Gunman kills 30 on Virginia Tech campus

[fan 4ever]

Gunman kills 30 on Virginia Tech campus By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer

2 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, in a classroom across campus Monday, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, government officials told The Associated Press. The gunman was killed, bringing the death toll to 31.

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," said Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."

It was not immediately clear whether the gunman was shot by police or took his own life. His name was not released, and investigators offered no motive for the attack. It was not known if the gunman was a student.

The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus, with students complaining that the university did not warn them about the first burst of gunfire until more than two hours later.

Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive.

The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.

Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.

Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time, two hours after the bloodshed began.

"What happened today this was ridiculous. And I don't know what happened or what was going through this guy's mind," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "But I'm pretty outraged and I'll say on the record 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 — no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes — they just mention that they're investigating a shooting two hours later at 9:22."

He added: "That's pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they're sending out that e-mail, 22 more people got killed."

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said there was no evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, "but all avenues will be explored."

Up 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, 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 the Blue Ridge Mountains of 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.

The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus. The campus is centered around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets — who now represent a fraction of the student body — once practiced. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.

A gasp could be heard at a campus news conference when Virginia Tech Police Chief W.R. Flinchum said at least 20 people had been killed. Previously, only one person was thought to have been killed.

Investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began marking and recovering the large number of shell casings and will trace the weapon used, authorities said.

A White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia.

"The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said

After the shootings, all entrances to the campus were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly for Tuesday at the basketball arena.

After the shooting began, students were told to stay inside away from the windows.

Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode's resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put.

"They had us under lockdown," Kanode said. "They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again."

"We're all locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what's going on," Kanode said.

Maurice Hiller, 21, a mechanical engineering student from Richmond, saw police and SWAT team members with guns drawn going toward Norris Hall. "This is something just totally beyond anybody's expectations," he said.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks by authorities but said they have 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.

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 accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

Source: Yahoo.com

[Bob]

my friend from high school is safe...she goes to VT and it scared me...

it scares me to think kids my age died...same type of college as mine (Penn State)...wow.

pray for the students and their families..

[DevilsJim89]

There is some seriously ****ed up people in this world...what the **** was he thinking?!

I know a couple people at VT myself and thank God they are okay.

[Hero1]

that was insane.. when i first saw the report they said 17 were injured..but 30 dead? damn

[JumpinJack AJ]

I waz at work all day...so i didn't hear the newz until hours later. I don't understand how sickos in the world can do stuff like this. And why i can understand why people would run from someone with a gun, i can't believe that someone could kill and injur that many people without being stopped. There were hundreds of people in those buildings that could have stopped him, but it doesn't sound like anyone tried. I understand the danger, but given any kinda chance, i think i'd have 2 try and stop him if it waz just one guy. I guess it's hard 2 know exactly what 2 do when faced with that kinda situation. Everytime something like this happens, it makes u realize how this kinda thing could happen anywhere, and how security measures haven't changed since the last few school shootings. And the biggest shocker 2 me is that the college waited over 2 hours 2 inform the campus of the 1st shootings. Even if they thought that coward left campus, there waz no excuse 2 not let everyone know what happened right after it happened.

My prayers go out 2 everyone involved. I hope this doesn't lead 2 more of the same.

[Hero1]

Yes this story makes me feel physically ill.. why couldnt he have just killed himself why kill 32 innocent people.. I was thinking of the same thing today AJ.. I think I would have to sacrifice myself and my life and try and bring this guy down so he doesn't kill any more people..of course you dont know how you would react unless you are in that situation..maybe all those students thought someone would come and save them..

[Sandy]

This is so sad. I just watched on TV, today the news is everywhere. what must think a person to do something like that?? 30 young persons dead, persons that were there for studying(like a lot of us) to get the chance to have a good future.... it makes me feel so impotent.

[JumpinJack AJ]

Gunman Identified as University Student

Bush, First Lady to Visit School for Convocation

By ADAM GELLER

BLACKSBURG, Va. (April 17) -- A Virginia Tech senior from South Korea was behind the massacre of at least 30 people locked inside a campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university said Tuesday.

Ballistics tests also show that one of the guns inside that building was used in another shooting two hours earlier, at a dorm, Virginia State Police said.

Police identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior from South Korea who was in the English department at Virginia Tech and lived on campus.

"It's certainly reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both cases," but authorities haven't made the link for sure, said Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol.

The bloodbath ended with the gunman's suicide, bringing the death toll from two separate shootings -- first at a dorm, then in a classroom building -- to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger defended the university's delay in warning students after the first shooting. Some students said their first notice came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., after 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."

He said investigators did not know there was a shooter loose on campus in the interval between the two shootings because the first could have been a murder-suicide.

Two students told NBC's "Today" show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they reported to a German class where the gunman later opened fire.

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.

The slayings left people of this once-peaceful mountain town and the university at its heart praying for the victims, struggling to find order in a tragedy of such unspeakable horror it defies reason.

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush were planning to attend a 2 p.m. convocation Tuesday, and people sought comfort Monday night at a church service.

One mourner pleaded "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 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.

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 that the first e-mail warning 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 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."

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."

[fan 4ever]

This is really horrible....i can't believe somebody is this crazy! It's insane!

[Schnazz]

That's too bad but I can't say that it's effecting me too much. I mean, with so much death in the world as it is, this seems like just another sensationalized drop in the bucket. Every year the US has something like 16,000 homicides, this seems like 30 more.

[JumpinJack AJ]

Gunman Identified as University Student

Bush, First Lady Visit School for Memorial Service

By ADAM GELLER

BLACKSBURG, Va. (April 17) -- The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was described Tuesday as a sullen loner whose creative writing in English class 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 majoring in English, 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.

On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people gathered in the basketball arena, and when it filled up, thousands more filed into the football stadium, for a memorial service for the victims. President Bush and the first lady attended.

Watch Video

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger received a 30-second standing ovation, despite bitter complaints from parents and students that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire. Steger expressed hope that "we will awaken from this horrible nightmare."

"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.

A vast portrait of the victims began to emerge, among them: Christopher James Bishop, 35, who taught German at Virginia Tech and helped oversee an exchange program with a German university; Ryan "Stack" Clark, a 22-year-old student from Martinez, Ga., who was in the marching band and was working toward degrees in biology and English; Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman from Woodville, Va., who was majoring in animal and poultry sciences and, naturally, loved animals; and Liviu Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who was said to have protected his students' lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman.

Meanwhile, a chilling portrait of the gunman as a misfit began to emerge.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not know Cho. 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."

The Victims

Below are photos of people confirmed dead in the Virginia Tech shooting spree. More photos will be added as they become available.

"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 unidentified 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.

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

The professor looked at the sign-in sheet and, 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.

April 16: A Day of Tragedy

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.

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 handguns - a 9 mm and a .22-caliber - 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.

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. Markell said it is not unusual for college kids to make purchases at his shop as long as they are old enough.

"To find out the gun came from my shop is just terrible," Markell said.

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

Two of those killed in the shooting rampage, Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson, graduated from Westfield High in 2006, school officials said. But there was no immediate word from authorities on whether Cho knew the two young women and singled them 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. He described the family as quiet.

South Korea expressed its condolences, and said it hoped that the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation." "We are in shock beyond description," said Cho Byung-se, a Foreign Ministry official handling North American affairs.

Classes were canceled for the rest of the week. Norris Hall, the classroom building, will be closed for the rest of the semester.

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.

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.

Cho Seung-Hui's Plays

Posted Apr 17th 2007 12:53PM by AOL News

Filed under: Crime, Virginia Tech Shooting

AOL News has obtained two plays a classmate says were written by Cho Seung-Hui. Ian MacFarlane, the former classmate and current AOL employee, provided us with the plays. A note from Mr. MacFarlane and links to the works appear below.

What happened yesterday:

When I first heard about the multiple shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday, my first thought was about my friends, and my second thought was "I bet it was Seung Cho."

Cho was in my playwriting class last fall, and nobody seemed to think much of him at first. He would sit by himself whenever possible, and didn't like talking to anyone. I don't think I've ever actually heard his voice before. He was just so quiet and kept to himself. Looking back, he fit the exact stereotype of what one would typically think of as a "school shooter" – a loner, obsessed with violence, and serious personal problems. Some of us in class tried to talk to him to be nice and get him out of his shell, but he refused talking to anyone. It was like he didn't want to be friends with anybody. One friend of mine tried to offer him some Halloween candy that she still had, but he slowly shook his head, refusing it. He just came to class every day and submitted his work on time, as I understand it.

A major part of the playwriting class was peer reviews. We would write one-act plays and submit them to an online repository called Blackboard for everyone in the class to read and comment about in class the next day. Typically, the students give their opinions about the plays and suggest ways to make it better, the professor gives his insights, then asks the author to comment about the play in class.

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. Before Cho got to class that day, we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter. I was even thinking of scenarios of what I would do in case he did come in with a gun, I was that freaked out about him. When the students gave reviews of his play in class, we were very careful with our words in case he decided to snap. Even the professor didn't pressure him to give closing comments.

After hearing about the mass shootings, I sent one of my friends a Facebook message asking him if he knew anything about Seung Cho and if he could have been involved. He replied: "dude that's EXACTLY what I was thinking! No, I haven't heard anything, but seriously, that was the first thing I thought when I heard he was Asian."

While I "knew" Cho, I always wished there was something I could do for him, but I couldn't think of anything. As far as notifying authorities, there isn't (to my knowledge) any system set up that lets people say "Hey! This guy has some issues! Maybe you should look into this guy!" If there were, I definitely would have tried to get the kid some help. I think that could have had a good chance of averting yesterday's tragedy more than anything.

While I was hesitant at first to release these plays (because I didn't know if there are laws against it), I had to put myself in the shoes of the average person researching this situation. I'd want to know everything I could about the killer to figure out what could drive a person to do something like this and hopefully prevent it in the future. Also, I hope this might help people start caring about others more no matter how weird they might seem, because if this was some kind of cry for attention, then he should have gotten it a long time ago.

As far as the victims go, as I was heading to bed last night, I heard that my good friend Stack (Ryan Clark) was one of the first confirmed dead. I didn't want to believe that I'd never get to talk to him again, and all I could think about was how much I could tell him how much his friendship meant to me. During my junior year, Ryan, another friend and I used to get breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Shultz Dining Hall, one of the cafeterias on campus, and it was always the highlight of my day. He could talk forever it seemed and always made us laugh. He was a good friend, not just to me, but to a lot of people, and I'll miss him a lot.

---------------------------

I've read 2 of his plays. Keep in mind i've done acting for years, and i can say that he actually seems like when it comes 2 writing, he could have amounted 2 something. However, reading WHAT he wrote and the subject matter is demented. He comes off as a very immature, ignorant, and hateful person. Schools and work places need 2 have some kinda policy for disturbed people like this.

[JumpinJack AJ]

Gunman Had Two Past Stalking Cases

Grieving Students Remember Shooting Victims

By ADAM GELLER

AP

BLACKSBURG, Va. (April 18) -- 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.

Police searched Cho's dorm room on Tuesday and recovered, among other items, 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.

Other items seized include a folding knife; two computers, a hard disk and other computer disks; documents, books, notebooks and other writings; a digital camera; CDs; and two Dremel tools.

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.

"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.

With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many students left town.

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.

"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.

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."

"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."

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

The threat targeted the university president but was unfounded, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum. The building quickly reopened, but students were rattled.

"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."

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.

Threats Reported at Schools in 10 States

AP

AUSTIN, Texas (April 18) - Schools and campuses in at least 10 states were locked down or evacuated in the aftermath of a Virginia Tech student's shooting rampage that killed 33 people.

Scares Across the U.S.

Getty

Security at schools and colleges across the U.S. is high in the wake of the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech.

Threats in Louisiana, Montana and Washington state on Tuesday directly mentioned the massacre in Virginia, while reports of suspicious activity surfaced 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.

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. University spokeswoman Mischelle Amador declined to say where the note was found and said its contents were "nonspecific."

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 telephoned bomb threat. The city's bomb squad searched the buildings but found nothing, campus spokesman Chuck Cantrell said.

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.

[Luigie]

Damn i heard it ont he news, they aired that here cause apparently there was one peruvian who died too :shakehead:

[JumpinJack AJ]

Virginia Gunman Sent Manifesto to NBC

2005 Court Document Calls Shooter Dangerous

By MATT APUZZO

AP

BLACKSBURG, Va. (April 18) -- Midway through his murderous rampage, the Virginia Tech gunman went to the post office and mailed NBC a package containing photos and videos of him brandishing guns and delivering a snarling, profanity-laced tirade about rich "brats" and their "hedonistic needs."

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui says in a harsh monotone. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

NBC said the package contained a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement, 28 video clips and 43 photos. Several of the photos showed him aiming handguns at the camera.

The package arrived at NBC headquarters in New York on Tuesday and was opened Wednesday, two days after Cho killed 32 people and committed suicide in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. It bore a Postal Service time stamp showing that it had been mailed at a Blacksburg post office at 9:01 a.m. Monday, about an hour and 45 minutes after Cho first opened fire.

That would help explain one of the biggest mysteries about the massacre: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second fusillade, at a classroom building.

"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," says Cho, a South Korean immigrant whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."

Earlier in the day, authorities disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho was accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.

The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.

Cho Seung-Hui's Plays

AOL News has obtained two plays a classmate says were written by Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui. WARNING: The plays contain profanity and scenes with disturbing content.

Some of the pictures in the video package show him smiling; others show him frowning and snarling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backward, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holding a gun to his temple.

He refers to "martyrs like Eric and Dylan" - a reference to the teenage killers in the Columbine High massacre.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the package arrived in Tuesday afternoon's mail, but was not opened until Wednesday morning. It was sent by overnight delivery and apparently had the wrong ZIP code, NBC said.

An alert postal employee brought the package to NBC's attention after noticing the Blacksburg return address and a name similar to the words reportedly found scrawled in red ink on Cho's arm after the bloodbath, "Ismail Ax," NBC said.

Capus said that the network notified the FBI around noon, but held off reporting on it at the FBI's request, so that the bureau could look at it first. NBC finally broke the story just before police announced the development at 4:30 p.m.

It was clear Cho videotaped himself, Capus said, because he could be seen leaning in to shut off the camera.

State Police Spokeswoman Corinne Geller cautioned that, while the package was mailed between the two shootings, police have not inspected the footage and have yet to establish exactly when the images were made.

Cho repeatedly suggests he was picked on or otherwise hurt.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," he says, apparently reading from his manifesto. "You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

A law enforcement official said Cho's letter also refers in the same sentence to President Bush and John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed last year to having killed child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media.

April 16: A Day of Tragedy

Earlier Wednesday, authorities disclosed that in November and December 2005, two women complained to campus police that they had received calls and computer messages from Cho. But the women considered the messages "annoying," not threatening, and neither pressed charges, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Neither woman was among the victims in the massacre, police said.

After the second complaint about Cho's behavior, the university obtained a temporary detention order and took Cho away because an acquaintance reported he might be suicidal, authorities said. Police did not identify the acquaintance.

On Dec. 13, 2005, a magistrate ordered Cho to undergo an evaluation at Carilion St. Albans, a private psychiatric hospital. The magistrate signed the order after an initial evaluation found probable cause that Cho was a danger to himself or others as a result of mental illness.

The next day, according to court records, doctors at Carilion conducted further examination and a special justice, Paul M. Barnett, approved outpatient treatment.

A medical examination conducted Dec. 14 reported that that Cho's "affect is flat. ... He denies suicidal ideations. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are normal."

The court papers indicate that Barnett checked a box that said Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." Barnett did not check the box that would indicate a danger to others.

It is unclear how long Cho stayed at Carilion, though court papers indicate he was free to leave as of Dec. 14. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said Cho had been continually enrolled at Tech and never took a leave of absence.

A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans would not comment.

Though the incidents with the two women did not result in criminal charges, police referred Cho to the university's disciplinary system, Flinchum said. But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president of student affairs, would not comment on any disciplinary proceedings, saying federal law protects students' medical privacy even after death.

Some students refused to second-guess the university.

"Who would've woken up in the morning and said, 'Maybe this student who's just troubled is really going to do something this horrific?'" said Elizabeth Hart, a communications major and a spokeswoman for the student government.

One of the first Virginia Tech officials to recognize Cho's problems was award-winning poet Nikki Giovanni, who kicked him out of her introduction to creative writing class in late 2005.

Students in Giovanni's class had told their professor that Cho was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with his cell phone. Female students refused to come to class. She said she considered him "mean" and "a bully."

Lucinda Roy, professor of English at Virginia Tech, said that she, too, relayed her concerns to campus police and various other college units after Cho displayed antisocial behavior in her class and handed in disturbing writing assignments.

But she said authorities "hit a wall" in terms of what they could do "with a student on campus unless he'd made a very overt threat to himself or others." Cho resisted her repeated suggestion that he undergo counseling, Roy said.

Questions lingered over whether campus police should have issued an immediate campus-wide warning of a killer on the loose and locked down the campus after the first burst of gunfire.

Police said that after the first shooting, in which two students were killed, they believed that it was a domestic dispute, and that the gunman had fled the campus. Police went looking for a young man, Karl David Thornhill, who had once shot guns at a firing range with the roommate of one of the victims. But police said Thornhill is no longer under suspicion.

[JumpinJack AJ]

The Aftermath...

Student Arrested After Talking About Gunman

Remarks Deemed Sympathetic to Virginia Tech Killer

AP

BOULDER, Colo. (April 19) - A University of Colorado student was arrested after making comments that classmates deemed sympathetic toward the gunman blamed for killing 32 students and himself at Virginia Tech , authorities said.

During a class discussion of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech, the student "made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people," university police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said.

Several witnesses told investigators the student said he was "angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people," according to a police report. Witnesses "said they were afraid of him and afraid to come to class with him," Wiesley said.

The student, identified by police as Max Karson of Denver, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution. He had a court appearance set for Wednesday afternoon.

His father, Michael Karson, told the Camera newspaper that the comments may have been misinterpreted and questioned whether his son's free speech rights had been violated.

"I would have hoped that state officials would know their First Amendment better than they seem to," he said.

University spokesman Bronson Hilliard said privacy laws prevented him from releasing personal information about the student.

At Oregon's Lewis & Clark College, another student was detained by campus police Wednesday shortly before a vigil for the Virginia Tech victims when he was spotted wearing an ammunition belt. Portland police later determined that it was "a fashion accessory" made of spent ammunition, and said the man did not have a weapon. The belt was confiscated.