when the large number of people were killed.”

Responding to criticism and suggestions that there was a delay between the first shooting and the first e-mail notifying students that something had happened, he said that the first dormitory was immediately closed down after the first incident and surrounded by security guards. Streets were cordoned off and students in the building notified about what was going on, he said.

“We also had to find witnesses because we didn’t know what had happened,” he said. Wounded people were sent to hospital and, based on the interrogation of witnesses, they thought “there was another person involved.”

The Virginia Tech attacks started early in the morning, with a call to the police at 7:15 from, as students were getting ready for classes or were on their way there.

Students said a gunman had gone room to room looking for his ex-girlfriend. He killed two people, a senior identified as Ryan Clark, from Augusta, Ga., and a freshman identified by other students on her floor as Emily Hilscher.

The shootings at the engineering building, Norris Hall, began about 9:45.

Some of the professors who were killed were named. Among them were Prof. Liviu Librescu, a Romanian Israeli who has lived in the United States for several years, and Dr. G.V. Loknathan, who was originally from India and became an American citizen after arriving in the United States in 1977.

Up until today, the deadliest campus shooting in United States history was in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire, killing 16 people before he was shot and killed by the police. In the Columbine High attack in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves.

The single deadliest shooting in the United States came in October 1991, when George Jo Hennard crashed his pickup truck through the window of a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., then shot 22 people dead and wounded at least 20 others. He shot himself in the head.

John M. Broder, Graham Bowley, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Choe Sang-hun, and Alicia C. Shepard, contributed reporting.

    Virginia Gunman Identified as a Student, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17virginia.html?hp

Va. Tech President: Gunman Was Student

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:09 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Virginia Tech's president said Tuesday that a university 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 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. The gunman struck down two people at a dormitory Monday before killing 30 more people at a campus building and finally killing 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 delay in warning students about the gunman. Some students said their first warning came more than two hours after the first shooting, in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m. By then 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.''

The slayings left people of this once-peaceful mountain town and the university at its heart praying for the victims of the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, 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 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 they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that 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 said authorities believed 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 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.'' The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

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.''

    Va. Tech President: Gunman Was Student, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Midday

Gunman was Virginia Tech student

Tuesday April 17, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Tran

The gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in America's deadliest mass shooting was a student at the university, authorities said today.

Charles Steger, the Virginia Tech president, told CNN the killer was an Asian male and "one of our own students".

Erin Sheehan, one of four survivors from a German class at Norris hall, where most of the killings took place, had earlier told the Collegiate Times website: "He 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."

Confirmation that the killer was a Virginia Tech student came as the university prepared to hold a memorial service for the 32 victims of the massacre, with authorities struggling to explain their handling of yesterday's events.

The university has already been strongly criticised over the two-hour gap between the first killings and an email alert telling students that a shooting had taken place and warning them to "be cautious".

    Gunman was Virginia Tech student, G, 17.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2059129,00.html

Students Make Connections at a Time Of Total Disconnect

Tuesday, April 17, 2007; C01
Washington Post Staff Writer
By Jose Antonio Vargas

When Jamal Albarghouti first heard the gunshots, he ran toward them.

Then he took out his cellphone.

Albarghouti, a graduate student at Virginia Tech, is "the cellphone guy" -- a 24-year-old who used the camera in his sleek, silver Nokia N70 smartphone to capture video of police rushing toward Norris Hall, the building where the shots rang out.

This is what this YouTube-Facebook-instant messaging generation does. Witness. Record. Share.

In the minute-long video, first aired on CNN.com, you can see Albarghouti's hand shake as he recorded the scene -- the wind blowing, the cops running, some 20 shots fired. At one point, to get an even better look, he tried to get closer to the building but was stopped by police.

Yes, he retreated. But he kept recording.

"I didn't think I was in danger at any point in time," said Albarghouti, who's Palestinian and originally from the West Bank. "My country is at war. Maybe I'm just used to the fact these things do happen."

Albarghouti then went on CNN.com and sent the video.

As it happens, Virginia Tech -- the school slogan reads "Invent the Future" -- is full of techies. It's home to the Blacksburg Electronic Village, a pioneering project launched in the mid-'90s that sought to link everyone in an online community. A Reader's Digest headline in 1996 called Blacksburg "The Most Wired Town in America."

The school's student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, filed up-to-the-minute online dispatches. At 4:44 p.m.: "Police have confirmed that the shooter took his own life." At 4:54 p.m.: "University Relations has confirmed 31 deaths at Norris Hall, in addition to two deaths at West Ambler Johnson."

And many Hokies, past and present, are on Facebook, the popular online directory for college and high school students. Nearly 39,000 are listed on Virginia Tech's network, putting it among the top 25 college networks on Facebook, a a spokesman for the directory said.

When Albarghouti got back to his apartment, he had about 279 new messages on his Facebook account.

"Dude, Jamal, you're crazy," wrote a friend.

Wrote another friend: "You are one brave guy Jamal! Glad you are safe!"

A stranger wrote in: "I don't know you at all, but I hope [you're] all right. . . . "

Jamal wasn't the only one getting online messages. Yesterday afternoon, student Trey Perkins was overwhelmed by IMs and Facebook messages when he returned to his apartment, still shaken with grief.

IMed a friend: "U okay?"

Another one: "Where are u? Where are u?"

And another: "Hey, hey, I just heard . . ."

Perkins, 20, was in his German class in Norris 207 when the gunman barged in at around 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a minute and half -- "some 30 shots in all," said Perkins, a sophomore from Yorktown, Va. He hit the floor and couldn't take out his cellphone. An hour later his younger brother Daniel, a senior at Tabb High School in Yorktown, heard about the shootings and text-messaged him: "Hey, what's going on," he asked. The older brother couldn't answer at the time.

"He [the shooter] knew exactly what he was doing," Perkins said. "I have no idea why he did what he decided to do. I just can't say how lucky I am to have made it."

Albarghouti, too, is unsure what the root of the tragedy was.

He just knew that the moment he heard the shots -- "bang! bang! bang!" he said -- he had to get it on his cellphone.

"How can someone do this? I can't explain. No one can explain," said Albarghouti, who's getting a master's degree in construction management. Yesterday, before the shooting started, he was on his way to meet his adviser, Anthony Songer, to work on his thesis.

The thesis is on leadership skills.

    Students Make Connections at a Time Of Total Disconnect, WP, 17.4.2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601834.html?hpid=topnews

Gunman Kills 32 at Virginia Tech In Deadliest Shooting in U.S. History

Tuesday, April 17, 2007; A01
Washington Post Staff Writers
By Ian Shapira and Tom Jackman



BLACKSBURG, Va., April 16 -- An outburst of gunfire at a Virginia Tech dormitory, followed two hours later by a ruthless string of attacks at a classroom building, killed 32 students, faculty and staff and left about 30 others injured yesterday in the deadliest shooting rampage in the nation's history.

The shooter, whose name was not released last night, wore bluejeans, a blue jacket and a vest holding ammunition, witnesses said. He carried a 9mm semiautomatic and a .22-caliber handgun, both with the serial numbers obliterated, federal law enforcement officials said. Witnesses described the shooter as a young man of Asian descent -- a silent killer who was calm and showed no expression as he pursued and shot his victims. He killed himself as police closed in.

He had left two dead at the dormitory and 30 more at a science and engineering building, where he executed people taking and teaching classes after chaining some doors shut behind him. At one point, he shot at a custodian who was helping a victim. Witnesses described scenes of chaos and grief, with students jumping from second-story windows to escape gunfire and others blocking their classroom doors to keep the gunman away.

Even before anyone knew who the gunman was or why he did what he did, the campus community in Southwest Virginia began questioning whether most of the deaths could have been prevented. They wondered why the campus was not shut down after the first shooting.

The enormity of the event brought almost immediate expressions of condolences from President Bush, both houses of Congress and across the world.

"I'm really at a loss for words to explain or to understand the carnage that has visited our campus," said Charles W. Steger, president of Virginia Tech, one of the state's largest and most prestigious universities.

The rampage began as much of the campus was just waking up. A man walked into a freshman coed dorm at 7:15 a.m. and fatally shot a young woman and a resident adviser.

Based on witness interviews, police thought it was an isolated domestic case and chose not to take any drastic campus-wide security measures, university officials said. But about 9:45 a.m., a man entered a classroom building and started walking into classrooms and shooting faculty members and students with the two handguns. Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said investigators were not certain that the same man committed both shootings. But several law enforcement sources said he did.

As police entered Norris Hall, an engineering and science building, shortly before 10 a.m., the man shot and killed himself before officers could confront him. One witness said the gunman was "around 19" and was "very serious but [with] a very calm look on his face."

"He knew exactly what he was doing," said the witness, Trey Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va. He said he watched the man enter his classroom and shoot Perkins's professor in the head. "I have no idea why he did what he decided to do. I just can't say how lucky I am to have made it."

The university canceled classes yesterday and today and set up counseling for the grief-stricken campus. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who had just arrived in Japan on a trade mission, immediately flew back to Virginia. He was expected to attend a vigil today.

"We've been devastated as the death toll has been rising," said Payton Baran, 20, of Bethesda, who is a junior majoring in finance. "I've been calling everyone I know, and everyone I talk to is pretty much in tears. It's really, really depressing."

None of the victims' names was released yesterday by officials, pending notification of their families. University officials said 15 people were injured, but spokesmen at four area hospitals said they treated 29.

Initial reports from the campus raised the specter of "another Columbine," in which two teenagers in Littleton, Colo., killed 13 people inside a high school in 1999 before killing themselves. But soon, the Virginia Tech rampage dwarfed Columbine to become the biggest shooting rampage by an individual in U.S. history.

Students and parents launched a frenzied round of phone calls and text messages yesterday morning, monitoring news reports and waiting for information. And the shootings prompted intense questioning of Steger and Flinchum from a community still reeling from the fatal shootings of a security guard and a sheriff's deputy near campus in August on the first day of classes and the arrest of the suspect on the edge of campus that day.

Although the gunman in the dorm was at large, no warning was issued to the tens of thousands of students and staff at Virginia Tech until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours later.

"We concluded it was domestic in nature," Flinchum said. "We had reason to believe the shooter had left campus and may have left the state." He declined to elaborate. But several law enforcement sources said investigators thought the shooter might have intended to kill a girl and her boyfriend Monday in what one of them described as a "lover's dispute." It was unclear whether the girl killed at the dorm was the intended target, they said.

The sources said police initially focused on the female student's boyfriend, a student at nearby Radford University, as a suspect. Police questioned the boyfriend, later termed "a person of interest," and were questioning him when they learned of the subsequent shootings at Norris Hall. A family friend of the boyfriend's said the boyfriend was stopped by police alongside Route 460 in Blacksburg, handcuffed and interrogated on the side of the road and later released.

Students who lived in the dorm said they received knocks on the door telling them to stay in their rooms but nothing else. Shortly before 9:30 a.m., the university sent out this e-mail: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston [dorm] earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.

"The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case."

Steger said that, even though the gunman was at large, "we had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur." He said only a fraction of the university's 28,000 students live on campus, and "it's extremely difficult if not impossible to get the word out spontaneously."

Students on campus and parents were angry. When Blake Harrison, 21, of Leesburg learned of the shootings, he said, he called an administrative help line and was told "to proceed with caution to classes." He said: "I'm beyond upset. I'm enraged."

Yesterday, as officials began to sort out the shootings, tales of the horror began to emerge.

Alec Calhoun, a junior, was in Room 204 in Norris. When the shootings began, people suddenly pulled off screens and pushed out windows. "Then people started jumping," he said. "I didn't just leap. I hung from the ledge and dropped. Anybody who made it out was fine. I fell and I hit a bush to cushion my fall. It knocked the wind out of me. I don't remember running."

About 9:50 a.m., Jamal Albarghouti was walking toward Norris Hall for a meeting with his adviser in civil engineering "to review my thesis. As I was walking, about 300 feet away, I started hearing people shouting, telling me to run or [get] clear."

He started to move away, but he also pulled out his cellphone, which has videorecording capability, and he began filming. His video, which he later shipped to CNN, captures officers running toward the brown three-story building, a couple of flashes from the second floor and 27 gunshots.

The video soon became the defining image of the rampage. "I just didn't think I was in great danger," Albarghouti said later.

In a German class in Room 207, Perkins was seated in the back with about 15 fellow students. The gunman barged in with two guns, shot the professor in the head, then started shooting students, Perkins said.

Panic ensued, he said. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."

The gunman left Room 207 and tried to return several minutes later, but Perkins and two other students had blocked the door with their feet. He shot through the door.

The last time anyone spoke with Kristina Heeger, she was headed for a 9 a.m. French class in Norris. Within an hour, the sophomore from Vienna had been shot in the back. But she survived.

It was a story that played out across campus, and far beyond, with so many wounded, so many dead. "She's doing better," said a friend, Eric Anderson, last night after seeing her. "She's recovering. We're praying for her right now. She couldn't talk to them yet, or anyone, and they didn't know any details about what happened."

Tucker Armstrong, 19, a freshman from Stephens City, Va., passed by Norris as he headed to a 10 a.m. class. He said in an e-mail that he "noticed several kids hanging and jumping from the second floor windows trying to land in bushes."

Armstrong said he heard repeated bangs. He went to help the people who had leapt from the building, but they yelled at him: " 'Get out of here, run!' At that point I realized they were shots and they just kept going and going."

Police and ambulances poured into the area. Dustin Lynch, 19, a sophomore from Churchville, Md., watched from the nearby Drillfield as unresponsive students were carried out of Norris Hall. "I saw police officers literally carrying kids out," Lynch said. "It basically looked like they were carrying bodies."

Parents arrived at the Inn at Virginia Tech to meet with other grieving families and were distraught at the university's management of the incident. "I think they should have closed the whole thing. It's not worth it. You've got a crazy man on campus. Do something about it," said Hoda Bizri of Princeton, W.Va., who was visiting her daughter Siwar, a graduate student.

Brett Hudner, 23, communications major from Vienna, was heading toward one of the dining halls and suddenly a scrum of police cars raced by. "The scary thing is I know I'm going to go into classes, and there's going to be empty spaces," Hudner said.

The Bizris, meanwhile, were waiting for news about a friend whom they could not locate. They think she was inside Norris Hall.

Jackman reported from Washington.

    Gunman Kills 32 at Virginia Tech In Deadliest Shooting in U.S. History, WP, 17.4.2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600533.html?nav=hcmodule

Statement from the NRA

The National Rifle Association joins the entire country in expressing our deepest condolences to the families of Virginia Tech University and everyone else affected by this horrible tragedy.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

We will not have further comment until all the facts are known.

Andrew Arulanandam
Director of Public Affairs
National Rifle Association

    Statement from the NRA, NRA, copié 17.4.2007, http://www.nra.org/Article.aspx?id=8442

President Bush Shocked, Saddened by Shootings at Virginia Tech

Diplomatic Reception Room

For Immediate Release
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
April 16, 2007

4:01 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Our nation is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech today. The exact total has not yet been confirmed, but it appears that more than 30 people were killed and many more were wounded.

I've spoken with Governor Tim Kaine and Virginia Tech President Charles Steger. I told them that Laura and I and many across our nation are praying for the victims and their families and all the members of the university community who have been devastated by this terrible tragedy. I told them that my administration would do everything possible to assist with the investigation, and that I pledged that we would stand ready to help local law enforcement and the local community in any way we can during this time of sorrow.


Schools should be places of safety and sanctuary and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community.

Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech. We hold the victims in our hearts, we lift them up in our prayers, and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today.

Thank you.

END 4:03 P.M. EDT

    President Bush Shocked, Saddened by Shootings at Virginia Tech, The White House, 16.4.2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070416-2.html

Hokie nation stunned by carnage on campus

April 17, 2007
By MATTHEW BOWERS, The Virginian-Pilot
Last updated: 12:48 AM


Shante Beeson, a freshman who lives on campus, hugs her father, Phil, on Monday as they reunite after the shootings in Blacksburg. Kim Raff/Associated Press

Web helps console
ODU reaction / Counseling


Geology test completed, Chris Sherman was walking across the Drillfield at Virginia Tech on Monday morning when he heard two bangs.

The freshman from Virginia Beach looked up to see his roommate "running at me, yelling, 'They're shots! They're shots! They're telling people to get down!' "

Sirens wailed. Police cars flew across the campus.

The pair hustled back to their dorm room, slid a dresser and television in front of their door and watched the school's nightmare unfold on the news.

Monday's shooting deaths of 33 people - including the gunman - on the rural Blacksburg campus of more than 2 5,000 hit hard in South Hampton Roads, home to about 1,200 of its students and more than 6,000 alumni.

Phone lines jammed and e-mails flew as students and their frantic parents tried to reach each other.

Sharon Smith of Virginia Beach learned about the shootings when her terrified daughter, Debbie, a freshman, buzzed her cell phone.

"At first she was just screaming into the phone," Sharon Smith said.

She said her daughter remained afraid hours later, staying close to others.

"What's going to get them through this is their friendships," Smith said.

Relief was tempered by sadness for other's losses.

"At first I was more in shock," said Janet Grieves of Chesapeake, whose son Jason is a junior at Virginia Tech. "Once I was sure he was OK, my heart just broke for those families who can't get in touch with their children."

Names of the victims were not released Monday.

"That's the scary thing - there are so many kids from this area that go to that school," said Beth Beach of Norfolk. Her freshman son, Aubrey, was safe. And she believes the campus is safe, too.

"I think this could happen anywhere," she said.

Still, shock was the common response.

"As the death toll kept going up, you could hear the silence coming over Blacksburg," said Malissa Bradshaw, a student from Isle of Wight County.

"The feeling is almost like someone just walked into your own home and did this," said Annie Rosso, a 2003 graduate from Virginia Beach who quickly heard from her brother, Nathan, a Tech senior.

Stephanie Sullivan, a sophomore from Chesapeake, and some friends planned to come home today, said her father, William Sullivan of Chesapeake. Jessica Skeeter, a freshman from Chesapeake, also was thinking about leaving the somber campus, even though she says she didn't know anyone involved in the shootings.

"I'm devastated," she said. "This came out of nowhere. I guess it proves there can be lunatics running around anywhere, even in little towns like Blacksburg."

Sophomore Renee Bond became emotional describing how she alternated between calling to check on friends and talking to her family in Virginia Beach.

"It's absolutely terrible," she said. "I guess the next couple of days are just going to get harder, as you find out who... got hurt and who got killed.... You hope it's not someone you know."

Michelle Silva, a junior from Chesapeake, spent her 21st birthday Monday loaning her cell phone to students hunkered down in their off-campus apartment building.

"I don't think campus will be the same for a while," she said.

"It's just crazy," said Ryan Adcock, a freshman from Virginia Beach. "It's unbelievable. I don't think it's really sunk in for a lot of people."

By late Monday, shaken Tech students complained about poor communication in the hours between the two shootings, in a dorm and in a classroom building across campus.

"We didn't know we were heading into a danger zone," said John Bryant, a sophomore from Windsor who said he walked by the classroom shooting site, saw police, heard five gunshots "and everyone started to panic and scatter."

Chris Jennings of Chesapeake, president of the Tidewater chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, said he was "just sick. Numb."

"You naturally want to ask the question, how could something like this happen? But we live in a sick world, and this really brings it home.... This one went right to the heart of every Hokie in Hokie Nation."


Staff writers Tom Holden, Christina Nuckols, Janette Rodrigues, Matthew Roy and Carolyn Shapiro contributed to this report.

    Hokie nation stunned by carnage on campus, VPil, 17.4.2007, http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=123020&ran=2202&tref=po
 

Questions remain after worst U.S. shooting rampage

Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:33AM EDT
Reuters
By Patricia Zengerle and Andrea Hopkins

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 away at Norris Hall, site of the science and engineering school.

Witnesses said the killer was a black-clad Asian male, about 6 feet 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.

    Questions remain after worst U.S. shooting rampage, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1631133620070417?&src=041707_0622_TOPSTORY_questions_begin

Fear of U.S.-style massacre resonates in Asia

Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:02AM EDT
Reuters
By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The U.S. shooting massacre in Virginia resonated across Asia on Tuesday with Australia rejecting the negative "gun culture" in America and the anti-gun lobby in the Philippines saying it feared similar carnage.

Prime Minister John Howard said tough Australian gun laws introduced after a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996 had prevented the U.S. gun culture emerging in his country.

In contrast the anti-gun lobby in the Philippines, nicknamed "The Wild West of Asia" because of the public's love affair with firearms, fears a U.S.-style massacre.

China, meanwhile, faces a growing problem of home-made guns, particularly amongst its rural poor.

In 1996 a gunman with a semi-automatic rifle killed 35 people at Port Arthur in Australia's worst modern-day shooting massacre.

The horror of that day prompted Howard to confront Australia's gun lobby and impose 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 32 people killed at Virginia Tech university on Monday at the hands of what he described as "a crazed gunman".

Canberra spent A$300 million ($250 million) buying more than 600,000 weapons from farmers, hunters and other members of the public before the new laws took effect.

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.

Australia's small Greens party called on Tuesday for a further review of the nation's gun control laws, saying the Virginia shooting involved a multiple-shot pistol and there were an estimated 250,000 handguns in Australia.

"We Greens are saying let's remove the potential, as far as we can, for a repeat massacre by somebody wielding a multiple-shot handgun," Greens Senator Bob Brown told reporters.

"ASIA'S WILD WEST"

Nandy Pacheco, head of the Philippines anti-gun lobby, Gunless Society, said he feared a U.S-style massacre 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.

The Philippines has not suffered a school massacre but last month two men, armed with a submachine gun, a revolver and two grenades, held dozens of children hostage to highlight inequalities in the education system.

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".

Six journalists were murdered last year in the Philippines, one of the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters.

"I have a .40 calibre gun with me for protection," said Joel Egco, president of the Association of Responsible Media, a club of journalists who own guns for protection.

Gun crime is not common in China where firearms traditionally have been hard to obtain and people who illegally trade or make them can be sentenced to death. But a crackdown last year saw seizure of more than 100,000 guns and 3 million bullets.

In 2003, two people from the remote western province of Qinghai received long sentences after being found to have made over 100 guns and 500 bullets, which they had planned to sell.

Police have previously blamed poverty in places like Qinghai for helping fuel the boom in home-made guns, which can sell for more than twice the average monthly income.

In contrast, Singapore has strict anti-gun laws. Anyone caught with firearms could be jailed for up to 10 years and receive up to six strokes of the cane. Anyone found trafficking guns could be sentenced to death or jailed for life.

($1=A$1.20)

    Fear of U.S.-style massacre resonates in Asia, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSYD24612820070417

FACTBOX: Shootings at U.S. schools, universities

Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:15AM EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - At least 33 people were killed and 15 others were wounded at Virginia Tech University on Monday in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history.

Until Monday's rampage, the worst school shooting incident in the United States was at the University of Texas campus in Austin on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman went to the top of a tower and opened fire. He killed 15 people, including his mother and wife the night before, and wounded 31 others.

Here is a chronology of some of the major shootings inside U.S. schools and universities in more recent years:

* March 1998 - At Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys aged 13 and 11 set off the fire alarm and killed four students and a teacher as they left the school.

* April 1999 - Two student gunmen killed 12 other students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves.

* January 2002 - A student who had been dismissed from the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, killed the dean, a professor and a student, and wounded three others.

* October 2002 - A failing student out for vengeance opened fire inside the University of Arizona's School of Nursing in an attack that claimed the life of three of his professors, then he turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.

* March 2005 - A 16-year-old high school student gunned down five students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in far northern Minnesota before killing himself. He also killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion elsewhere on the Chippewa Indian reservation.

* September 27, 2006 - A drifter took six female high school students hostage in Bailey, Colorado, molested them and then shot one to death and killed himself as police closed in.

* September 29, 2006 - A 15-year-old student killed his school's principal in western Wisconsin after telling another student "you better run."

* October 2, 2006 - Charles Carl Roberts, a local milk truck driver, entered the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania and shot 10 girls aged 6 to 14 before killing himself. Five girls died.

    FACTBOX: Shootings at U.S. schools, universities, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1631557220070417

FACTBOX: Major shootings inside schools or universities

Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:33AM EDT
Reuters

(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.

Here are some details of some of the major shootings inside schools and universities around the world in recent years:

March 1996 - BRITAIN - A gunman burst into a primary school in Dunblane in Scotland and shot dead 16 children and their teacher before killing himself.

March 1997 - YEMEN - A man with an assault rifle attacked hundreds of pupils at two schools in Sanaa, killing six children and two others. He was sentenced to death the next day.

March 1998 - USA - At Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys aged 13 and 11 set off the fire alarm and killed four students and a teacher as they left the school.

May 1998 - USA - In Springfield, Oregon, a student opened fire in Thurston High School, killing two students and injuring 22. The boy's parents were later found slain in their home.

April 1999 - USA - Two student gunmen killed 12 other students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves.

June 2001 - JAPAN - Mamoru Takuma, armed with a kitchen knife, entered the Ikeda Elementary School near Osaka and killed eight children. Takuma was executed in September 2004.

January 2002 - USA - A student who had been dismissed from the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, killed the dean, a professor and a student, and wounded three others.

February 2002 - GERMANY - In Freising, in Bavaria, a former student thrown out of trade school shot three people before killing himself. Another teacher was injured.

April 26, 2002 - GERMANY - In Erfurt, eastern Germany, a gunman opened fire after he said he was not going to take a maths test . A total of 18 people died, including the assailant.

September 1, 2004 - RUSSIA - 333 hostages - at least 186 of them children - died in a chaotic storming of School No.1 in Beslan, after it was seized by rebels demanding Chechen independence.

March 21, 2005 - USA - A 16-year-old high school student shot dead five students a teacher, and a security guard at the same school at Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation. He had also killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion elsewhere on the reservation.

September 13, 2006 - CANADA - Kimveer Gill opened fire on the street and inside the college in Montreal's Dawson College killing one student and injured 19 others. Gill killed himself after a battle with police.

October 2, 2006 - USA - Charles Carl Roberts, a dairy truck driver with a grudge, attacked a one-room Amish school in rural Pennsylvania, shot ten girls, killing five of them, before killing himself.

November 20, 2006 - GERMANY - An 18-year old former pupil opened fire after storming the Scholl school in the town of Emsdetten. Eleven people were wounded before he committed suicide.

April 16, 2007 - USA - A gunmen attacked and killed 32 people wounding 15 others at Virginia Tech University in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history.

    FACTBOX: Major shootings inside schools or universities, R, 17.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1631515020070417?src=041707_0622_TOPSTORY_questions_begin

Windy day turns to nightmare at rural campus

Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:11PM EDT
Reuters
By Patricia Zengerle

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - For the thousands of students on this sprawling campus in rural southwestern Virginia, the worst threats early on Monday seemed to be an unusual bout of blustery weather and looming final exams.

"I was going over to grab something to eat," said Aimee Fausser, an 18-year-old international studies student, describing her morning routine. "I saw police cars and I thought, 'Oh, strange,' but then that it could have been anything, so I headed over to my class anyway.

"Which in retrospect was a bad idea," the Springfield, Virginia, native added, describing how a few police cruisers suddenly became dozens, screaming around corners at high speed.

Fausser's mother called her, told her there had been a shooting, and advised her to get inside as quickly as possible.

Across campus, Nick Vozza, was being told to get outside, and finding that he couldn't.

Vozza, a 20-year-old aerospace and engineering major, was working on a laboratory exercise in an engineering building, Norris Hall, with another student and a professor, when building janitors came racing through, shouting at everyone to get out.

"Everybody tried to get out of the building but all the doors were locked," he said. "We couldn't get out. It was me, and my partner and the professor.

"So they told us to get down and we did but finally the police squads busted down the door and escorted us out."

On the floors above him, a gunman opened fire on faculty and students in corridors and classrooms. The shooting rampage killed 32 people and injured at least 15 others.

Vozza saw a professor who had been shot in the arm. He also described how a friend, who had been on the same floor as the gunman, jumped from a second-story window to escape, injuring his leg and ending up in a hospital.

Hours after the massacre, police still blocked some roads into the campus. Pathways usually clogged with sports fans -- Virginia Tech's football team, the Hokies, is a perennial championship contender -- were jammed with hordes of reporters, worried family members and angry and frightened students.

"It just seems really, really surreal," said Fausser. "A lot of people were just told to leave and to run ... For a lot of people it hasn't set in."

Vozza said he was grieving for the dead students and staff, but was furious that a single person with a weapon could kill so many people and cause such mayhem on the campus.

"I'm more angry, to tell the truth," he said.

Matthew Moore feared the worst as he headed to a campus center where counselors were meeting with victims' family members. Moore had spent the weekend at his home in Kenbridge, Virginia and had not heard from his roommate all day.

"He wasn't in the apartment," said Moore, hastily adding that his roommate is often away. "We don't have any reason to speculate that anything might have happened to him but we thought we should come to find out."

Then his mobile phone rang and he walked away from a crowd of reporters to answer it, bowing his head and turning away.

    Windy day turns to nightmare at rural campus, R, 16.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1636354020070417

Students describe mayhem during rampage

Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:16PM EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virginia Tech students described the mayhem on campus on Monday and criticized officials for not shutting the university down quickly enough after 33 people were killed including a gunman.

* Andrew Gisch, a second-year student, was walking across a quadrangle listening to his iPod when he heard "a big bang."

"I recognized the sound of gunfire but was mostly confused .... I looked around at the other students on the drillfield, most of them confused like myself....it clicked in everyone's head immediately the sound we heard was a gun shot and everyone started running. I went back to the dorm, locked the door, and turned on the news."

* Daniel Smith said he was aware of shootings at other schools but he never thought it could happen at this university.

"It hits you in the heart. It's more of a shock to me because I'm an engineering major and when that list (victims' names) comes out, I know I'm going to see some friends on there and its scaring me inside right now."

* Jason Piatt criticized the way university officials reacted after the first shooting.

"I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it had no mention of locking down the campus, no mention of canceling classes," Piatt told CNN.

"They just mentioned that they were investigating a shooting," he said. "That's pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, while they sent out that e-mail, 21 people got killed."

* Matt Waldron, a student and football player, said one of the many calls of concern he had received was from Iraq.

"He's a friend that called from Iraq and was putting out his concerns to everybody over here. He's a soldier over there, and was just wondering and making sure everybody's OK," Waldron told CNN.

* Justin Merrifield said he noticed four police cars and a girl crying in front of West Ambler Johnston Hall, the dormitory where the first shooting occurred, at about 9 a.m. But he did not realize the magnitude of the crisis until he arrived at his 10 a.m. class.

"We were inside the classroom maybe five or 10 minutes and our teacher never showed up," said Merrifield, 21, a senior majoring in animal science. "Somebody came in and said the place is on lock-down. And when the teacher never showed up and we found out we were on lock-down, we all took off running."

Students were alerted by announcements over campus loudspeakers, he said.

"There was a voice that just kept repeating, 'Gunman on campus, stay indoors, get away from windows,' over and over, basically," said Merrifield.

((Writing by Philip Barbara; editing by Chris Wilson; World Desk Washington 703-898-8457)

    Students describe mayhem during rampage, R, 16.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1635192020070416


 

Some students stunned by school's response

16.4.2007
USA TODAY
By Gary Strauss, Blake Morrison and Monica Hortobagyi

BLACKSBURG, Va. — By the time most Virginia Tech students first learned of an early morning shooting in a campus dorm Monday, Derek O'Dell was crouching beneath his desk, bleeding from his arm and watching his classmates fall to the floor in a barrage of bullets.

More than two hours had passed since two people had been killed in the West Ambler Johnston dorm, but it wasn't until 9:26 a.m. — about the time a gunman entered O'Dell's German class in Norris Hall and began shooting — that students were told via e-mail of the first shootings and warned to "be cautious."

For dozens of students — including O'Dell, the school's intramural chess champ — the warning came too late. Virginia Tech became the scene of the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history — one that left 33 people dead, at least 15 others injured and some shaken students questioning whether school officials could have done more to stop the carnage.

Some said administrators should have canceled classes after the 7:15 a.m. shooting that left two people dead. Others wondered why officials didn't move more quickly to warn students about the potential danger — at least until authorities caught the shooter.

"I'm still in a state of disbelief about this," said Justin Shaw, 20, a business major. "We have a strong sense of pride in this school. We all thought it was a safe place and I think we still do. … But why didn't they cancel classes right after the first shooting?"

Instead, campus police simply locked down the West Ambler Johnston dorm, where a gunman killed two people on the fourth floor.

Campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said later that police believed the slayings were a "domestic incident" and that authorities thought the gunman had left campus, perhaps even the state.

By Monday evening, Flinchum — under a barrage of questions from reporters about officials' actions after the first shooting — said police had identified a "person of interest" in the first shooting. But the man did not turn out to be the gunman who killed himself after slaying 30 others in Norris Hall.

Flinchum also acknowledged another possibility: that the same gunman had struck both buildings, and that authorities simply had been pursuing the wrong man after the first shooting.

The confusion over the shootings and the reaction of Virginia Tech officials fueled tension on campus throughout the day that university President Charles Steger sought to ease during a news conference last night.

Steger said many of Virginia Tech's more than 25,000 students already were headed to campus or to classes when the first shootings occurred, and that notifying them immediately about the incident would have been difficult and impractical.

"We did as well as we could," Steger said. After the first shootings, "we had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur."

For O'Dell, 20, and other students trapped in Norris Hall two hours after the first shooting, that assumption proved tragic.

When the gunman stopped at O'Dell's class, he said nothing, O'Dell recalled in an interview. O'Dell described the gunman as Asian, about 6 feet tall, wearing a maroon cap and a black jacket.

The shooter, carrying a handgun, emptied two cartridges in O'Dell's class, shooting several students before moving on to another classroom in Norris, O'Dell said. That's when a wounded O'Dell hurried to shut the wooden door, pushing his foot against it.

He recalled peeling off his brown leather belt and wrapping it around his right arm to stanch the bleeding. Then, O'Dell recalled, he pulled it tight with his mouth and called 911 on his cellphone.

Police arrived moments later, O'Dell said, but not before the gunman had fired five or six more shots into the door after returning and being unable to push it open.

"I just wanted to get out of there," O'Dell recalled. "I was worried about him coming back and killing the rest of us."

Can't 'lock down' entire campus'

Not everyone faulted the university's response.

Edmund Henneke, an associate dean of engineering who was in Norris Hall when the second round of shootings occurred, said criticism of the school's handling of the incidents was unfair.

"We have a huge campus," he said. "You have to close down a small town and you can't close down every way in or out."

Warren Cook, head of Warren F. Cook and Associates, a criminal justice consulting firm in Portland, Ore., said that "it's hard to second guess these things. … If they have an isolated incident in one of the dormitories like they thought they did in the morning, I don't know that it would be appropriate to throw the whole campus in a lockdown situation."

And Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, said lockdowns of any sort, even at elementary schools, are "challenging."

"When you talk about a college or university that sprawls across multiple acres with dozens of buildings … it is extremely difficult to envision how anyone could successfully lock down an entire campus," Trump said.

At Monday night's news conference, Police Chief Flinchum said that officials "acted on the best information we had at the time … A lockdown or shutdown doesn't happen in seconds."

But students and teachers, some in Norris Hall and others who arrived on campus around the time of the second shooting said they wished authorities had erred on the side of caution. They describe a campus in chaos and a university that responded only after the fact.

The first campuswide e-mail notifying students of the initial shooting was sent at 9:26 a.m.

It said that a shooting had occurred at the seven-story West Ambler Johnston dorm, which houses about 900 students. It told them to "be cautious" and to contact campus police if they saw anything suspicious.

Then, at 9:50 a.m. — after the assault on Norris Hall — there was another e-mail to students from Virginia Tech's administration, this one more urgent.

"Please stay put," it read. "A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from windows."

Chained doors, bomb threat

Matt Meroney, a junior studying civil engineering, hadn't seen the e-mails and said he was driving toward campus about 10 a.m. when strangers stopped him. He said they told him of the shootings and warned him to turn back.

Meroney parked his car and called the school's information line.

"I say to them, 'I hear everybody's getting shot, is class canceled?' And the lady tells me, 'All I can say is proceed cautiously.' Proceed cautiously? Meaning what? Avoid 9mm bullets?"

Meroney said he kept walking toward class and saw "a dude with a bloody abdomen. Then I see a police SUV flying down the road toward him and before the car has screeched to a halt, the cops grab him and throw him in the back and peel away, I guess toward the hospital.

"Virginia Tech did a terrible job of dealing with this," Meroney said.

Inside Norris Hall, the situation was even more confusing. Janis Terpenny, an associate professor of engineering, said she was in the dean's office on the third floor when they heard gunshots.

On one door, Terpenny said she saw a note "that said there was a bomb and not to open the doors."

She said the note was on white notebook paper, and the writing was so "scratchy" that it was either intentionally disguised for written by someone with very poor handwriting.

"Having gone through two bomb scares" on campus recently, she said, she did not take the note seriously and opened the door.

Then she saw another door that was chained from the inside. She said they went back to the dean's office and waited until a SWAT unit came and took them downstairs. Then they left the building through an outside door and ran to nearby Randolph Hall, where she said police locked them inside.

'There really is a shooter'

David Jenkins, a junior mechanical engineering major at Virginia Tech, was 40 minutes into his mechanical design class when he heard screams in the first-floor hallway of Randolph.

"When I went into the hall and some guy had just been shot in the arm" and had run into Randolph, he said. "That's when it went through my mind that this is real, and that there really is a shooter on campus. It was just kind of crazy to see someone actually shot. I was confused and didn't know what was going on. Then I was scared."

Andrew Rogers, a freshman from Scarborough, Mass., said he also was in class in Randolph Hall when the shots were fired.

"We heard police officers shouting" for the students to barricade themselves inside their classroom.

At 10:52, students received another e-mail from school administrators. This one told them of a second shooting "with multiple victims." It said police and EMS are on the scene.

"All people in university buildings are required to stay inside until further notice," the e-mail read. "All entrances to campus are closed."

    Some students stunned by school's response, UT, 16.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-16-virginia-tech-cover_N.htm

Tab (Thomas Boldt)

The Calgary Sun, Alberta, Canada        Cagle        17 April 2007

33 dead in Va. Tech shootings

16.4.2007
By USA TODAY staff

BLACKSBURG, Va. — In the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, at least 33 people were killed in two separate attacks Monday at Virginia Tech, with 31 — including the suspected gunman — dying in one campus building, police and university officials said.

Two people were killed in the first shooting about 7:15 a.m. ET at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a coed dorm at the university in southwestern Virginia. Police said 31 people, including the suspected gunman, died in the second attack more than two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building. The suspected gunman killed himself, police said.

"I am really at a loss to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus," university President Charles Steger said.

At least 15 people were injured in the shootings.

Police were cautious about linking the two shootings pending further investigation. They said only that a male gunman was involved in the second shootings, but that he carried no identification papers.

Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said he office had "a preliminary identification" of the suspected gunman. He repeatedly declined Monday to say whether the same person was suspected of both shootings.

"I'm not saying there's someone out there. I'm not saying there's not," he said Monday night. "There's a lot of work to be done."

Flinchum said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was conducting ballistics tests to determine if the same weapons were used in both shootings. He would not say how many weapons the gunman carried.

But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, told the Associated Press that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.

Flinchum said that some doors in the classroom building had been chained shut from the inside.

Derek O'Dell, 20, a biology major from Roanoke, said the gunman entered his classroom at Norris Hall, opened fire with a handgun, then calmly reloaded and fired another eight or 10 rounds.

O'Dell said he was injured in the upper arm during the melee. Montgomery Regional Hospital confirmed that O'Dell was listed among those treated for injuries.

O'Dell said he was in a German class with about 15 other students and a professor about 9:30 a.m. when the gunmen burst into the room. He said everyone dived for cover. About 12 people in the room were shot, he said.

After the gunman left, O'Dell said, he and others barricaded the door. They continued to hear shots echoing down the corridor. At one point, O'Dell said, the gunman returned to the door and fired at it, but did not get through again.

"It was all crazy," O'Dell said. "I didn't think it was real. It was like a dream or something. You're scared for your life, but I didn't realize I'd been shot until afterward."

The gunman, O'Dell said, never said a word. "It just seemed totally random," he said.

Janis Terpenny, an associate engineering professor, said she was in the dean's office on the third floor in Norris Hall when she heard gunshots. She tried to leave through a second-floor doorway but the doors were padlocked with chains, she said.

She went back to the engineering dean's office, where a SWAT unit came in and took her downstairs to a below-ground classroom, she said. She left the building through an outside door and ran to nearby Randolph Hall, where she said police locked people inside.

"You've just got to think that this guy didn't want anybody to get out and he just wanted to take out as many people as he could," Terpenny said.

Shari Mueller, an assistant to the director of news and external relations for Virginia Tech's college of engineering, said she was with a group of people who came across the padlocked doors when they tried to flee Norris Hall. The group remembered that an auditorium was being renovated on the first floor and went there to exit the building.

"As we got to the outside, there were three policemen or somebody — SWAT team guys — yelling and screaming at us to run, run, run as fast as we could," she said.

"We managed to get across the parking lot. Snow was flying, bullets were flying — it was insane."

It was the second time this academic year that violence had struck the 25,000-student university. 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 alleged gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. It is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse football team and has the state's largest full-time student population.

President Bush offered his condolences in a brief, televised address. "We hold the victims in our hearts, we lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today," Bush said. He pledged the assistance of the federal government in the investigation.

"It is difficult to comprehend senseless violence on this scale," Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said in a statement. "Our prayers are with the families and friends of these victims and members of the extended Virginia Tech community." He was returning from a trip to Tokyo today to attend a memorial service for the victims.

Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard drove his pickup into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death before killing himself. Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history occurred in 1966, when Charles Whitman opened fire from the 28th-floor clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

In the Columbine High School shootings near Littleton, Colo., in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Monday, students complained that there were no public-address announcements or other warnings on campus after the first burst of gunfire. They said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours after the dorm shootings — near the time of the second attack.

Steger defended the university's handling of the day's events, saying: "We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

He said authorities at first believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and that the gunman had fled the campus.

"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.

According to several students, the university first alerted them by e-mail at 9:26 a.m. about a "shooting incident" at the dorm. The e-mail said police were investigating the report.

At 9:50 a.m., after the second shootings had begun, the university sent out a second, more explicit warning:

"A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows."

As the eerie scene unfolded, heavily armed police, wearing helmets and black flak jackets, sprinted around campus against a backdrop of budding trees while an unseasonable snow shower fluttered around them.

Witnesses reported students jumping out windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances.

Among Monday's dead was Ryan Clark, a student from Martinez, Ga., with several majors who carried a 4.0 grade-point average, said Vernon Collins, coroner in Columbia County, Ga.

At a hastily arranged service Monday night at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Susan Verbrugge gazed out at about 150 bowed heads.

"Death has come trundling into our life, a sudden and save entity laying waste to our hearts and making desolate our minds," Verbrugge said during a prayer. "We need now the consolation only you can give."

After the service, Clark's friend Gregory Walton, a 25-year-old who graduated last year, said he feared his 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."

Contributing: USA TODAY's Douglas Stanglin, Mark Memmott, Wendy Koch, Del Jones, George Petras and Randy Lilleston; Brad Zinn of the (Staunton, Va.) Daily News Leader ; the Associated Press.

    33 dead in Va. Tech shootings, UT, 16.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-16-virginia-tech_N.htm

World reacts to Va. campus massacre

17.4.2007
USA Today

NEW DELHI (AP) — Families in India and Israel on Tuesday mourned two professors among the 32 people killed in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, while some world leaders blamed U.S. gun culture for the killings.

A gunman massacred 32 people in Blacksburg, Va., in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday, cutting down his victims in two attacks before turning the gun on himself.

Liviu Librescu, 75, an engineering science and mathematics lecturer tried to stop the gunman from entering his classroom by blocking the door before he was fatally shot, his son said Tuesday from Tel Aviv, Israel.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

Librescu immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978 and then moved to Virginia in 1985 for his sabbatical, but had stayed since then, said Joe Librescu, who himself studied at the school from 1989 to 1994.

Another foreign professor was also killed.

Indian-born G.V. Loganathan, 51, a lecturer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was shot and killed by the gunman, his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Palanivel said he was informed by Loganathan's wife who had identified the body.

"We all feel like we have had an electric shock, we do not know what to do," Palanivel said. "He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force."

Loganathan, who was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai, had been at Virginia Tech since 1982.

Also, the CNN-IBN news channel reported that an Indian student from Mumbai was missing after the shooting.

Indian officials said they were trying to assist the families and determine how many Indian students were involved.

"We are in touch with our embassy (in Washington). Our consular offices are in touch with the dean of students and also with the Indian Students Association," said Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna.

"Consular officials will be traveling to the site this morning," he said.

The shootings, which dominated media reports in many countries, drew widespread condemnation.

In London, Buckingham Palace issued a statement on Monday saying: "The Queen was shocked and saddened to hear of the news of the shooting in Virginia."

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, are scheduled to visit Virginia May 3-4.

However, there was also harsh condemnation for U.S. gun control laws.

In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday the university shooting in Virginia showed that America's "gun culture" was a negative force in society.

Howard, who staked his political leadership on pushing through tough laws on gun ownership in Australia after a lone gunman went on one of the world's deadliest killing sprees 11 years ago in his country, said the Virginia university shooting was a tragedy of a kind he hoped would never be seen again in Australia.

"You can never guarantee these things won't happen again in our country," Howard told reporters.

"We had a terrible incident at Port Arthur, but it is the case that 11 years ago we took action to limit the availability of guns and 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," he said.

He offered his sympathies to the victims of the Virginia shooting and their families.

In India, which has some 80,000 students in the U.S., commentators called for greater protection and stricter gun laws.

"It's not a question of an Indian professor getting killed in the firing. This is related to the American gun laws," said K. Subrahmanyam, a former member of India's National Security Council.

"We can't do anything about it. It is something which has happened in the United States. They have got to change the law."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    World reacts to Va. campus massacre, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-virginia-tech-world_N.htm

‘Horror and Disbelief’ at Virginia Tech

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 16 — Thirty-two people were killed, along with a gunman, and at least 15 injured in two shooting attacks at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on Monday during three hours of horror and chaos on this sprawling campus.

The police and witnesses said some victims were executed with handguns while other students were hurt jumping from upper-story windows of the classroom building where most of the killings occurred. After the second round of killings, the gunman killed himself, the police said.

It was the deadliest shooting rampage in American history and came nearly eight years to the day after 13 people died at Columbine High School in Colorado at the hands of two disaffected students who then killed themselves.

As of Monday evening, only one of the Virginia Tech victims had been officially identified. Police officials said they were not yet ready to identify the gunman or even say whether one person was behind both attacks, which wreaked devastation on this campus of 36,000 students, faculty members and staff.

Federal law enforcement officials in Washington said the gunman might have been a young Asian man who recently arrived in the United States. A university spokeswoman, Jenn Lazenby, could not confirm that report but said the university was looking into whether two bomb threats at the campus, — one last Friday, the other earlier this month — might be related to the shootings.

The university’s president, Charles W. Steger, expressed his “horror and disbelief and sorrow” at what he described as a tragedy of monumental proportions. But questions were immediately raised about whether university officials had responded adequately to the shootings.

There was a two-hour gap between the first shootings, when two people were killed, and the second, when a gunman stalked through the halls of an engineering building across campus, shooting at professors and students in classrooms and hallways, firing dozens of rounds and killing 30. Officials said he then shot himself so badly in the face that he could not be identified.

The university did not send a campuswide alert until the second attack had begun, even though the gunman in the first had not been apprehended.

Mr. Steger defended the decision not to shut down or evacuate the campus after the first shootings, saying officials had believed the first attack was a self-contained event, which the campus police believed was a “domestic” dispute.

“We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,” he said.

President Bush sent his condolences to the families of the victims and the university community. “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning,” Mr. Bush said. “When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community.”

The Virginia Tech attacks started early in the morning, with a call to the police at 7:15 from West Ambler Johnston Hall, a 900-student freshman dormitory, as students were getting ready for classes or were on their way there.

Students said a gunman had gone room to room looking for his ex-girlfriend. He killed two people, a senior identified as Ryan Clark, from Augusta, Ga., and a freshman identified by other students on her floor as Emily Hilscher.

The shootings at the engineering building, Norris Hall, began about 9:45.

[Prof. Liviu Librescu and Prof. Kevin Granata were among the victims there, Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.]

One student described barricading himself in a classroom there with other students and hearing dozens of gunshots nearby. Someone tried to force his way into the classroom and fired two shots through the door that did not hit anyone, the student said.

Scott L. Hendricks, an associate professor of engineering, was in his office on the third floor when he heard 40 to 50 shots from what sounded like the second floor. Mr. Hendricks said he had called 911, but the police were already on the way.

The police surrounded the building and he barricaded the door to his office. After about an hour, the police broke down his door and ordered him to flee.

“When I left, I was one of the last to leave,” Mr. Hendricks said. “I had no idea of the magnitude of the event.”

According to the college newspaper, The Collegiate Times, many of the deaths took place in a German class in Norris Hall.

“He was just a normal looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout type outfit,” one student in the class, Erin Sheehan, told the newspaper. “He wore a tan button-up vest and this black vest — maybe it was for ammo or something.”

Ms. Sheehan added: “I saw bullets hit people’s bodies. There was blood everywhere. People in the class were passed out, I don’t know maybe from shock from the pain. But I was one of only four that made it out of that classroom. The rest were dead or injured.”

Heavily armed local and state police officers swarmed onto campus. Video clips shown on local stations showed them with rifles at the ready as students ran or sought cover and a freakish snow swirled in heavy winds. The police evacuated students and faculty members, taking many of them to local hotels. A Montgomery County school official said all schools throughout the county were being shut down.

Many parents and students questioned the university’s response to the two fatal shootings in Ambler Johnston Hall, suggesting that more aggressive action could have prevented the later and deadlier attack.

“As a parent, I am totally outraged,” said Fran Bernhards of Sterling, Va., whose daughter Kirsten attends Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, as it is formally known. “I would like to know why the university did not immediately shut down.”

Kirsten Bernhards, 18, said she and countless other students had no idea that a shooting had occurred when she left her dorm room in O’Shaughnessy Hall shortly before 10 a.m., more than two hours after the first shootings.

“I was leaving for my 10:10 film class,” she said. “I had just locked the door and my neighbor said, ‘Did you check your e-mail?’ ”

The university had, a few minutes earlier, sent out a bulletin warning students about an apparent gunman. But few students seemed to have any sense of urgency.

The university’s first bulletin warned students to be “cautious.” Then, 20 minutes later, at 9:50, a second e-mail warning was sent, saying a gunman was “loose on campus” and telling students to stay in buildings and away from windows. At 10:16, a final message said classes were canceled and advised everyone on campus to stay where they were and lock their doors.

Ms. Bernhards recalled walking toward her class, preoccupied with an upcoming exam and listening to music on her iPod. On the way, she said, she heard loud cracks, and only later concluded that they had been gunshots from the second round of shootings. But even at that point, many students were walking around the campus with little sense of alarm.

It was only when Ms. Bernhards got close to Norris Hall, the second of two buildings where the shootings took place, that she realized something was wrong.

“I looked up and I saw at least 10 guards with assault rifles aiming at the main entrance of Norris,” she recalled.

The Virginia Tech police chief, Wendell Flinchum, defended the university’s decision to keep the campus open after the first shootings, saying the information at the time indicated that it was an isolated event and that the attacker had left campus.

At an evening news conference, Chief Flinchum would not say that the same gunman was responsible for the shootings in the dormitory and the classrooms. He said he was awaiting ballistics tests and other laboratory results until declaring that the same person carried out both attacks.

He said accounts from students at the dorm had led the police to a “person of interest” who knew one or both of the victims there. The police were interviewing him off campus at the time of the shootings at Norris Hall. Chief Flinchum said officers had not arrested the man.

“You can second-guess all day,” he said. “We acted on the best information we had. We can’t have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year.”

Classroom buildings are not locked and dormitories are open throughout the day but require a key card for entry at night, university officials said.

Chief Flinchum confirmed that police found some of the Norris Hall classroom doors chained shut from the inside, which is not a normal practice. Some of the people hurt there were injured leaping from windows to escape.

Virginia imposes few restrictions on the purchase of handguns and no requirement for any kind of licensing or training. The state does limit handgun purchases to one per month to discourage bulk buying and resale, state officials said.

Once a person had passed the required background check, state law requires that law enforcement officers issue a concealed carry permit to anyone who applies. However, no regulations and no background checks are required for purchase of weapons at a Virginia gun show.

“Virginia’s gun laws are some of the weakest state laws in the country,” said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “And where there have been attempts to make some changes, a backdoor always opens to get around the changes, like the easy access at gun shows.”

Students are not allowed to have guns on the campus.

At Ambler Johnston Hall, where the first shootings took place, many if not most students had left and those who remained stayed close to their rooms by late afternoon.

Mr. Clark, the senior who was shot in the dorm, was a resident adviser who went by the nickname Stack on Facebook.com, was well liked and was a member of the university’s marching band, the Marching Virginians, students said. “He was a cool guy,” said one fourth-floor resident.

The shootings unfolded in an age of instant messaging, cellphone cameras, blogs and social networking sites like Facebook. As the hours passed, students who were locked in their classrooms and dormitories passed on news and rumors.

In one cellphone video shown repeatedly on television networks, the sound of dozens of shots can be heard and students can be seen running from Norris Hall.

The student who made the video, Jamal Albarghouti, a graduate student, said he was already on edge because of two bomb threats on campus last week. “I knew this was something way more serious,” he told CNN.

The shooting was the second in the past year that forced officials to issue an alert to the campus.

In August of 2006, an escaped jail inmate shot and killed a deputy sheriff and an unarmed security guard at a nearby hospital before the police caught him in the woods near the university. The capture ended a manhunt that led to the cancellation of the first day of classes at Virginia Tech and shut down most businesses and municipal buildings in Blacksburg. The defendant, William Morva, is facing capital murder charges.

The atmosphere on campus was desolate and preternaturally quiet by Monday afternoon. Students gathered in small groups, some crying, some talking quietly and others consoling each other.

Up until today, the deadliest campus shooting in United States history was in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire, killing 16 people before he was shot and killed by the police. In the Columbine High attack in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves.

The single deadliest shooting in the United States came in October 1991, when George Jo Hennard crashed his pickup truck through the window of a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., then shot 22 people dead and wounded at least 20 others. He shot himself in the head.

Reporting was contributed by Sarah Abruzzese, Edmund L. Andrews, Neela Banerjee, Micah Cohen, Shaila Dewan, Cate Doty, Manny Fernandez, Brenda Goodman, David Johnston, Michael Mather, Marc Santora, Amy Schoenfeld, Archie Tse and Matthew L. Wald.

    ‘Horror and Disbelief’ at Virginia Tech, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17virginia.html?hp

The Guardian        p. 3        17 April 2007

Massacre on the campus

· 33 confirmed dead

· Killer evaded police to strike again

· New questions over gun law

Ed Pilkington, Andrew Clark, and Ewen MacAskill in Blacksburg

The Guardian        Tuesday April 17, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2058887,00.html

32 Shot Dead on Virginia Tech Campus

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 16 — Thirty-two people were killed, along with a gunman, and at least 15 injured in two shooting attacks at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on Monday during three hours of horror and chaos on this sprawling campus.

The police and witnesses said some victims were executed with handguns while other students were hurt jumping from upper-story windows of the classroom building where most of the killings occurred. After the second round of killings, the gunman killed himself, the police said.

It was the deadliest shooting rampage in American history and came nearly eight years to the day after 13 people died at Columbine High School in Colorado at the hands of two disaffected students who then killed themselves.

As of Monday evening, only one of the Virginia Tech victims had been officially identified. Police officials said they were not yet ready to identify the gunman or even say whether one person was behind both attacks, which wreaked devastation on this campus of 36,000 students, faculty members and staff.

Federal law enforcement officials in Washington said the gunman might have been a young Asian man who recently arrived in the United States. A university spokeswoman, Jenn Lazenby, could not confirm that report but said the university was looking into whether two bomb threats at the campus, — one last Friday, the other earlier this month — might be related to the shootings.

The university’s president, Charles W. Steger, expressed his “horror and disbelief and sorrow” at what he described as a tragedy of monumental proportions. But questions were immediately raised about whether university officials had responded adequately to the shootings.

There was a two-hour gap between the first shootings, when two people were killed, and the second, when a gunman stalked through the halls of an engineering building across campus, shooting at professors and students in classrooms and hallways, firing dozens of rounds and killing 30. Officials said he then shot himself so badly in the face that he could not be identified.

The university did not send a campuswide alert until the second attack had begun, even though the gunman in the first had not been apprehended.

Mr. Steger defended the decision not to shut down or evacuate the campus after the first shootings, saying officials had believed the first attack was a self-contained event, which the campus police believed was a “domestic” dispute.

“We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,” he said.

President Bush sent his condolences to the families of the victims and the university community. “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning,” Mr. Bush said. “When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community.”

The Virginia Tech attacks started early in the morning, with a call to the police at 7:15 from West Ambler Johnston Hall, a 900-student freshman dormitory, as students were getting ready for classes or were on their way there.

Students said a gunman had gone room to room looking for his ex-girlfriend. He killed two people, a senior identified as Ryan Clark, from Augusta, Ga., and a freshman identified by other students on her floor as Emily Hilscher.

The shootings at the engineering building, Norris Hall, began about 9:45.

[Prof. Liviu Librescu and Prof. Kevin Granata were among the victims there, Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.]

One student described barricading himself in a classroom there with other students and hearing dozens of gunshots nearby. Someone tried to force his way into the classroom and fired two shots through the door that did not hit anyone, the student said.

Scott L. Hendricks, an associate professor of engineering, was in his office on the third floor when he heard 40 to 50 shots from what sounded like the second floor. Mr. Hendricks said he had called 911, but the police were already on the way.

The police surrounded the building and he barricaded the door to his office. After about an hour, the police broke down his door and ordered him to flee.

“When I left, I was one of the last to leave,” Mr. Hendricks said. “I had no idea of the magnitude of the event.”

According to the college newspaper, The Collegiate Times, many of the deaths took place in a German class in Norris Hall.

“He was just a normal looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout type outfit,” one student in the class, Erin Sheehan, told the newspaper. “He wore a tan button-up vest and this black vest — maybe it was for ammo or something.”

Ms. Sheehan added: “I saw bullets hit people’s bodies. There was blood everywhere. People in the class were passed out, I don’t know maybe from shock from the pain. But I was one of only four that made it out of that classroom. The rest were dead or injured.”

Heavily armed local and state police officers swarmed onto campus. Video clips shown on local stations showed them with rifles at the ready as students ran or sought cover and a freakish snow swirled in heavy winds. The police evacuated students and faculty members, taking many of them to local hotels. A Montgomery County school official said all schools throughout the county were being shut down.

Many parents and students questioned the university’s response to the two fatal shootings in Ambler Johnston Hall, suggesting that more aggressive action could have prevented the later and deadlier attack.

“As a parent, I am totally outraged,” said Fran Bernhards of Sterling, Va., whose daughter Kirsten attends Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, as it is formally known. “I would like to know why the university did not immediately shut down.”

Kirsten Bernhards, 18, said she and countless other students had no idea that a shooting had occurred when she left her dorm room in O’Shaughnessy Hall shortly before 10 a.m., more than two hours after the first shootings.

“I was leaving for my 10:10 film class,” she said. “I had just locked the door and my neighbor said, ‘Did you check your e-mail?’ ”

The university had, a few minutes earlier, sent out a bulletin warning students about an apparent gunman. But few students seemed to have any sense of urgency.

The university’s first bulletin warned students to be “cautious.” Then, 20 minutes later, at 9:50, a second e-mail warning was sent, saying a gunman was “loose on campus” and telling students to stay in buildings and away from windows. At 10:16, a final message said classes were canceled and advised everyone on campus to stay where they were and lock their doors.

Ms. Bernhards recalled walking toward her class, preoccupied with an upcoming exam and listening to music on her iPod. On the way, she said, she heard loud cracks, and only later concluded that they had been gunshots from the second round of shootings. But even at that point, many students were walking around the campus with little sense of alarm.

It was only when Ms. Bernhards got close to Norris Hall, the second of two buildings where the shootings took place, that she realized something was wrong.

“I looked up and I saw at least 10 guards with assault rifles aiming at the main entrance of Norris,” she recalled.

The Virginia Tech police chief, Wendell Flinchum, defended the university’s decision to keep the campus open after the first shootings, saying the information at the time indicated that it was an isolated event and that the attacker had left campus.

At an evening news conference, Chief Flinchum would not say that the same gunman was responsible for the shootings in the dormitory and the classrooms. He said he was awaiting ballistics tests and other laboratory results until declaring that the same person carried out both attacks.

He said accounts from students at the dorm had led the police to a “person of interest” who knew one or both of the victims there. The police were interviewing him off campus at the time of the shootings at Norris Hall. Chief Flinchum said officers had not arrested the man.

“You can second-guess all day,” he said. “We acted on the best information we had. We can’t have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year.”

Classroom buildings are not locked and dormitories are open throughout the day but require a key card for entry at night, university officials said.

Chief Flinchum confirmed that police found some of the Norris Hall classroom doors chained shut from the inside, which is not a normal practice. Some of the people hurt there were injured leaping from windows to escape.

Virginia imposes few restrictions on the purchase of handguns and no requirement for any kind of licensing or training. The state does limit handgun purchases to one per month to discourage bulk buying and resale, state officials said.

Once a person had passed the required background check, state law requires that law enforcement officers issue a concealed carry permit to anyone who applies. However, no regulations and no background checks are required for purchase of weapons at a Virginia gun show.

“Virginia’s gun laws are some of the weakest state laws in the country,” said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “And where there have been attempts to make some changes, a backdoor always opens to get around the changes, like the easy access at gun shows.”

Students are not allowed to have guns on the campus.

At Ambler Johnston Hall, where the first shootings took place, many if not most students had left and those who remained stayed close to their rooms by late afternoon.

Mr. Clark, the senior who was shot in the dorm, was a resident adviser who went by the nickname Stack on Facebook.com, was well liked and was a member of the university’s marching band, the Marching Virginians, students said. “He was a cool guy,” said one fourth-floor resident.

The shootings unfolded in an age of instant messaging, cellphone cameras, blogs and social networking sites like Facebook. As the hours passed, students who were locked in their classrooms and dormitories passed on news and rumors.

In one cellphone video shown repeatedly on television networks, the sound of dozens of shots can be heard and students can be seen running from Norris Hall.

The student who made the video, Jamal Albarghouti, a graduate student, said he was already on edge because of two bomb threats on campus last week. “I knew this was something way more serious,” he told CNN.

The shooting was the second in the past year that forced officials to issue an alert to the campus.

In August of 2006, an escaped jail inmate shot and killed a deputy sheriff and an unarmed security guard at a nearby hospital before the police caught him in the woods near the university. The capture ended a manhunt that led to the cancellation of the first day of classes at Virginia Tech and shut down most businesses and municipal buildings in Blacksburg. The defendant, William Morva, is facing capital murder charges.

The atmosphere on campus was desolate and preternaturally quiet by Monday afternoon. Students gathered in small groups, some crying, some talking quietly and others consoling each other.

Up until today, the deadliest campus shooting in United States history was in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire, killing 16 people before he was shot and killed by the police. In the Columbine High attack in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves.

The single deadliest shooting in the United States came in October 1991, when George Jo Hennard crashed his pickup truck through the window of a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., then shot 22 people dead and wounded at least 20 others. He shot himself in the head.

Reporting was contributed by Sarah Abruzzese, Edmund L. Andrews, Neela Banerjee, Micah Cohen, Shaila Dewan, Cate Doty, Manny Fernandez, Brenda Goodman, David Johnston, Michael Mather, Marc Santora, Amy Schoenfeld, Archie Tse and Matthew L. Wald.

    32 Shot Dead on Virginia Tech Campus, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17virginia.html?hp

Drumbeat of Shots, Broken by Pauses to Reload

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 16 — The gunshots were so slow and steady that some students thought they came from a nearby construction site, until they saw the police officers with rifles pointed at Norris Hall, the engineering building at Virginia Tech.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

They went on and on, for what seemed like 10 or 15 or 20 minutes, an eternity with punctuation.

Bang. Bang. On the third floor of Norris Hall, Scott L. Hendricks, a professor, looked out the window of his office and saw students crawling away from the building.

Bang. Tiffany Otey’s accounting class crammed into an office and locked themselves in, crying in fright.

Every so often, the shots paused for a minute or so. That was the gunman, who was in the midst of the worst shooting rampage in American history, stopping to reload. When it was over, 33 people, including the gunman, were dead and at least 15 more were injured.

“I was terrified,” said Ms. Otey, a junior whose class met in the room above the one where much of the shooting took place.

One student finished the day’s assignment and tried to leave, but returned to tell the others that the hall was full of smoke and that there were police officers everywhere. The class decided to go into a room with a lock. Dr. Hendricks, an engineering and mechanics professor on the same floor, barricaded himself in his office, pushing a bookcase in front of the door. Some students on campus took refuge in the library, searching the Web to find out what was happening. No one knew.

“I was crying,” Ms. Otey said. “I was worried that the guy with the gun was going to come upstairs too.”

The violence began early in the morning in the west wing of Ambler Johnston, the largest dormitory at Virginia Tech, where two people were killed, officials said. But when the first class started two hours later, at 9:05 a.m., many on campus remained unaware of any danger.

“I woke up and I didn’t know anything was wrong,” said Sarah Ulmer, a freshman who lives in the east wing of the dorm. “I went to my first class and my teacher was talking about how some people weren’t coming because there was a gun threat at West A. J. and they were blocking it off. It was like, ‘Oh.’ ”

The school did not notify students by e-mail of the first shootings until 9:26 a.m., said Matt Dixon, who lives in the dorm. Mr. Dixon did not receive the e-mail message until he returned from his 9:05 class. When he left for that class, he said, a resident adviser told him not to use the central stairs, so he left another way.

On dry erase boards, advisers had written, “Stay in your rooms,” Mr. Dixon said.

Other students and faculty members said they had only a vague notion that there had been a shooting at the dorm. Several faculty members said they had reached campus during or just after the Norris Hall shooting and had gone unimpeded to their buildings.

Many were bewildered or angry that the campus had not been locked down earlier, after the first shooting.

“I am outraged at what happened today on the Virginia Tech campus,” wrote Huy That Ton, a member of the chemical engineering faculty, in an e-mail message. “Countless lives could have been saved if they had informed the student body of the first shooting. What was the security department thinking?!”

Campus officials said they believed the first incident was confined to a single building and was essentially a domestic dispute, and had no idea that the violence would spread elsewhere.

The police said they still did not know if the two shootings were the work of the same gunman.

The gunman in Norris Hall was described as a young Asian man with two pistols who calmly entered classrooms and shot professors and students. He peeked into the German class in Room 207, witnesses said, then pushed his way in.

Gene Cole, who works in Virginia Tech’s housekeeping services, told The Roanoke Times that he was on the second floor of Norris Hall on Monday morning and saw a person lying on a hallway floor. As Mr. Cole went up to the body, a man wearing a hat and holding a gun stepped into the hallway. “Someone stepped out of a classroom and started shooting at me,” he said. Mr. Cole fled down the corridor, then down a flight of steps to safety. “All I saw was blood in the hallways,” Mr. Cole said.

The gunman was described as methodical, squeezing the trigger almost rhythmically. “Sometimes there would be like a minute or so break in between them,” Ms. Otey said of the shots, “but for the most part it was one right after another.”

Elaine Goss of Waynesboro, Va., said she first spoke to her son, Alec Calhoun, a student, about 9:30 a.m., after he had leapt from a second-story classroom window as the gunman entered. “I couldn’t understand him. It was like gibberish,” Ms. Goss said. “It took a while to figure out shootings, lots of shootings, and that his whole class had jumped out the window.” He landed on his back, and “we made him go to the emergency room,” she said.

Two of his fellow engineering students were at the hospital with gunshot wounds, Ms. Goss said. “I think they were just wounded,” she said. “He’s counting on them being just wounded.”

As word spread of the shootings, there were first reports of one dead, then 20, then more than 30.

“Every time we turned our heads, the total just kept going up,” said Stuart Crowder, 22, a building and construction major, adding that the tension level on campus was still running high.

“Right now, I’m actually at a house where I can see the edge of campus, which is very close to the place where the incident actually happened,” Mr. Crowder said. “Probably every about 25 yards, there is an officer or some sort of guard right now with a large gun.”

Students, parents and professors jammed phone lines trying to check on loved ones and friends. There were frantic e-mail and text messages, clogged voice mails and busy signals. Kathryn Beard, an education professor at Virginia Tech whose daughter is a student there, said she became frantic when she was barred from entering. “The teacher in me was panicking, and the mother in me was panicking,” she said. “I can’t imagine something like this happening on my campus.”

Students theorized about how an outsider — many assumed it was an outsider — could have committed such violence on their campus.

“All we’ve seen is that patch of blood,” said Matthew Hall, a senior, indicating a red patch on the sidewalk in front of the building.

“It’s weird because this is like the safest place,” Mr. Hall said. “It’s the middle of nowhere,” added his roommate, Ryan Gatterdam.

Jessica Abraham, walking nearby, said anyone could pass for a student here by wearing a maroon cap. Maroon and orange are the school colors. “You always see the police here. It seems so safe,” Ms. Abraham said.

After the shots and fleeing, the SWAT teams and ambulances, the campus returned to a preternatural quiet, with students talking in small groups or consoling each other. Classes were canceled, and some students had their parents pick them up and take them home.

    Drumbeat of Shots, Broken by Pauses to Reload, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17scene.html

A Friend, a ‘Good Listener’ and a Victim

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 16 — Ryan Clark was known as Stack here on the rolling campus of Virginia Tech, an amiable senior memorable for his ready smile and thoughtful ways.

He was also among the first victims of the deadliest school rampage in the nation’s history.

A student resident adviser at West Ambler Johnston Hall, Mr. Clark was apparently rushing over to investigate what was going on when he came upon the gunman, according to a student who lives on the fourth floor, where the first shootings took place.

In the end, as the people here struggled to come to grip with the tragedy, it fell to Vernon W. Collins, the coroner in Mr. Clark’s hometown in Columbia County, Ga., to deliver the news of his death to his mother.

“She was in shock,” Mr. Collins said. “It started out in disbelief. She was praying what I was telling her was wrong, and I felt the same way. I wished I didn’t have to tell her that.”

“It was horrible, you know, to walk up to somebody you don’t know and tell them they’ve lost a loved one,” he added. “It’s the hardest part of my job.”

Tall and thin, Mr. Clark, a resident of Augusta, Ga., was well-liked and a member of the university’s marching band, the Marching Virginians, students in the dorm said.

The band’s Web site has an image of him participating in a food drive and says that he enjoyed, among other things, “making t-shirts with his partner in crime, Kim Daniloski, and haggling with street vendors.”

He also studied biology and English and had hoped to pursue a doctorate in psychology, with a focus on cognitive neuroscience.

Courtney Dalton, who met Mr. Clark two years ago when the two worked together at a campus restaurant, described him as helpful and a good listener. “When I was upset about something, he would come over and ask, ‘Are you O.K.?’ ” she said. “If you ever needed to talk about your problems, he’d listen.”

Ms. Dalton said that he stopped working at the restaurant shortly after they met but that he continued to stop by and visit. “I used to talk to him every day,” she said. “He used to come in, get a drink, a pizza or a rotini and cheese.”

Ms. Dalton said she was stunned by the news of his death and wondered how such a tragedy could befall a person as kind as Mr. Clark. “It’s horrible, it’s hitting us all pretty hard,” she said.

The signs of grief were evident all across this college town of 40,000 people.

Churches organized vigils and opened their doors to anyone who wanted to pray. Several hundred students gathered at 7 p.m. at a prayer meeting organized by Campus Crusade for Christ at a building off campus. Some wept in the arms of their friends. Kate Payne, 21, a Virginia Tech senior, said that a friend, who did not attend the prayer meeting, had survived the killings by playing dead.

“One of our really good friends was there,” said Ms. Payne, who had spoken to the student’s roommates. She said that the gunman came in and shot others in the classroom, but that her friend, who pretended to be dead, “by God’s grace, was salvaged.”

As for the Clark family, Mr. Collins, the coroner, also had to break the news of Ryan Clark’s death to his twin brother, Bryan. “I explained as best I could what limited information I had,” Mr. Collins said.

“There’s no way you can sugarcoat that somebody has died a tragic death,” he added. “They knew, when they saw us there. I could hear the TV in the background talking about the incident. They knew. For what other purpose would we be showing up?”

    A Friend, a ‘Good Listener’ and a Victim, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17victims.html

The TV Watch

Deadly Rampage and No Loss for Words

April 17, 2007
The New York Times
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Television anchors said over and over that the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech was the deadliest in American history, but that was not the only shocking aspect of yesterday’s continual coverage.

The amazing thing is how familiar campus shootings have become. For viewers, initial disbelief is quickly folded into a methodical ritual of breaking bad news. News trucks race to the scene, witnesses upload images recorded on cellphones and video cameras, students on the scene calmly and patiently recount their impressions in front of news cameras. One student was taped soberly expressing shock — and cognizance. “This is like a college Columbine,” he said on MSNBC. “Really sad.”

Grief counselors were dispatched to the campus, while clinical psychologists and former F.B.I. profilers crowded the airwaves with their own form of grief counseling, talking authoritatively about “narcissistic injury” and a gunman who had carefully “put together his killing package,” as Clint Van Zandt, a former F.B.I. hostage negotiator described him on MSNBC.

Hours before the death toll was certain or the identity of the gunman was known, television was already in an oft-practiced gear: senseless death-as-usual.

Or, as William Lassiter, manager of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence in Raleigh, N.C., put it on MSNBC, “ I can’t believe another one of these has happened.”

The most disturbing thing on the screen was the sound recorded on Jamal Albarghouti’s cellphone camera outside Norris Hall — the sharp blast of a gun or guns firing over and over. Mr. Albarghouti, a student, told CNN that he thought at first that the police were responding to a bomb threat. Ordered to the ground by officers, he kept his cellphone on and aloft as shot after shot rang out, then at 11 a.m. sent his material to “I-Reports,” a section on the CNN Web site that solicits news and disaster images from bystanders. After giving Mr. Albarghouti a contract for exclusive use, CNN put the clip on the air half an hour later under the I-Report logo. By evening, CNN.com had recorded 1.8 million hits on that clip.

There must have been a time — maybe back in 1966 before live news coverage was common and Charles Whitman opened fire from a clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin and killed 16 people — when witnesses, officials and news announcers would find themselves at a loss for words.

The shootings at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo., in 1999 defined how mass shootings are handled — and publicly mourned. There have been similar tragedies since then, too many. Now everybody knows the drill.

Virginia Tech’s president, Charles W. Steger, held news conferences and described the shooting as a tragedy of “monumental proportions.” President Bush went on the air to express the nation’s sorrow. President Jacques Chirac of France conveyed the condolences of his country. And the networks swooped in. Katie Couric flew to Blacksburg, Va., to interview survivors and anchor a special edition of the “CBS Evening News,” and so did Brian Williams with the “NBC Nightly News.” ABC News announced that its “World News” anchor Charles Gibson would be there on Tuesday and that “Nightline” on Monday would be devoted to the campus massacre.

It was the worst shooting ever, but it was also yet another tragedy in which television turned first to amateur reporters on the scene. “Stay out of harm’s way,” the CNN anchor Don Lemon said, addressing students at Virginia Tech. “But send us your pictures and video.”

    Deadly Rampage and No Loss for Words, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/us/17tvwatch.html

World Reacts to U.S. Shooting

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Families in India and Israel on Tuesday mourned two professors among the 32 people killed in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, while the leader of Australia slammed U.S. gun culture.

Monday's massacre was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, with the unidentified gunmen cutting down his victims in two attacks before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life.

Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mathematics lecturer, tried to stop the gunman from entering his classroom by blocking the door before he was fatally shot, his son said Tuesday from Tel Aviv, Israel.

''My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,'' said Joe Librescu. ''Students started opening windows and jumping out.''

Librescu immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978 and then moved to Virginia in 1985 for his sabbatical, but had stayed since then, said Joe Librescu, who himself studied at the school from 1989 to 1994.

Another foreign professor was also killed. Indian-born G.V. Loganathan, 51, a lecturer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was felled by the gunman, his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Palanivel said he was informed by Loganathan's wife, who had identified the body.

''We all feel like we have had an electric shock, we do not know what to do,'' Palanivel said. ''He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force.''

Loganathan, who was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai, had been at Virginia Tech since 1982.

Local media also reported an Indian student at the university was missing.

Indian officials said they were trying to assist the families and determine how many Indian students were involved.

''We are in touch with our embassy (in Washington). Our consular offices are in touch with the dean of students and also with the Indian Students Association,'' said Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna.

''Consular officials will be traveling to the site this morning,'' he said.

The shootings, which dominated media reports in many countries, drew widespread condemnation.

In London, Buckingham Palace issued a statement on Monday saying, ''The Queen was shocked and saddened to hear of the news of the shooting in Virginia.''

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, are scheduled to visit Virginia May 3-4.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing sent a note of condolence to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

Asked about speculation the gunman -- who witnesses described as ''Asian'' -- was Chinese, he said, ''We shall not speculate on this as the investigation is ongoing.''

There was harsh condemnation for U.S. gun control laws.

In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday the university shooting in Virginia showed that America's ''gun culture'' was a negative force in society.

Howard, who staked his political leadership on pushing through tough laws on gun ownership in Australia after a lone gunman in his country killed 35 people in a spree, said the Virginia university shooting was a tragedy of a kind he hoped would never be seen again in Australia.

''You can never guarantee these things won't happen again in our country,'' Howard told reporters.

''We had a terrible incident at Port Arthur, but it is the case that 11 years ago we took action to limit the availability of guns and 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,'' he said.

He offered his sympathies to the victims of the Virginia shooting and their families.

In India, which has some 80,000 students in the U.S., commentators called for greater protection and stricter gun laws.

''It's not a question of an Indian professor getting killed in the firing. This is related to the American gun laws,'' said K. Subrahmanyam, a former member of India's National Security Council.

''We can't do anything about it. It is something which has happened in the United States. They have got to change the law.''

    World Reacts to U.S. Shooting, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Virgina-Tech-World-View.html

Gunman Kills 32 in Virginia Tech Rampage

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:18 a.m. ET
The New York Times

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 apart before the university could grasp what was happening and warn 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 unspeakable tragedy, perhaps forever.

Investigators gave no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known whether he was a student.

''Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,'' Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said. ''The university is shocked and indeed horrified.''

But 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. Some students bitterly complained they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that arrived more than two hours after the first shots rang out.

Wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition, the killer opened fire about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory, then stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus. Some of the doors at Norris Hall were found chained from the inside, apparently by the gunman.

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 15 people were hurt, some seriously. Students jumped from windows in panic.

Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door -- ''what sounded like an enormous hammer.''

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for 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 the professor, who had stayed behind, perhaps to block the door.

The instructor was killed, he said.

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 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.

Sheree Mixell, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the evidence was being moved to the agency's national lab in Annandale. At least one firearm was turned over, she said.

Mixell would not comment on what types of weapons were used or whether the gunman was a student.

Young people and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. Many found themselves trapped behind 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 about 30 shots.

The gunman 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,'' 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.''

Erin Sheehan, who was also in the German 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.''

Students said that there were no public-address announcements after the first shots. Many said they learned of the first shooting in an e-mail that arrived shortly before 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.

Steger defended the university's conduct, 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 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 went out, 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.

Some students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said their first notification 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.

Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said that he was in the classroom building and that he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said that moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs, but that the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside. They left the building through an unlocked construction area.

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 in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before police shot him to death.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. It is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.

The campus is centered on the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.

President Bush offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia, saying the tragedy would be felt in every community in the country.

After the shootings, all campus entrances were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a spot for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly Tuesday.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but said they had not determined a link to the shootings.

It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.

In 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 Monday's dead was Ryan Clark, a student from Martinez, Ga., with several majors who carried a 4.0 grade-point average, said Vernon Collins, coroner in Columbia County, Ga.

At a hastily arranged service Monday night at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Susan Verbrugge gazed out at about 150 bowed heads.

''Death has come trundling into our life, a sudden and savage entity laying waste to our hearts and making desolate our minds,'' Verbrugge said during a prayer. ''We need now the consolation only you can give.''

Among the dead were professors Liviu Librescu and Kevin Granata, said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

Librescu, was born in Romania and was known internationally for his research in aeronautical engineering, Puri wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

''His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures,'' Puri said.

Granata served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before coming to Virginia Tech, where he 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.

    Gunman Kills 32 in Virginia Tech Rampage, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Guns at home equal higher suicide risk: study

Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:27AM EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suicide rates among people of all ages are higher in states where more homes have guns, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Twice as many people committed suicide in the 15 states with the highest levels of household gun ownership, compared with the six states with the lowest levels, even though the population in all the states was about the same, the researchers found.

"We found that where there are more guns, there are more suicides," said Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study.

While just 5 percent of all suicide attempts involve a gun, the person succeeds in killing himself or herself 90 percent of the time.

People use drugs to attempt suicide in 75 percent of cases, but actually die less than 3 percent of the time, the researchers said, citing other surveys.

The study, published in the Journal of Trauma, suggests that removing guns from homes, particularly those with adolescents, would have a big impact on suicide prevention.

"In a nation where more than half of all suicides are gun suicides and where more than one in three homes have firearms, one cannot talk about suicide without talking about guns," Miller said in a statement.

Suicide is the 11th-leading cause of death among Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2004, more than half of the 32,439 Americans who committed suicide used a firearm.

Miller and colleagues used survey data to estimate the percentage of people who kept guns in their homes in each of the 50 states. They looked at a survey of 200,000 people done by the CDC in 2001, which found that about a third of U.S. households reported having a gun.

They took into account poverty, urbanization, unemployment, drug and alcohol dependence and abuse, and mental illness, and calculated the relationship of gun ownership to suicide.

"Removing all firearms from one's home is one of the most effective and straightforward steps that household decision-makers can take to reduce the risk of suicide," Miller said.

"Removing firearms may be especially effective in reducing the risk of suicide among adolescents and other potentially impulsive members of their home," Miller added.

"Short of removing all firearms, the next best thing is to make sure that all guns in homes are very securely locked up and stored separately from secured ammunition," he said.

The same team found in February that guns are used to kill two out of every three murder victims in the United States.

    Guns at home equal higher suicide risk: study, R, 10.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0934955120070410

1 dead, 2 hurt in Mich. office shooting; police say suspect had worked there

9.4.2007
AP
USA Today

TROY, Mich. (AP) — A man suspected of shooting three people at an accounting firm where he had worked was arrested a few hours later after a high-speed chase, authorities said. One victim died in the Monday morning attack.

Police said they had located Anthony LaCalamita, 38, of Troy on Interstate 75, north of the suburban Detroit office building where the shootings took place.

Sheriff's deputies and state police chased him at speeds of more than 100 mph before he finally pulled over after about 15 minutes, Genesee County Undersheriff James Gage said.

"He probably realized if he didn't, he was going to be shot," Gage said. He said LaCalamita was being brought to Genesee County, since it was the arresting agency.

Officers found a gun in the vehicle matching the description of the one used in the shootings, Troy police Lt. Gerry Scherlinck said.

Some witnesses told police that when the shooter walked into the office on the building's second floor around 10 a.m. Monday, he looked as if he was trying to hide something, Troy Police Chief Charles Craft said.

Police couldn't say how many shots were fired.

"I'm not positive all three of the people were targeted, but there appeared to be some purpose," Craft said.

The families of the two wounded men requested "total privacy," and the hospital would not release any details about their conditions, Beaumont Hospital spokeswoman Ilene Wolfe said. She said the third victim died on the way to the hospital.

LaCalamita was listed among the professional staff on the website of Gordon Advisors, a public accounting and business consulting firm in the building. Calls to Gordon Advisors were not answered Monday afternoon, and a recording said the offices were closed.

Scherlinck described the shooter as a former employee of one of the offices who might have been terminated as recently as a week ago. The man was armed with a long gun, either a shotgun or a rifle, Scherlinck said.

The 170,000-square-foot building houses a number of businesses, including law offices and the accounting firm where the shooting was believed to have occurred. Police at first told workers to stay in their offices but a short time later evacuated the building, about 15 miles north of Detroit.

Bill Adgate, who works at LPL Financial inside the building, said he had hunkered down inside the office for a couple of hours with furniture pushed up against the door. He said police told the group to stay put until officers allowed them to leave.

"It's tough. I want to get out," Adgate said by telephone.

    1 dead, 2 hurt in Mich. office shooting; police say suspect had worked there, UT, 9.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-09-office-shooting_N.htm

Woman Dies in Shooting at CNN Building

April 4, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:03 a.m. ET
The New York Times

ATLANTA (AP) -- Gunfire inside the CNN Center sent a lunchtime crowd scurrying for cover as a hotel employee was shot dead in a domestic dispute and her former boyfriend was wounded by security.

The man dragged the woman down an escalator following an argument in the lobby of the Omni Hotel, which is part of the downtown CNN complex, and shot her Tuesday, police said.

A CNN security guard witnessed the altercation and shot the man, police said.

''All of a sudden we heard a big boom. We thought it was an explosion,'' said Trina Johnson, 44, of Atlanta, who was with her daughter in the busy food court in the CNN atrium. ''We didn't see the gun. Everybody just started running.''

The Omni employee was identified as Clara Riddles, 22, of College Park, according to Caryn Kboudi, a spokeswoman for the Irving, Texas-based hotel chain. Riddles checked and restocked honor bars in the hotel rooms, she said.

Riddles was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The man, identified by police as Arthur Mann, in his late 30s, was in stable condition at the hospital's detention center. He faced a murder charge, Atlanta Police officer James Polite said.

''I heard four or five shots. I really didn't see it. I got out of there quick,'' said Jas Stanford, 27, who had been across the street taking down a temporary stage that was used for college basketball's Final Four festivities.

The NCAA basketball final was played Monday night at the nearby Georgia Dome.

Soon after the shooting, CNN's own coverage of the shooting was being shown on large-screen televisions inside the atrium, near the escalator where the shooting had just taken place.

The security guard, 10-year veteran Odell Adams, saw the couple arguing, and when the man fired his gun, Adams shot the man, said Lisa Tobias, director of corporate responsibility for Turner Broadcasting System, which operates CNN.

The CNN Center is just across the street from Centennial Olympic Park, where a bomb exploded during the 1996 Summer Olympics, killing a woman and wounding more than 100 people.

------

Associated Press Writers Harry R. Weber and Daniel Yee contributed to this report.

    Woman Dies in Shooting at CNN Building, NYT, 4.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-CNN-Shooting.html

Amish Students Open New Schoolhouse

April 2, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:04 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) -- Amish children carrying lunch pails arrived at a new one-room schoolhouse Monday morning, marking a fresh beginning for students who survived a shooting that killed five classmates last fall.

The New Hope Amish School sits a few hundred yards from the spot where the killings took place. Built by the entire community, the school is protected by more sophisticated locks on its doors and is reachable only by a private drive.

''For an Amish one-room schoolhouse, this one is spectacular,'' said Bart Township zoning officer John Coldiron.

It replaces the West Nickel Mines Amish School, which was torn down Oct. 12. Ten days earlier, milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV shot 10 girls inside the school and then committed suicide as police closed in.

The building does not have electricity or a phone but is bright inside due to skylights and windows, Coldiron said. The phone is notable because during the rampage, a teacher had to run to a neighboring farm that had a telephone to call 911.

At the front of the building is a steel door that locks from the inside.

A state police vehicle was parked at the end of the driveway Monday, and no trespassing signs had been posted along the main road.

The new school's construction costs were paid for in part with a portion of more than $4 million in donations to the Nickel Mines Accountability Committee, the primary organization collecting donations on behalf of the victims.

Donations, some sent directly to the school board, have also helped provide care for the five wounded girls who survived.

Four of the five have returned to school. The fifth, a 6-year-old, needs a feeding tube and is not able to communicate, according to Mike Hart of the Bart Township Fire Department, who is also a committee member.

Roberts' widow, Marie, and their three children have moved from their home in the village of Georgetown, about a mile from the shooting, to another community within Lancaster County, according to Hart.

Charles Roberts, apparently tormented by an unconfirmed memory of having molested relatives 20 years earlier, and by the 1997 death of his own infant daughter, shot and killed himself as police reached the school.

Amish Students Open New Schoolhouse, NYT, 2.4.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Amish-School-Reopening.html