Numbers range from 22-32 killed with similar numbers of wounded. The university’s president has issued a statement:
The university was struck today with a tragedy of monumental proportions. There were two shootings on campus. In each case, there were fatalities. The university is shocked and horrified that this would befall our campus. I want to extend my deepest, sincerest and most profound sympathies to the families of these victims which include students There are 22 confirmed deaths.
We currently are in the process of notifying families of victims. The Virginia Tech Police are being assisted by numerous other jurisdictions. Crime scenes are being investigated by the FBI, University Police, and State Police. We continue to work to identify the victims impacted by this tragedy. I cannot begin to covey my own personal sense of loss over this senselessness of such an incomprehensible and heinous act The university will immediately set up counseling centers. So far centers have been identified in Ambler Johnston and the Cook Counseling Center to work with our campus community and families.
Here are some of the facts we know:
At about 7:15 a.m. this morning a 911 call came to the University Police Department concerning an event in West Ambler Johnston Hall. There were multiple shooting victims. While in the process of investigating, about two hours later the university received reports of a shooting in Norris Hall. The police immediately responded. Victims have been transported to various hospitals in the immediate area in the region to receive emergency treatment.
We will proceed to contact the families of victims as identities are available.
A podcast is available here. There is at least one Virginia Tech webcam but it doesn’t show much. The school paper has useful updates and photos and there’s an interesting discussion thread at Fark that appears to have comments from students trying to make sense of the whole thing.
I don’t really have much to add. This is tragic but the human race is home to a lot of sick, twisted, and violent people and I can’t really say I’m surprised when these things happen. Now the media will flail about for a few weeks. They’ll go on their witch hunt. Gun-control and other debates be will endlessly rehashed. The response by law enforcement will be picked apart too. Frankly, I’m not interested in the inevitabile media circus.
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“This is tragic but the human race is home to a lot of sick, twisted, and violent people ”
FOX NEWS REPORTS:
“A Virginia Tech professor said Cho’s work in creative-writing class was so disturbing that he had been referred to the school’s counseling service.
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department, said she did not personally know the gunman.
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.”
“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 Web site The Smoking Gun on Tuesday posted a play Cho allegedly wrote last year. Entitled “Richard McBeef,” the violent, possibly darkly comic one-act play concerns an argument between the title character and his 13-year-old stepson, who accuses him of murdering his father and of pedophilia.
The play seems sympathetic to the stepfather, who tries to defend himself in vain against his wife and stepson’s accusations. It ends on an ambiguous note, with the stepfather swinging a “deadly blow” at the boy.”
I suggest the left read the writings of Virginia United States Senator James Webb.