Killer Slaughters 32 Students, Dozens Wounded, At American College
A Second Killer Escaped The Police?
Students wait out the shootings...
By Darryl Mason
UPDATE : A reporter on SBS News in Australia, doing a live cross from outside Virginia Tech, just claimed that he received information that there was a "mystery" about the identity of the man who went on a killing spree inside classrooms at Virginia Tech.
The reporter said police are now thinking there were two killers, one who shot the female student and student advisor in a dorm just after 7am, and another who did the killings in the Norris Hall Engineering block two hours later.
He said if there was no connection between the two shooting sprees it would be something of a "monumental coincidence" to have two shootings on the same campus within two hours of each other.
Apparently the descriptions of the man who was seen leaving the dorm and the man who killed more than 30 students on the other side of the campus, at Norris Hall, do not match up.
News on this is still breaking, so the "mystery" may already be resolved by the time you read this. However, the possibility of two separate killers would give credence to police and college officials' claims that they believed the shootings were over once police had secured the dorm, even though the gunman had not been detained.
A second killer would explain how officials and police were taken completely by surprise by the second, far more deadly, shooting spree.
However, the official story thus far gets murky. The same report on SBS News also said that email warnings were circulated to students to look out for someone who may be dangerous and for students to report suspicious behaviour to police or officials, just before the second shooting spree began.
Presumably, this e-mail warning refers to the first killer, who is believed to have left the dorm after he shot his girlfriend and a student advisor, if that story actually stands up to scrutinising. And there's no guarantee that the facts as known of the first shooting will not change as well.
Go Here For More Recent Updates
Previously....
Only days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine massacre, a technical college in Virginia, USA, becomes the scene of the worst mass shooting of civilians in American history.
At 7am, a man entered a college dorm room and reportedly argued with his girlfriend. Around 7.15am, a student advisor attempted to intervene in the confrontation, and the young man then reportedly shot his girlfriend and the advisor dead.
Some two hours later, on the other side of the huge college campus, presumably the same young man began methodically killing students in their classrooms. Police locked down the campus, but the massacre was reportedly over in a matter of minutes. The gunman is dead, either shot by police or by his own hand.
From ABC News :
Key eyewitness accounts of the students first appeared on sites like Facebook, from which the mainstream media then picked up on the details. An eyewitness account :Two people were shot dead in a dormitory room before the gunman apparently reappeared two hours later on another part of the campus and shot another 30 people.
Most of those killed were students attending classes at a hall where the gunman apparently used chains to lock doors before shooting the victims, university and police officials say.
Fifteen people were wounded in the shootings, including people who had been shot and some who were hurt after jumping from windows to escape the gunfire
"He was, I would say, about a little bit under six feet tall, young looking, Asian, dressed sort of strangely, almost like a boy scout, very short-sleeved light, tan shirt and some sort of ammo vest with black over it," Erin Sheehan said.
She says he was carrying what appeared to be a black handgun and peeked into the class twice before later coming back with murderous intent.
"He just stepped within five feet (1.5 metres) of the door and started firing," Ms Sheehan said, a freshman and mechanical engineering major.
"He seemed very thorough about it, getting almost everyone down. I was trying to act dead.
"He left for about 30 seconds, came back in, did almost exactly the same thing. I guess he heard us still talking.
"Then we forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again, the door would not lock. And so he came and tried to force himself in another three times and started shooting through the door."
Ms Sheehan says the class had 25 people in it plus the professor.
"When we left, only four of us left," she said. "Everyone was else was unconscious, either dead or wounded seriously."
Story continues below...
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Story continues...
A remarkable, straightforward account of the massacre from a student in a room across the hall from where the majority of the killings took place :
While there appears to have been a major communications breakdown on behalf of college officials, the students themselves quickly mobilised on sites like Facebook to update that they, or a friend, or fellow student, were safe and uninjured.It was just a regular day in class; the door was open and we heard a pop-pop-popping noise. Sounded like some kind of construction but it was getting disruptive so we went to close the door, and one of the girls stepped out in the hallway to see what it was. She saw the gun and ran back inside the room and slammed the door shut and we all got down on the floor.
Finally one of the guys in the front of the classroom was brave enough to get up and move the desk in front of the door to prevent outside entry. About twenty seconds later, the shooter rattled the doorknob trying to get in. When he couldn't get in he fired two shots through the door (single solid piece of wood) and left. We heard him go in to 206 (the room across the hall) and shoot the people in that room.
When the police arrived five minutes later we heard them call for him to surrender his weapon and some more, irregular shots. Another five minutes later the police knocked and yelled "Police!" and we yelled "How do we know?" and when a second voice confirmed that it was in fact police, we opened the door.
We entered the hallway. Blood, bullet casings, and empty pistol clips were everywhere; this was definitely the most horrifying sight of my entire life. We ran past quickly. A door to the stairwell had been opened and there was a massive trail of blood; we found out later that a class had tried to escape only to find that the monster had chained the doors shut before starting his rampage. They were all killed.
Within five minutes of the first shots, police were gathering outside. In another ten minutes, the threat had been neutralized and the building was secure.
Literally millions of people from across the United States, and around the world, concerned about friends or family members at the college with a student body of 25,000, went straight to networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, to find out what was happening and whether their friends or family members were safe.
Students who had not updated their Facebook page to say "I'm Okay" were repeatedly urged by others to do so.
On a day of such tragedy for Americans, it is remarkable to compare the wall of official silence and scant details of who was injured or killed in hours after the Columbine massacre of 1999, to abundance of information available on the well-being of students and campus staff literally within minutes of the massacre occurring.
Not only are the best and most comprehensive reports of the massacre being written by students themselves (some were sending out text message reports while the killings were still underway), but the mainstream media scrambled to intercept the exchange of information between the student eyewitnesses and the rest of the public.
The mainstream news needed to cherry-pick the details and student reports to pull together their own coverage, but it only showed how increasingly irrelevant the mainstream media is when such horrific events occur, involving such large numbers of people.
There are claims on message and discussion boards that dozens of phone cameras, and video cameras, were seized by police, some which may actually show the shootings taking place.
The worst school shooting in America's history will see enlivened, and enraged, debate about the availability of hand guns and ammunition in states like Virginia where gun laws are less restrictive than many other states.
There will also be plenty of claims made that if the students were allowed to carry firearms on the campus, the massacre would have not lasted as long, and not so many students would have been killed.
It is very likely that this massacre, being the biggest so far, will act as a catalyst for more restrictive American firearms laws. The Republicans will defend the right of Americans to arm themselves to the teeth with semi-automatic pistols that can fire 19 rounds before needing to be reloaded, and Democrats will use the massacre to ramp up the case for a mass disarming of Americans.
The United States just got itself another fiery election issue, and both the Republicans and Democrats will be relieved that Iraq may no longer be one of the most controversial, and divisive, issues that will carry the nomination and presidential debates through 2008.
Keep The Guns. Ban The Guns. Stop The Massacres. Arm The Students. More Guns Will Mean More Massacres. More Guns Will Mean Less Massacres.
And on and on it will go, all the way to November, 2008.
When the obviously horrific cell phone and video footage from inside the classrooms, while the massacre was underway, is released, you can expect a massive rise in the number of Americans who will back the Democrats in pursuing more restrictive gun control.
Banning guns do not stop massacres, although there is probably much to be said for comedian Chris Rock's idea of charging $5000 a bullet. How much did it cost the killer to buy his weapons and load up on hundreds of rounds of ammunition? Less than $500, and no background check required.
Completely removing the sale of semi-automatic pistols that can waste a dozen students in a few seconds before reloading will probably be where new gun control campaigns begin.
Parents of children who were killed will likely emerge as the grassroots leaders of such a new campaign, and in a nation media-soaked with the violence and loss of the Iraq War, pro-gun Republicans will find they have to tread a very, very careful line in dismissing the very real fears of millions of Americans who wish only for these killings to stop.
Detailed TimeLine Of The Day's Events From Local Virginia Newspaper
College Officials Thought Killer Left The Campus After The First Shootings
Furious Students Demand To Know Why Classes Weren't Cancelled After 7am Dorm Murders
How The Massacre Unfolded On The Internet And Text Messages
Students Survived By Pretending To Be Dead
The Silent Killer Who Showed No Expression As He Pursued His Victims, Killed Himself As Police Closed In
"Bush Defends Guns In The Midst Of One Of The Greatest Horrors To Ever Afflict This Country"
Students Fill Facebook Site With Eyewitness Reports
