Thread: Virginia Tech shots fired on campus, Cop killed, Gunman IDed

Dec 08, 2011

Virginia Tech reports shots fired on campus

By Douglas Stanglin, USA TODAY Updated <1m ago

Update at 1:02 p.m. ET: The university says shots were reported near a campus parking lot and tells students to stay inside.

Update at 12:48 p.m. ET: The Virginia Tech website says the shooting suspect is described as white male, with gray sweat pants, gray hat, with neon green brim, maroon hjoodie and backpack. The report says the suspect is on foot walking toward the McComas building.

The university, located in Blacksburg, Va., is asking students with information to call 911.

On April 16, 2007, a student, Seung-Hui Cho, went on a shooting rampage that left 33 dead, including himself. An administrative hearing began on Wednesday in Washington on whether the school should pay $55,000 in fines in connection with the shootings.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... titialskip

Va. Tech locks down campus as police officer shot

Updated 12:50 p.m., Thursday, December 8, 2011

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Tech said a police officer was shot Thursday and a possible second victim was reported at a parking lot near the campus, where 33 people died in 2007 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history

A campus-wide alert told students and faculty to stay inside and lock doors. Authorities were seeking a suspect. University and law enforcement officials declined any comment on the officer's condition.

A law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case, said initial reports indicated that the shooting occurred following a traffic stop.

The suspect was described as a white male wearing gray sweat pants, a gray hat with neon green brim, a maroon hoodie and backpack.

A message left with the university wasn't immediately returned. Campus police referred all questions to the university.

"It's crazy that someone would go and do something like that with all the stuff that happened in 2007," said Corey Smith, a 19-year-old sophomore from Mechanicsville, Va., who was headed to a dining hall near the site of one of the shootings, but stayed inside after seeing the alerts from the school. "It's just weird to think about why someone would do something like this when the school's had so many problems."

The shooting came the same day as Virginia Tech, which has an enrollment of about 30,000, was appealing a $55,000 fine by the U.S. Education Department in connection with the university's response to the 2007 rampage, when a student gunman killed 32 students and faculty and then shot himself.

A report of a possible gunman at Virginia Tech on Aug. 4 set off the longest, most extensive lockdown and search on campus since the 2007 bloodbath led the university to overhaul its emergency procedures. No gunman was found, and the school gave the all-clear about five hours after sirens began wailing and students and staff members started receiving warnings by phone, email and text message to lock themselves indoors. Alerts were also posted on the university's website and Twitter accounts.

That incident marked the first time the entire campus was locked down since the 2007 shooting, and the second major test of Virginia Tech's improved emergency alert system. The system was revamped to add the use of text messages and other means besides email of warning students.

The system was also put to the test in 2008, when an exploding nail gun cartridge was mistaken for gunfire. But only one dorm was locked down during that emergency, and it reopened two hours later.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/articl ... 389959.php

TV news says cop and another person killed.

December 8, 2011 1:01 PM

Officer killed at Va. Tech; Gunman believed dead

(CBS/AP) BLACKSBURG, Va. - A man killed a police officer and then apparently killed himself Thursday at Virginia Tech, police and school officials said, in the first gunfire on campus since 33 people were killed there in 2007 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

A law enforcement official who had knowledge of the case and spoke on condition of anonymity said the gunman was believed to be dead. Virginia Tech officials said on the school's website that a weapon was recovered near the second body found in a parking lot on campus. It was not immediately clear if the second body was that of the gunman.

School officials also said there was no longer an active threat Thursday afternoon and that normal activities could resume after an hourslong lockdown.

The school applied the lessons learned nearly five years ago, closing down the campus and warning students and faculty members via email and text message to stay indoors. Thursday's shootings came as university officials were in Washington appealing a fine that U.S. officials gave them over the school's response to the 2007 rampage.

The campus swarmed Thursday with heavily armed police. Students hid in buildings, a day before final exams were to begin Friday.

"A lot of people, especially toward the beginning were scared," said Jared Brumfield, a 19-year-old freshman who was locked in the Squires Student Center since around 1:30 p.m. "A lot of people are loosening up now. I guess we're just waiting it out, waiting for it to be over."

The school said a police officer pulled someone over for a traffic stop and was shot and killed. The shooter ran toward a nearby parking lot, where a second person was found dead.

Various alerts were sent to students, and the university is sending updates about every 30 minutes, school spokesman Mark Owczarski said.

The suspect was described as a white man wearing gray sweat pants, a gray hat with neon green brim, a maroon hoodie and backpack.

"It's crazy that someone would go and do something like that with all the stuff that happened in 2007," said Corey Smith, a 19-year-old sophomore. He told The Associated Press that he stayed inside after seeing the alerts from the school.

Campus was quieter than usual because classes ended Wednesday and students were preparing for exams. The school said those tests would be postponed.

The shooting came as Virginia Tech was appealing a $55,000 fine by the U.S. Education Department in connection with the university's response to the 2007 shootings.

The department said the school violated the law by waiting more than two hours after two students were shot to death in their dorm before sending an email warning. By then, student gunman Seung-Hui Cho was chaining shut the doors to a classroom building where he killed 30 more people and then himself.

The department said the email was too vague because it mentioned only a "shooting incident," not the deaths.

An administrative judge ended the hearing by asking each side to submit a brief by the end of January. It is unclear when he will rule.

Since the massacre, the school has overhauled its alert system and now sends text messages, emails, tweets and posts messages on its website. Other colleges and universities have put in place similar systems.

On Thursday, during about a one-hour period, the university issued four separate alerts.

Derek O'Dell, a third-year student who was wounded in the 2007 shootings, was shaken. He was monitoring the situation from his home a couple of miles from campus.

"At first I was just hoping it was a false alarm," he said. "Then there were reports of two people dead, and the second person shot was in the parking lot where I usually park to go to school, so it was kind of surreal."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-573 ... eved-dead/

APNewsBreak: Police identify Va. Tech gunman

By BOB LEWIS and ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON | AP – 14 mins ago...

.Play Video.
Video: 2 Students From Md. Say Virginia Tech Handled Thursday’s Shooting Better Than 2007 MassacreWJZ 13 Baltimore 1:51

.Play Video.
Video: Motive Sought In Virginia Tech ShootingCBS 2 New York 1:50

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Police are identifying the Virginia Tech gunman as a 22-year-old college student at nearby Radford University.

Police said Friday that Ross Truett Ashley, of Radford, was responsible for killing a Virginia Tech police officer Thursday, triggering a campus-wide lockdown for thousands of students.

Ashley killed himself after shooting the officer.

Police also say Ashley stole a car on Wednesday from a real estate office in Radford, which is about 15 miles from Virginia Tech.

The shooting shook up the campus, the scene of the nation's worst mass slaying in recent memory.

The man who killed a Virginia Tech police officer walked up to the patrolman he did not know and fired, then took off for the campus greenhouses, ditching his pullover, wool cap and backpack. He made his way to a nearby parking lot and when a deputy spotted him, he took his own life, leaving fresh questions on a campus still coping with the nation's worst mass slaying in recent memory.

Why didn't he run or engage the deputy who closed in? Was he even aware that thousands of students had just been alerted by cell phone that a gunman was on the loose and the campus was locked down? And why did he shoot an officer at a school he never attended?

"That's very much the fundamental part of the investigation right now," state police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said Friday at a news conference.

Authorities said they know who the gunman is, but they were waiting to publicly name him because they said his family didn't know yet. A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity described the shooter as in his early 20s from Virginia.

The gunman was likely the same man who is accused of stealing a 2011 white Mercedes SUV from a real estate office Wednesday in Radford, which is about 15 miles from Virginia Tech. Office employees told police a man came in with a handgun and demanded keys to one of their vehicles.

The office is located in a gritty part of Radford and caters to students who go to the city's small namesake school. At the real estate office Friday, the shades were drawn and the doors locked.

It's not clear what happened between the robbery and 24 hours later when university officer Deriek W. Crouse, 39, was shot. Police were looking for surveillance video around campus to see if it would lend any clues to the gunman's whereabouts before the shooting.

Crouse was a trained firearms and defense instructor with a specialty in crisis intervention. He had been on the force for four years, joining about six months after 33 people were killed in a classroom building and dorm April 16, 2007.

At 12:15 p.m. Thursday, Crouse pulled over a student and was shot while sitting in his unmarked cruiser. The student didn't have any link to the gunman, Geller said.

Shortly before 12:30 p.m., police received a call from a witness who said an officer had been shot. About six minutes later, the first campus-wide alert was sent by email, text message and electronic signs in university buildings. Many students on campus were preparing for exams, and some described a frantic scene after the initial alert. Soon, heavily armed officers were walking around campus, caravans of SWAT vehicles were driving around and other police cars with emergency lights flashing patrolled nearby.

Students outdoors went inside buildings. Those already there stayed put. Everybody waited.

Police aren't sure what the gunman was doing at this point. After the shooting, he fled on foot to the greenhouses, where he left some of his clothes and his ID.

Fifteen minutes after the witness called police, a deputy sheriff on patrol noticed a man at the back of another parking lot about a half-mile from the shooting. The man was by himself, looking around furtively and acting "a little suspicious," according to Geller.

The deputy drove up and down the rows of the sprawling Cage parking lot and lost sight of the man for a moment. The deputy then found the man lying on the pavement, shot to death. The handgun was nearby.

Police said nobody witnessed the suicide, the parking lot apparently vacant because of warnings. For three more hours, students checked their phones, computers and TVs. Finally, the school gave the all clear.

The events unfolded on the same day Virginia Tech officials were in Washington, fighting a federal government fine over their handling of the 2007 massacre, and the shooting brought back painful memories. About 150 students gathered silently Thursday night for a candlelight vigil on a field facing the stone plaza memorial for the 2007 victims.

"Why Tech, why again?" said Philip Sturgill, a jewelry store owner. "It's so senseless. This is a lovely, lovely place."

An official vigil is planned Friday night.

School spokesman Larry Hincker said the alert system worked exactly as expected.

"It's fair to say that life is very different at college campuses today. The telecommunications technology and protocols that we have available to us, that we now have in place, didn't exist years ago," he said. "We believe the system worked very well."
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Lewis reported from Radford. Associated Press writers Michael Felberbaum, Larry O'Dell, Steve Szkotak and Dena Potter in Richmond, Va., and Eric Tucker in Washington, contributed to this report

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