Wikipedia already has an entry on this! And pretty detailed given that it just happened a few hours ago.
As if being an RA isn’t thankless enough…
Just wanted to say I’m glad to hear that Lord Il Palazzo has checked in and is OK.
It appears that the gunman was a student as well.
What’s not clear is what happened between the first shooting and the classroom shooting. Did anyone know what took place? How did the suspect leave? (If it took place early in the morning it’s possible that nobody saw what happened and he was able to leave - however, knowing college students, there’s never a time when the sun is up that people aren’t around.)
Why are the newspeople asking each student if they’re going to leave Va. Tech? This seems like an incredibly inappropriate question to ask at the time.
Another student called in. She was in an adjoining classroom, and learned about the shooting via e-mail in class. :eek: (I have to rethink my ban on e-mailing in classrooms now.) The students were about to leave but were advised to stay in the classroom.
Dio, absolutely. I was an RA for four years, and a hall director, and an area director. I love RAs, they deal with the worst crap that college life has to offer - alcohol poisoning, emotional breakdowns, etc. So that part of the story broke my heart. After I left my former institution to go to grad school, I learned that one of my favorite RAs walked in the communal bathroom and found a student who had hung herself.
MSNBC is saying that there was a two-hour interval between the first shooting and the second shooting. How the campus continued to operate after two students were shot is beyond me!
I got in there in December. I’m majoring in math and C.S (which for a freshman is just engineering). The majority of the deaths were at Norris Hall, an Engineering building. My parents held me back a year when I was in kindergarten.
That could have been me there.
Not that I’m saying this means anything in this horrible mess, just something I realized while reading the thread.
I just can’t imagine how a man can do that over a woman. What is it about some young men that makes them capable of things like this?
According to the witness Trey, he didn’t even say anything, not even “Get down!” or “Motherfuckers!” or anything at all. Imagine dying without even knowing why in God’s green earth it’s happening.
What a sad day.
A sad day indeed.
I’m also confused as to how one shooter could kill and injure so many. I heard that he locked doors to trap people in. If true, this could explain the large numbers.
Some new details:
Suspect is ID’ed as an Asian-American male. (Perhaps this is minor, but previously he was ID’ed as Asian.)
He had a 9mm pistol and a .22 pistol as well. The 9mm, apparently, can fire 15 rounds from one clip.
He chained the doors of Norris Hall after entering, which supports the idea that he had thought this out for a while.
What is not brought up in this discussion / coverage is that the campus had been shut down on the first day of school because of a gunman on the loose who eventually murdered a police officer before he was apprehended.
It has been a hard year for VT students and staff.
I can’t decide which of the following to use:
“What about sunrise to about noon?”
-or-
“I think you have that backwards. There’s no time when the sun is down that people aren’t around.”
I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I don’t know either. It looks the buildings were pretty close to each other, so if there were no surviving witnesses to the shooting, I can almost understand how he could be loose for some time.
the students who bailed through the window were “surviving witnesses” and gunshots were certainly reported. Two hours is a long time.
Lord Il Palazzo, I’m glad you’re OK and I hope and pray that your friends are too.
I just now heard about this shooting and came to the SDMB right away to see what was going on. I really didn’t expect to find a member who was a VT student, much less be online posting about the incident, but here you are. Thank you for taking the time.
Ah, that’s right- he did attack other people in the dorm before going to the engineering building.
MSNBC reported that a student at Va Tech said the first notice of the shooting was at 9:22 am, over two hours after the first shooting. (It also appears that the RA or the girlfriend might have survived because there was only one death in the residence hall.)
The e-mail apparently did not cancel classes or order a lockdown.
It’s too early, but my gosh, how does a shooting take place and nothing happens for two hours? There appears to be word that the police might have detained someone after the first shooting, did they mistakenly arrest the wrong person, thought they had the shooter, and stopped the investigation?
Yes, glad you are safe.
So let’s see…
Guy has an argument with his girlfriend. Calls in a bomb threat. Gets two guns over the weekend. Comes back and kills girlfriend. Kills witness. Decides girlfriend isn’t dead enough. Shoots up classroom. Leaves classroom with some alive. Comes back later, tries to shoot more. Leaves campus. Two hours later, decides girlfriend still not dead enough. Goes to another building, locks people in, shoots more of them.
Does this make any kind of sense to anyone?
God, this is horrible. I wish I had something meaningful or helpful to say, but…
sends hugs to Lord Il Palazzo and everyone out there
No, that’s the horror of it. Some stuff is just too horrendous for normal humans to comprehend.
I think I’m going to watch Planet Earth tonight and remind myself there is much much more in this world that is breathtakingly beautiful and a delight to behold.
Of course, that’s after I hug my kids, one of whom is heading off to college this fall.
What sense is there to look for? Shooting up a dorm or classroom isn’t a sensible response to any event.