Thread: Gunman Identifies as Massacre at VA Tech Enters 2nd Day

Gunman Identified as Massacre at Virginia Tech Enters Second Day

Press Conference Scheduled; President Bush to Visit Campus This Afternoon
Students hold hands and bow their heads in prayer as they mourn the shootings at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Monday, April 16, 2007. A gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Shooter Identified
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Monumental Massacre at Virginia Tech
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Virginia Tech Shooting

By RICHARD ESPOSITO and DAVID SCHOETZ

April 17, 2007 — Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old resident alien of the United States, a South Korean national and a Virginia Tech senior has been identified as the gunman in the shootings that left 33 people dead on the Virginia Tech campus Monday, as first reported by ABC News.

The student killed two people in a dorm room, returned to his own dorm room where he re-armed and left a "disturbing note" before entering a classroom building on the other side of campus to continue his rampage, sources said.

Cho's identity has been confirmed with a positive fingerprint match on the guns used in the rampage and with immigration materials.

"Lab results confirm that one of the two weapons seized in Norris Hall was used in both shootings," Virigina Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said at a press conference this morning.

At this time, police are not looking for a second shooter, however, they do not rule out the possibility that an accomplice may have been involved. Sources say Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol, sources said. Witnesses had also told authorities that the shooter was carrying a backpack. Sections of chain similar to those used to lock the main doors at Norris Hall, the site of the second shooting that left 31 dead, were also found inside a Virginia Tech dormitory, sources confirmed to ABC News.

In all, the massacre at Virginia Tech left 33 people dead — including Cho himself — in the worst shooting in modern American history.

"Lab results confirm that one of the two weapons seized in Norris hall was used in both shootings,"

President Charles Steger told "Good Morning America's" Diane Sawyer that police were still investigating the possibility of a second shooter, and said authorities had already interviewed one "person of interest."

"There may be others," said Steger, who will join the Virginia Tech chief of police at a press conference Tuesday morning. "We just don't know."

Steger also said that authorities hoped to have ballistics evidence to release that would confirm a connection between the two shootings.

Watch live coverage of the press conference on ABC News Now.

In a press conference Monday night, the university president, who continues to defend the way the school responded the dormitory shooting that began the day of campus bloodshed, gave a detailed timeline of the morning's tragic events.

He said a 911 call reporting a shooting at a dormitory was made at approximately 7:15 a.m. While police were trying to assess what they first believed was a domestic dispute, they received a second 911 call, nearly two and a half hours later, that reported shootings on the opposite side of campus. According to the Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum, officials had not definitively linked the two shootings as of Monday night.

Full coverage continues on "Good Morning America" and "World News With Charles Gibson" an ABC network special Tuesday at 10 p.m. EDT

Two guns were recovered, a 9 mm pistol and a .22-caliber pistol.

Flinchum said they have ruled out the possibility of a murder-suicide in the first shooting at West Ambler Johnston Hall. Ryan "Stack" Clark, a member of the school's marching band, the Marching Virginians, and a student resident assistant, was killed there by a shot in the neck. The second victim in the dorm shooting was a female.

Last night, investigators also had a preliminary identification of the shooter involved in the Norris Hall rampage.

When asked to describe the scene at Norris Hall, where the second shooting took place, Flinchum called it "one of the worst things I've seen in my life."

While Flinchum would not name any of the victims, he did say that university staff members were among the dead.

There have been, however, at least 15 shooting victims identified in press accounts, including four professors and 11 students.

Some students question why administrators did not cancel classes after the first shooting, and why it took more than two hours to inform the university community via e-mail about the first incident.Page 2 of 4)

According to Steger, the administration locked down West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory after the first shooting. But classes weren't canceled because the shooting was believed to be tied to a domestic dispute and campus police believed the shooter had left the campus.



"Schools should be places of safety and sanctuary in learning," President Bush said Monday from the White House. "When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community."



President Bush and the first lady will attend a convocation on the Virginia Tech campus at 2 p.m.



Law enforcement officials told ABC News they believed there was a single gunman who fired at least two semi-automatic pistols. They said he might have been wearing a bulletproof vest, and that he killed himself after opening fire on his victims.



It is unknown at this time if the guns had standard or extended clips, which can fire as many as 30 shots before the gun has to be reloaded.



No identification was found on the gunman's body, police said. Eyewitnesses described him as an Asian male about 6 feet tall. He apparently shot himself in the head after the killings; part of his face was missing when his body was found.



"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," said Virginia Tech's Steger.




Two-Hour Gap Between Shootings


It is also not clear what happened between the two shootings — a gap of two hours. The buildings where they happened are about half a mile apart, a distance one can walk in about 10 minutes, according to Alex Mengel, a freshman at the school.



The first e-mail to students about the first shooting went out at 9:24 a.m., according to copies forwarded to ABC News. By then the shootings were over.



A count by ABC News showed that at least 28 people had been admitted to are hospitals. Some had suffered gunshot wounds; others needed medical attention for broken bones sustained trying to flee the gunman.Page 3 of 4)


Eyewitness: '40 or 50 shots'





Engineering student Josh Wargo, a junior at Virginia Tech, said he was sitting in class when students began to hear "loud banging noises" followed by screaming. He said many students began to jump out of a window two stories above ground level.



"We heard almost 40 or 50 shots," Wargo told ABC News. "They were going on from the time we heard them and [people] jumped out the window until almost two minutes later."



"When I landed, I was in a daze, standing outside of the building," Wargo said. "Then I heard shots going through glass — that's when it hit me that I had to get out of there."




Students Look Online for Information





The university is using the Inn at Virginia Tech as a weigh station both for information as well as a location for students and parents to reconnect.



But many students were looking online for information about schoolmates. Some of them established a "wall" at Facebook.com to share what they knew; while others turned to MySpace.com.



The campus Web system was quickly overwhelmed by e-mail traffic and concerned online visitors after news of the shootings broke. Students said they could not get on Virginia Tech's site for information.(Page 4 of 4)


Shootings Follow Two Bomb Threats





There were two separate bomb threats last week at Virginia Tech.



The first was directed at Torgersen Hall, a classroom and laboratory building, while the second was directed at multiple engineering buildings. Students and staff were evacuated, and the university sent out e-mails across campus, offering a $5,000 reward for information about the threats.



Virginia Tech — formally known as Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University — is located in the western end of the state near the borders of West Virginia and Tennessee. It has more than 25,000 full-time students. Its campus, which spreads over 2,600 acres, has more than 100 buildings.



The number of dead is almost twice as high as the previous record for a mass shooting on an American college campus. That took place at the University of Texas at Austin on Aug. 1, 1966, when a gunman named Charles Whitman opened fire from the 28th floor of a campus tower. Whitman killed 16 and injured 31.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3048108&page=1

police believed the shooter had left the campus.

Horse poo...they could not have known that unless they are God or the shooter...so they should have locked the Campus down...period!