This is such a terrible story, and I have just been sick over it all day. I’m so glad to hear Lord Il Palazzo is okay, and will continue to hope that you all receive the best possible news about loved ones, friends, and colleagues.
The two hours before the lock-down is a tricky issue. I’m sure it wasn’t a decision made lightly. There are simply so many factors that it is a challenge to move both quickly and safely, no matter how many plans and protocols are already in place. It is complex enough with an unexpected situation with no particular malice, such as weather, and ever so much more when you must factor in a deliberate, violent intent.
VT isn’t really amenable to being locked down like some other campuses are. It is larger than the town next to it and there isn’t any one gate that you can cross. At least there wasn’t when I went there years ago.
When I was there, the campus was divided up with one part being primarily residential and one side being mostly classrooms and offices. The shooter’s dorm had over 800 residents and wasn’t the largest dorm on campus.
When I was there, security wasn’t tight and people left doors to the dorms propped open all the time. I have very little difficulty in believing that he was able to evade capture for one and a half hours.
I don’t think you can realistically focus on making campuses more secure. If someone wants to kill a large number of people, they will find a way, and there’s not a damned thing anyone can do about that. You can’t live your life in fear of things that you have no control over.
ETA: Glad to hear people are hearing from their people. I can’t imagine waiting to hear from someone in danger.
Holy crap. I was just watching Headline News and they interviewed a girl who was in the classroom. She implied that there were only 4 students who were unhurt. He methodically tried to kill EVERY person in the room. My apologies if this is incorrect or mentioned upthread.
A co-worker spent half the day talking to her daughter at VT, and that’s more or less the scenario she described. She wasn’t in that particular building during the incident, but I assume she got news from somewhere. Her words were “he pretty much lined them all up and started shooting”.
My apologies, too, if this is inaccurate in any way - just relating what I heard, and I know that kind of report is usually a little shaky.
I guess people are going to have to learn if people are willing to die there is nothing we can really to to prevent them from taking others along with them when they decide to “check out.”
With all the suicide bombers and stuff, I am actually surprised something like this hasn’t happened before. Though I will say I thought it would’ve happned in a “terror” type of deal.
And now I see on ABC news they have reports of a lot of people faking blogs and giving phoney accounts of what happened all over the Internet, especially on Facebook. What people won’t do to get on the new or their fifteen minutes of fame.
This will interesting though when the dusts settles, I bet anything this “murder” has stuff written all over the Internet. So far ABC says he was an Asian-American and that he carried no identification on himself and messed himself up so bad with his own gun he’ll be hard to identify
A heard an interview with one student who was in the building at the time of the shootings and she said she could hear laughter between bursts of gunfire.
When last I read about this at lunchtime the total was 22. I got back to work and had to deal with a crazy client most of the afternoon and promptly forgot about this because I was having a really bad day. Then I got home and saw the total was 32 … that really put my bad day in perspective.
My deepest sympathies go out to those who lost their lives and their family and friends and everyone at that university.
Glad to hear it.
Still no word from the person I know with a (step) daughter there. I’m hoping they are too busy traveling to get their healthy but scared child. Hope for the best, right?
*Authorities were investigating whether the gunman who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history was a Chinese man who arrived in the United States last year on a student visa.
The 24-year-old man arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on Aug. 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai, the source said. Investigators have not linked him to any terrorist groups.
Police believe three bomb threats on the campus last week may have been attempts by the man to test the campus’ security response, the source said.
The exits to the buildings where the shootings occurred were chained by the shooter, the source said. *
Did he have an automatic weapon? I’d imagine it would be pretty hard to do that, with people trying to run away and all. Once I’d see #1-8 in the line go down and I’m #17, I’d high-tail it out of there.
They just had a girl that was in class during the shooting. She said that he peeked in, and then came back a few minutes later and just started shooting. He was very methodical about it, and shot until he thought everyone was dead. He then left, and then came back and did the same thing. The girl suggested that he heard them talking, and came back to finish the job. He left and came back a 3rd time, but they had barricaded the door at this point, and he shot through the door. She said that she was one of only 4 out of 25 that walked out of the room, and two of those with her were injured.
WAG, the weapons were semi-automatic (often incorrectly referred to as “automatic” or “machine pistol” by the media). I don’t think that that description of the events is accurate, as it doesn’t match the description given on MSNBC by a student who was supposedly in the classroom. According to him, it was total chaos with people flipping desks and scrambling to get out of the way. From the description, it sounds like there was only one door in the classroom.
the line-them-up thing is new, earlier he burst in, fired at least a full clip and possibly more, left the room which was then barricaded (report by an eyewitness), came back and shot through the door several times.
I wonder, if perhaps he hit a couple of rooms and one was different than the other?
No, it wasn’t automatic, it was 2 semi-auto pistols, according to most reliable reports.
you’ll want to check the pit thread for this.
Also, it appears all of my acquaintances from VT are alright as well.
