Apr 16 2007
VA Tech Shootings
Updates Added At The End:
The news of shootings at VA Tech are disturbing since I and many friends and family attended that great school nestled away in the hills of southwest VA. But there is some confusion and exaggeration in the reporting. I note this at LGF:
Local FOX affiliate WFXR-TV in Richmond reported that one shooting occurred between 7:15 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, and another at 10 a.m. at Norris Hall. The school’s Web site confirmed the shooting at opposite ends of the 2,600-acre campus.
Police also said there is no evidence the two shootings at opposite ends of campus were related.
Being an old Agi school the campus is huge, but the main building center is not spread out across the entire property but collocated in a central area. The time to walk form Ambler to Norris is maximum 15 minutes. Driving (not surprising with satellite parking outside the ring of buildings) could take 40 minutes. So while there is no evidence of connection there clearly is plenty of time.
VA Tech has somewhere between 25-30,000 students with many living off campus. The basic point is finding two insane idiots in the population is not hard to do. And then there are number of other colleges nearby, and then there is the 15,000 locals in the area who have a love-hate relationship with the student population which annually arrives and outnumbers them 2-1. This is a historic tragedy and is possibly coordinated, possibly some retribution attack for the morning killing, if not the responsibility of one person. But time will tell.
Update: As suspected, this was the act of a lone, crazed individual. Now I am awaiting word of the gunman’s nationality and religious leanings, that will be critically telling. Lots of details here.
Update: Live blogging of the situation from nearby Roanoke. Clearly an assault weapon of some kind was used in the second, later shooting:
Freshman Hector Takahashi said he’d been in a class in Pamplin Hall, near Norris Hall, around 9:30 a.m. Students were talking about a shooting in West Ambler Johnston.
“Then all of a sudden, we were like, ‘Whoa — were those shots?’” he said. There were two quick bangs, then a pause, then a fusillade of at least 30 shots, he said.
…
Twenty of the victims were shot in Norris Hall, a classroom building, Flinchum said. One was shot early this morning in West Ambler-Johnston, a residence hall. A second person was shot in West Ambler-Johnston but survived.
Still awating word on the name or nationality of the shooter.
Update: Statement from VA-Tech President. Was the Shooter from Maryland? CORRECTION Reader Mike M reminded this Northern VA boy that Tech is in Montgomery County VA! My bad!
The Virginia Tech police are being assisted by numerous other jurisdictions including Montgomery County.
Montgomery County MD is 5+ hours by car from VA Tech, so this coordination is an interesting comment.
Major Update: This is turning out to be a horrific tragedy as now the death toll is heading over 30 people killed.
At least 29 people are dead in what may be the biggest mass shooting in American history — and the death toll may rise.
What every college across the country needs to know right now is this an isotated event or a hint of things to come.
Update: Sadly the death toll has now reached 32 as confirmed by the FBI. The fact MD officials and the FBI are involved means there could be a much broader situation at play here.
Update: Some reporting has the gunman as a young Asian looking for his girlfriend. Sadly, I would prefer this be a massacre of passion than one of terrorism.
Addendum: Some on the left are taking issue with my interest in the gunman’s religion and, clearly, whether he was motivated by Islamo Facsism. I have one daughter in a Southern VA College right now and family and friends with kids in just about every VA school there is, so excuse me for wanting to make sure, in this post 9-11 world, there is not something broader afoot. I recall watching the events unfold on 9-11 and how we all felt the first hit on the WTC was a plane accident. It tool a second hit for reality to sink in. I have no regrets in wanting to make sure this was an isolated incident and not al Qaeda’s latest attack plans. And those on the left who don’t get that too bad. No apologies here given the amount of death and carnage the Islamo Fascists have spread across the globe in the last 20 years. None.
Update: Some audio from a student who was shot and injured in Norris Hall with a description of the mayhem and shooter.
Update: Apparently from eyewitness reports here much of the campus wa shut down after the initial shooting in Ambler Johnson Hall. And from this report it seems the gunman went immediately from Ambler to Norris where police surrounded the man after an initial brief gun battle. Then the massacre started later around 10-10:30 AM. Clearly police did what they could to isolate and limit the destruction.
Update: Death toll is now 33. Campus authorities also made clear the earlier incident at Ambler Johnson which left two people dead was believed to be an isolated incident and that the shooter had left the campus. No more details on the shooter except he killed himself apparently. Too bad he did not think of that first.
43 Responses to “VA Tech Shootings”
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*UPDATE* Reported Multiple Deaths in Virginia Tech Shooting…
Classes have been canceled today as a scary situation develops in Blacksburg:Shootings in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech left at least one person dead and seven or eight more wounded Monday before police arrested the suspected gunman, officials…
Time for a Prayer…
This is a tragedy of the utmost proportion. Prayers are offered to the families of those taken from them in such a senseless fashion.
Police: 22 Dead After Virginia Tech University Shooting
Read the story here.
Update: AJ Strata is a graduate of …
This Just Makes You Want To Home School Your Kids Forever…
What is it with April and deadly school shootings?
…
A shooting happens at 7:15 where there are deaths and classes are not cancelled? Students are only notified by email? Once student told FNC that she did not know there had been murders as she was only told in her 9:00 a.m. class that there had been an “incident” at a dorm.
WTF is going on? Why wern’t classes immediately cancelled and student notified to stay away? Why did the administration allow classes to continue when they already had dead students?
R05,
VA Tech is enormous and there are ‘incidents’ sadly quite regularly. A fight or stabbing breaking out is not going to initially close the campus. Don’t fault the school for not realizing after the initial shooting they had a madman on their hands.
AJ, give me a break. You have a student murdered by a nut case, who is now on the loose and you don’t shut the damn school down? This was not some lunatic sitting on top of a tower taking potshot at people below. This was a person wandering around campus with weapons with total access to the buildings.
And yes, I do fault the school. After Columbine, school administrators shoud err on the side of caution, not pre-determine that the first killing was just an isolated incident and allow students to go their merry ways.
My brother was at UT when Whitman went nuts. He was a classmate of Whitman’s. When the first shots came, classrooms were locked down, SWAT teams were on campus within minutes, and the police started clearing the Congress Avenue immediately making shop owners lock their doors and keep people inside.
So to tell me that almost three hours later classes are still going on and you don’t have a problem with that is just plain nuts.
You have shootings all the time near and in schools R05 – read the papers more. One shooting is not going to close down any school in the nation. Sorry you don’t like the answer – but the world is that violent.
BTW, where do you get off claiming I am OK with this? Do NOT respond if you wish to comment on this site. You are on thin ice with me right now.
If there is going to be any blame for this senseless act it will come from the families whose lives are forever changed today.
As a parent I cannot imagine the horror they must have felt at the initial news and are feeling now.
Thanks AJ for all the updates.
The simple fact is that you can’t run a school like it is a penitentiary. What about other places like malls and downtown shopping districts? We can not turn every single public place into a prison.
I wish there was some way to make it illegal to report these stories or at least limit their reporting of them. It is this very news reporting that acts as the enabler for this kind of crime. The fact that we are even talking about this nut means that he accomplished what he set out to do … he got everyone in the world’s attention.
Now someone else is going to see this and in a year or two or five or ten go for their day of fame.
Multiple Shootings at Virginia Tech…
***See Updates***
This story is unfolding, but it appears there is more than one shooter involved….
IIRC, Blacksburg is located in Montgomery Co., Virginia….an awful lot of names got reused in those days.
AJ, where did I say you were OK with this? 32 people are dead. Am I not allowed to question why students were not locked down? Why a murder was allowed to roam campus for 2 3/4 hours?
So, I you wish to do the Al Sharpton act and try to stop me from posting here, well, all I can say is it is your blog and you are free to do what you will. You have already shown that you object to any opinion that does not agree with you.
But I am angry. DAMN ANGRY.
BTW, I don’t take to threats lightly. Perhaps Va Tech should adopt that philosophy.
Read your posts R05, and stop lashing out at me or I will ban you for my peace of mind. Not because I am Al Sharpton. That was your one freebie – one more childish remark and I will definitely go for the pece of mind option.
Mike M!
You know I forgot the was Montgomery County VA! Clearly I am from Northern VA!
As for what the leadership at Virginia Tech should have done, I’m of two opinions.
On the one hand, it is poor headwork to know that you have a killing in one of the dorms and tell the students to just go about their business. if nothing else, you are providing a hostage-rich environment.
On the other hand, this IS a college. Not, repeat NOT, a grade or high school. The students are presumed to have a certain degree of maturity and self-sufficiency, and not to require the coddling that we give to schoolchildren.
BTW, I think that is one of the features of this business that bothers me the most….this is NOT a “school shooting”. It is a “college shooting”. Very different venues.
I re-read my posts, AJ. I said I faulted the school. Not you.
What I did say is that you should have a problem with the fact that students were not immediately locked down.
For God’s sake, AJ, 32 people are dead and this guy roamed the campus for two hours. Now some students are saying he chained the doors closed. Students are reporting that they were sent emails of an “isolated incident”. Is that how campus authorities react to a murder calling it an “isolated incident”? Most of the students being interviewed on FNC are saying they did not read their emails this morning.
I’m sorry if I upset your peace of mind. How do you think my family felt sitting by the radio all day wondering if my brother was one of the dead from the Tower sniper? They were both engineering students. For me, this is deja vu.
I have a kid at a southern VA school R05, your outbursts are not defendable.
AJ & R05: alright, BOTH of you calm down!
32 people have been massacred, students, on their way to class; no “normal” American, can be happy about this.
Right now, there are a lot of facts that all of us don’t know, and R05, you know, as well as I, 95% of what you hear, about a “combat situation”, in the first hours, is bogus anyway!
I don’t know why the school didn’t shut down after the first incident; I don’t know, I don’t have the answers, and I can’t even speculate; but right now, I can’t “blame” either; don’t know enough to do so.
That will come later; it will be found out, and it will be published, then we can excoriate, IF it needs to be done.
But you two, going after each other, right now, is not accomplishing anything, for anyone.
Besides, I value both of your opinions, and I don’t want either of you saying/doing something, that you regret later.
R/dale
Breaking- Gunman kills 21 32 and wounds 21 28 more at Virginia Tech (UPDATED)…
***BUMPED TO TOP***
Roanoke Times has continuous updates and eye witness accounts.
MORE: HotAir has running updates including this from a Va. Tech student:
Just got this from a reader who says it was posted on his VTech frat listserv. Grain of salt:
Z…
R05, the comment I think upset AJ is:
“So to tell me that almost three hours later classes are still going on and you don’t have a problem with that is just plain nuts.”
In that context the “you” in “you don’t have a problem with that” appears to be directed at AJ.
This is AJ’s blog and as far as I am concerned he can ban you because he doesn’t like the color socks you are wearing. Nobody as a “right” to comment here.
AJ, I pray your child is safe. I would assume they are or you would not be posting. Please, remember that they are all our kids today. The nation mourns.
AJ: trust me, thinking the probable shooter was a potential Jihadi, suffering from “Sudden Jihad Syndrome”, was about my second thought, when I saw the headlines on Drudge, and you are correct to think it, and it needs to be proven to me, that is NOT the case, because as Michele Malkin has pointed out many times, there have been many cases of SJS in the US, that have gone unreported by the MSM, and unidentified by the Administration, on purpose, to “protect” Muslims in this country; maybe you might want to post a link to Michele’s extensive research on the project, it is illuminating.
That said, the Left can pound sand on this, someone has to show me it isn’t the case here with VT!
Crosspatch, AJ has a right to do as he chooses. And if you can’t understand that the “you” used was a generalistic term, so be it. And I don’t think AJ needs you to “back” him up. He does pretty well on his own.
But leave it to you to comment on my socks instead of the fact that the nation weeps.
AJ: If it is any consolation, “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” was my first thought, I am sorry to say. That is, however, the world we live in now. My thoughts and prayers to all in southern VA.
Breaking: Shooting at Virginia Tech leaves 32 dead (UPDATE 15: FBI CONFIRMS 32 DEAD)…
… with the gunman still on the loose. The Associated Press is on top of breaking developments in this story.
***SCROLL & REFRESH FOR MULTIPLE UPDATES***
Update I: The campus website posts this update:
University Advisory:
Gunman on campus; …
Retiree, I was pointing out what might have got AJ’s back up a little because in your reply where you claimed to have reread your posts you seemed to have missed that. I am not trying to “back” anyone and as a matter of fact, now I am getting a little irritated with your tone towards me. Just who the heck do you think you are? Maybe you should try a method different from intimidation and bullying ’cause that doesn’t go very far with me, pal.
Who do I think I am, Crosspatch? I am a sibling of someone who was at the University of Texas during the day of carnage. So pardon me if I am just a little bit sensitive to the killing of our children.
And feel free to be irritated. I really don’t care. People are dead and all you want to do is critize me. So your critique of me means nothing until you can relate to me that you understand what each and everyone of these families are going through BECAUSE YOU HAVE GONE THROUGH IT LIKE I HAVE.
Fortunately, my brother went on to serve 21 years in the USN to protect people who worry about socks.
Good grief people, we don’t even know what happened here and you are already passing judgment.
I live near Bloomington In and I went to IU, that campus is huge and there is no way they could “lock it down”. I don’t know what this school looks like, but my understanding is that they believed the original shooting was a domestic.
The president of the school made the point that there are 26,000 students on campus but only about 9,000 live there. That means people are constantly coming and going.
I remember back when some schools at a public announcement system for things like civil service announcements, but those days are gone. I am surprised that with all the cell phones and the internet that more people were not calling for help earlier.
Radical concept here, but what say we wait for more facts. As for who has gone through what, I doubt that the feelings of the people involved would be a lot different if the shooting took place in a mall or a public building or whatever.
that should be civil emergency announcements
Terrye,
The school is enormous – the largest student body in VA I believe. There a many roads in, 100’s of buildings, tens of thousands of commuters and their cars. The student population is twice that of the host city of Blacksburg.
You cannot shut it down immediately. With that said they did use the emergency notification system which is a PA based system I think – which is going to get more people than email.
AJ, I read that the student population is 25,000. I don’t know if that is correct. The Blacksburg city web site states that the city’s population is 39,000. Do you know if that includes Va Tech’s student population?
R05: when I attended my alma mater, in Happy Valley in the early 80’s; the supposed studend population of the Main Campus was 25K, and the town of State College supposedly had ~20K.
I don’t know if those numbers were correct, but people used them all the time, and I’m sure, it’s probably pretty much the same now, if not worse.
Anyway, the point is, I appreciate your anger over this, but there was NO WAY in Hades, that if a “domestic” shooting or any other kind ocurred on the PSU campus, it would take a Battalion of troops, to “shut down” the campus, at a minimum!
PSU, like VT, is originally an Aggie school; and it’s on hundreds of acres, with hundreds of buildings, and hundreds of routes of egress and ingress, and there is NO WAY any overworked, underpaid, overweight Campus Security, even with Local and Statie Police support, is shutting that campus down!
Without seeing any “facts”; I strongly suspect, that when the first shooting happened, early in the morning, the first responders thought it was a domestic incident, and that no one had a clue that the perpetrator was going across campus, to do more mayhem!
So in that regard, R05, your anger is misplaced as of yet, towards AJ and the Campus.
NOW; IF, it comes out, later, that the Campus Administration and the Police and Security, somehow KNEW, that the individual who did the shootings, somehow was loose, and looking for other victims, and they didn’t go out to all students/faculty, with an APB of some type, then that is cause for furor!
Terrye; fine, technically you are correct; but I still want someone to show me it is not a “Middle Easterner” or “convert” or someone with “SJS”.
I didn’t say it was, yet; but I said that based upon what I’ve seen over the past 5 years, possibility existed/does exist, that it COULD be that, until it is proven otherwise!
That, is just being prudent!
Please note: I did NOT say it WAS; I did not say it was “likely”, I did not say it was “probable”; I did not say let’s go out and execute all Muslims; I just said, that based upon the history of the past 5 years of SJS in this country, covered up because of PC in this country, and abetted by the DOJ and the Administration because of PC as well; that it is/was “possible”.
Now, we shall, hopefully know, in a day or two, whether there was, or was not, any relation.
If there was, I will say “I told you so…”
If there wasn’t; I own no one, and nothing an apology, because the Jihadis have EARNED my contempt, and suspicion and my right to suspect, over the past 5 years!
There was no identification found on the shooter. Reports have him as 6′ tall and Asian. Part of his face is missing. It may be difficult to identify him unless his finger prints are on file somewhere.
Dale:
Correct about what? I was not talking about the shooter, I was talking about the people blaming the authorities rather than the shooter.
IU has a student population of 35,000, that is more than my county and there are a million ways one to and off of that campus. Some through the streets, lanes, businesses, highways, theatres, cultural centers, museums, shopping centers etc. Can not be done.
Terrye:
This is what you said:
“Good grief people, we don’t even know what happened here and you are already passing judgment. ”
And I was agreeing that you were technically correct; but I also wanted to point out, that I wasn’t “passing judgement” by saying it WAS a Muslim that did it; I was saying, based upon the other stuff, that it was a ‘Possibility”; it was also a possibility that it was not a Muslim, that it was a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu, or an atheist!
All/and/some were/are “possible”; my only point was, though, that I was NOT ruling out a Jihadi, based upon the previous 5+ years of SJS!
Does that make sense?
Developing: Virginia Tech Shooting Incident – 31+…
Since the reports indicate that there was a single assailant and police are conducting a search for a second assailant as a matter of routine, one has to wonder how if there was a single gunman that he managed to get across campus to continue his mur…..
Dale
You and I are on the same wavelength here, and I hope all the others trim their sails when we are still dealing with only initial reporting of the incident with all the likely crap data coming out of all that.
Everyone take a deep breath, since none of us are going to change what has already happened.
For anyone here to get their hackles up from little confirmed evidence is not a good outcome.
Let’s all wait until the facts shake out and then have a better basis for comment and arm chair quarterbacking.
I am reading on other sites the toll could reach 40. New post up on this matter.
AJStrata
My only issue at this point is the magnitude of the grief that will spread like ripples of a rock thrown into a placid lake.
My prayers and thoughts are for all those ravaged by this senseless slaughter.
When I said passing judgment I meant on each other, on the university administration, etc.
You know,on all the sites I have visited everyone is arguing about what was done and what should have been done. Who was responsible for security and didn’t respond rapidly enough, some saying that the students should have overpowered the killer and disarmed him instead of acting like sheep. Tempers are getting heated. Normally friendly people are at really vicious odds. I am reminding people that 32 people were murdered yesterday, kids from eighteen to twenty two mostly. This is devastating to their families and friends. I think we need to cool the rhetoric and wait and see what really happened before we pass judgement.
Who Can We Blame for the Virginia Tech Massacre?…
If we can’t blame Muslims for this tragedy, then who can we blame? Even before the bodies were cold, a number of conservative bloggers already had the answer: liberals….