LBY3
The continuing adventures of Beau Yarbrough

Shootings at Virginia Tech

Monday, April 16, 2007, 12:22
Section: Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech logoIt’s official. Virginia Tech is now home to the worst mass shooting in American history. Worse than the University of Texas, worse than Columbine, worse than the Luby’s massacre. At least 33 people are dead, and two dozen more are wounded after shootings at the West Ambler Johnston dorm and Norris Hall on Monday.

From a statement by Tech’s president, Charles W. Steger:

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.

I lived on the top floor of West AJ my final year of college, when I swapped room assignments with a pledge, so I could buckle down and graduate. (I wasn’t getting anything done in the Pi Kappa Alpha house that year.)

From the Washington Post:

The shootings, which included both students and staff members, took place at West Ambler Johnston, a dormitory, and Norris Hall, which houses the College of Engineering, at opposite ends of the sprawling campus. Authorities said the first shooting was reported shortly after 7 a.m. at the dorm and the second about two hours later at Norris Hall.

Trey Perkins, who was sitting in room 207 in Norris Hall, said the gunman barged into the room at about 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a minute and a half. “Some 30 shots in all,” said Perkins, who was seated in the back of the room.

It was a German class, Perkins said, and there were about 15 students in the room. The gunman, who was holding two pistols, Perkins said, first shot the professor in the head and kept on shooting at the students. Perkins said the student was of Asian descent, “around 19,” and had “very serious but very calm look on his face.”

“Everyone hit the floor at that moment,” said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering, who sounded shaken on the phone. “And the shots seemed like it lasted forever.”

It’s hard to imagine someone could kill two people in West AJ and then make it across the Drill Field to the other side of campus and Norris Hall. More details I’m sure will be forthcoming in the days and weeks to come.

The Roanoke Times has a map showing the shooting locations, although they call Pritchard Hall “Pritchett Hall” for some reason, which is bizarre, considering how many Hokies work there.

More news available at the following news sites, which will have more localized information than the AP wire:




2 Comments »

  1. Oh my god. How are you holding up?

    Comment by f. chong rutherford — April 16, 2007 @ 16:32

  2. Good Lord, that’s awful. When you said yesterday that you were wrapped up in the Virginia Tech thing, I thought maybe you meant some controversy related to the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ thing you posted about earlier. That’s what I get for not watching the news last night…

    Thirty-three people. That’s insane.

    Comment by Stephen — April 17, 2007 @ 8:15

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Veritas odit moras.