By CHRISTINE HAUSER and ANAHAD O’CONNOR Published: April 16, 2007 At least 22 people were killed today, some of them students, and about two dozen more injured during shootings at Virginia Tech, some of them in a classroom, the police said. A gunman was also shot to death, officials said. The attack was the deadliest campus shooting in American history. “Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said the university’s president, Charles Steger. There were two shootings on the campus in Blacksburg, Va., and in each case fatalities with “multiple shooting victims,” he said. The shootings started early in the morning and as they unfolded, many of the details emerged from witnesses who recorded images on their cellphones or described fellow students jumping out of campus building windows. The university has more than 25,000 full-time students on a campus that is spread out over 2,600 acres. A police official at Virginia Tech, Wendell Flinchum, said there were “at least 20 fatalities,” and that some of the victims were shot in the classroom. News of the number of the fatalities sent up an audible gasp in the news conference, said one television reporter in the broadcast. At least 22 people were injured. At least 17 Virginia Tech students were being treated for gunshot wounds and other injuries at Montgomery Regional Hospital, and four of them were in surgery, according to a hospital spokesperson. At Lewis-Gale Medical Center, in Salem, Va., four students and a staff member were treated. Two were in stable condition, and the conditions of the other three were described as "undetermined." Officials said there could have been more people who were injured and taken to other medical facilities. President Bush was “horrified” at the news of the shooting, and expressed deep concern for the families of the victims, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. President Bush said he would make federal assets available to the school and to the community. One student captured partial images, broadcast on CNN, using his cellphone video camera showing grainy dark-clad figures on the street outside of campus buildings. Popping sounds from the gunfire were audible. “This place is in a state of panic,” said a student who was interviewed on CNN, Shaver Deyerle. “Nobody knew what was going on at first.” He said that the shooting reminded him of the Columbine High School killings. The police were slowly evacuating students from campus buildings and all classes have been canceled. Families were told to reunite with students at the Inn at Virginia Tech, a facility of conference space and hotel rooms. The university community was told to assemble on Tuesday at the Cassell Coliseum to start to deal with the tragedy, a campus statement said. A few details emerged from the news conference. At 7:15 a.m., an emergency 911 call came in to University police department about a shooting at a campus building, West Ambler Johnston, a dormitory for about 900 freshman students. About two hours later it was followed by a second shooting at a classroom in a science and engineering building on the opposite end of campus, Norris Hall. The shooter died there, the police said. “It didn’t stop for almost two or three minutes,” a junior from Fairfax named Josh told CNN. “It sounded like a handgun or something but it was many, many shots.” Images on CNN showed police with assault rifles swarming several buildings, sirens blaring in the background and a voice over a loudspeaker warning people across the campus to take cover in buildings and stay away from windows. Many students could be seen crouching on floors in classrooms and dormitories. Police evacuated students and faculty, many of them to local hotels, and witnesses said that some students were seen scrambling out of windows to get to safety. A Montgomery County school official said that all schools throughout the county were being shut down. [Via http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/u...em&ex=1176868800&en=e24ccc9c3571672f&ei=5087 ] I woke up this morning and this was the first thing i heard on the radio. My heart goes out to this school... imagine going to your finals worrying about how it was gonna go and then being shot dead en route. fuckin gunman. I gotta go to my psych final now though, fuck this really rattles me.
This is really terrible :( It's like Columbine and Dawson's college all over again, only this time it's a University during exam time when EVERYONE is REQUIRED to go. Wow, just one more thing to worry about besides cramming the materials into my head.
I was talking to a friend at VA Tech, she has no idea what's going one. But she's really freaked out. The world is full of messed up heads.
it's funny too me... cuz hate causes people to kill each other.. and sure couple of those muthafuckas get injured n what not... but the number of people who die in wars are greater than that... I mean what can you really do...?? it's the fukin psychos out there and you better watch your back before the fukin dragons come after your ass...
yeah, it is kinda strange eh... 78 people died the other day in bombings in iraq and it didnt really affect me at all. But it seems more real when it happens closer to home, and also the fact it occurred to University students like myself. I guess its easier to imagine myself going to an exam and getting gunned down, then going to iraq and getting blown up.
Saw the news on telly, it's just horrible what the shooter did. The US government should scrap that outdated law of people having the right to have a gun and try to temper down the political powers of the NRA.
its confirmed that the kid who did it was asian... fuck, Fox news has already been linking the shooting to video games. Ridiculous, if someone is batshit insane enough to go on a shooting rampage and kill 30+ people video games are not a huge factor.
Fox and NRA are from the same club, so ofcourse they love to blame videogames. It's never been properly proved that videogames and violency have any relation but the idiots love to find a scapegoat to derive the attention of the real problems in society.
It was an excellent decision by the police to think the gunman from the early morning had done a runner from the campus
