*****UPDATE (11:45pm PST): Gunman has now accounted for 31 dead and has shot himself.
This morning, a gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 21 people in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. The gunman was killed but it was unclear if he was shot by police or took his own life.
The shootings were reported to have started around 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and continuing about two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building.
This is reminicent of the Columbine High massacre near Littleton, Colo., in 1999, where two teenagers killed 12 other students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
On Monday, one student was killed in a dorm and the others were killed in the classroom, says Virginia Tech Police Chief W.R. Flinchum.
The campus is closed and classes canceled through Tuesday.
There’s just a lot of commotion. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on, said Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the dorm where shooting took place.
They had us under lockdown, Kanode said. They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again.
This CNN video shows Virginia Tech Preseident speak on the incident.
Read the full story.
The same question always remains. What drives people to such madness? That’s just so sad.
I don’t know. Those poor families that think their children are safe attending college. Our thoughts are with them all!
I don’t get it.. that’s completely sick… it’s a crazy world we live in. Can’t the government apply laws or something to restrict the possession of guns? I know in Canada there’s the gun registry thing which helps a lot, but still there has to be other ways to get the message across (education and all). Seems like killing people is something common these days… sad.. what d’you wanna do, when the government itself is acting just like that?
Crazy. Just crazy.
geez.. that’s horrible.
Yeah we’re all really shocked by the recent shootings at Virginia Tech. We don’t know if the immediate response by the administration was sufficient to contain the threat, and it’s unclear what exactly motivated the killer. Now all we can do is mourn for the victims…
This is so sad.
This is the first blog I have just stumbled across with this on it. Very strange to see…sad.