Text of emails - timeline - and more
Apr. 16th, 2007 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semiotic_pirateEmail I just received from the president of my university:
TO: The UConn Community
FROM: Philip E. Austin
DATE: April 16, 2007
RE: Virginia Tech Tragedy
I know I speak for the entire University of Connecticut community in
expressing our shock and grief at the unspeakable tragedy at Virginia
Tech. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who were the victims of
this violent, senseless act, their families and their friends.
The Undergraduate Student Government has asked that UConn observe a
moment of silence to tomorrow afternoon, April 17, at 2:00 p.m., the
same hour at which a public gathering is planned at Virginia Tech. I
endorse this recommendation and urge our faculty, students and staff to
participate.
VTech emailshere.
Text of E-Mails Sent by Virginia Tech
Monday April 16, 2007 11:31 PM
By The Associated Press
Timeline and text of e-mails sent out Monday by Virginia Tech to students and staff after the first 911 call at 7:15 a.m. reporting a shooting in West Ambler Johnston dormitory:
- e-mail sent at 9:26 a.m.:
Subject: Shooting on campus.
``A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.
``The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case. Contact Virginia Tech Police at 231-6411
``Stay attuned to the www.vt.edu. We will post as soon as we have more information.''
- 9:15 a.m.: Approximate time of second shooting at Norris Hall.
- e-mail sent at 9:50 a.m.:
Subject: PLease stay put
``A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows''
- third e-mail sent at 10:17 a.m.:
Subject: All Classes Canceled; Stay where you are
``Virginia Tech has canceled all classes. Those on campus are asked to remain where there are, lock their doors and stay away from windows. Persons off campus are asked not to come to campus.''
- fourth e-mail sent at 10:53 a.m.:
Subject: Second Shooting Reported; Police have one gunman in custody
``In addition to an earlier shooting today in West Ambler Johnston, there has been a multiple shooting with multiple victims in Norris Hall.
``Police and EMS are on the scene.
``Police have one shooter in custody and as part of routine police procedure, they continue to search for a second shooter.
``All people in university buildings are required to stay inside until further notice.
``All entrances to campus are closed.''
^---
Source: Virginia Tech
partial text from news source:
Gunman, 32 Others Killed in Va. Shooting
Monday April 16, 2007 11:31 PM
By SUE LINDSEY
Associated Press Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, shot up a classroom building across campus Monday, killing 32 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman committed suicide, bringing the death toll to 33.
Students bitterly complained that there were no public-address announcements on campus after the first burst of gunfire. Many said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage - around the time the gunman struck again.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
``We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,'' he said.
He defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: ``We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it.''
Investigators offered no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known if he was a student.
The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus. Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of shots echoing through the stone classroom building.
The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.
Two people were killed in a dormitory room, and 31 others were killed in the classroom building, including the gunman, police said.
``Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,'' Steger said. ``The university is shocked and indeed horrified.''
Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to notify members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out. He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms to notify them and sent people to knock on doors to spread the word.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not say how many weapons the gunman carried. But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.
Flinchum said that some doors in the classroom building had been chained shut from the inside.
Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.
Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time.
``What happened today, this was ridiculous,'' student Jason Piatt told CNN. ``While they send out that e-mail, 20 more people got killed.''
Students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.
The e-mail had few details. It read: ``A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.'' The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.
Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.
Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: ``I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that.''
``We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on,'' said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.
At an evening news conference, the university president and police chief said they were still investigating whether the shootings at the dorm and the classroom building were related. But earlier in the day, the chief said he believed there was only one gunman, and he was dead.
Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said he was in the classroom building and he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory regarding the first shooting and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs ``but the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside.'' They left the building through a construction area that had not been locked.
Henneke said it is unfair to criticize the school over the delay in warning.
``People are absolutely making too much of that. You do what you can,'' Henneke said. ``We have a huge campus. You have to close down a small town and you can't close down every way in or out.''
At least 26 people were being treated at three area hospitals for gunshot wounds and other injuries, authorities said. Their exact conditions were not disclosed, but at least one was sent to a trauma center and six were in surgery, authorities said.
Up until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.
Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.
The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus. The campus is centered around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets - who now represent a fraction of the student body - practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.
A gasp could be heard at a campus news conference early in the day when the police chief announced that at least 20 people had been killed. Previously, only one person was thought to have been killed.
Latest news posted: has quotes from press coverage - interviews onsite with university president, emphasis added is mine.
Massacre in Virginia University - Breaking News
At least 33 people have been confirmed dead in an horrific massacre in a Virgina University. "This is so much worse than Columbine. We don't even know what to think of it."
by Editor-in-Chief on 2007-04-16
BLACKSBURG, Virginia - Thirty-three people were killed and 15 others were wounded at Virginia Tech university on Monday in the deadliest campus shooting rampage in U.S. history.
The dead included one suspected gunman, the university president, Charles Steger, told reporters.
The rampage took place in two separate areas, first at a dormitory as students had begun criss-crossing the sprawling campus for morning classes, and then about two hours later at an engineering and science hall a half-mile away.
The attacks sparked panic and chaos.
The 15 wounded included people shot and those hurt jumping from windows to escape the gunfire, Virginia Tech campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said.
Flinchum said the suspected gunman killed himself during the rampage.
"All I can tell you is that he's a male," Flinchum said, giving no details of his age or nationality. He also did not say how well-armed the suspected gunman was.
"We have not confirmed the identity of the gunman because he carried no identification on his person and we are in the process of attempting that identification," Steger said.
Students told CNN there were multiple bomb threats to the campus in the last few weeks. Two of the threats were aimed at the university's science and engineering school.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman said there was no indication of terrorism but that it would be part of the investigation.
Student Tiffany Otay will long remember the chilling sense of dread she felt as she huddled with classmates in a room at Virginia Tech University while a gunman stalked the hallways below.
"I guess everybody was like freaking out, hysterical," Ms Otay told CNN after a gunman, apparently acting alone, struck down 32 other people before dying himself in the worst school shooting rampage in US history.
"At one point we heard screaming because people were running out of the building and at this point, we were all kind of frightened," Otay said. "Who knows if the shooter was going to come up to the next floor?"
Blood, confusion and panic filled the campus of the venerable southern university on a blustery spring morning as the gunman first opened fire in a dormitory than re-surfaced two hours later in an engineering studies hall.
"This is an emergency. This is an emergency. Take shelter indoors immediately. Stay away from windows and remain inside," loudspeakers blared across the 2,600-acre campus, which had been closed off.
A student journalist's video of the chaos at Virginia Tech, a state university, was replayed repeatedly on U.S. television networks.
It showed people scurrying around the campus and more than two dozen shots ringing out.
The death toll was worse than a massacre at the University of Texas in Austin on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old student, killed 13 people and wounded 31 in a 90-minute spree. Whitman had killed his mother and wife the night before.
TWO HOURS BETWEEN ATTACKS
The first shooting at Virginia Tech was reported to campus police at about 7:15 a.m. in West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dormitory housing some 900 students.
It was followed by more shooting at Norris Hall, site of the science and engineering school that has given the university much of its fame as a leading technical institute in the United States.
During the two hours after the first shooting some students had ventured out again. University police were investigating the first shooting at the dormitory when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.
Student Justin Merrifield told Reuters he was outside West Ambler dormitory at 9 a.m. when he saw police and a crying student but did not realize the magnitude of the crisis until he arrived at his 10 a.m. class.
Merrifield said students were alerted by campus loudspeakers.
"There was a voice that just kept repeating, 'Gunman on campus, stay indoors, get away from windows,' over and over, basically," said Merrifield.
Steger, facing a barrage of questions over the university's initial response, stressed that its efforts to alert students could not possibly reach the thousands of people moving around the campus at the start of the school day.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," Steger said of the first shooting.
One student criticized how university officials reacted.
"I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 O'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it had no mention of locking down the campus, no mention of canceling classes," Jason Piatt told CNN.
"They just mentioned that they were investigating a shooting," he said. "That's pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, while they sent out that e-mail, 21 people got killed."
The shooting was bound to revive debate in the United States about gun violence.
"We live in a society where guns are pretty well accepted," said Jim Sollo, of Virginians Against Handgun Violence. "There are 200 million guns in this society and obviously some in the wrong hands."
Virginia Tech, with 26,000 students and some 100 buildings on 2,600 acres, is located in the town of Blacksburg and set in lush rolling hills in the southwest corner of the state, about 240 miles from Washington.
Classes were canceled for Monday and Tuesday and counselors were being brought in to talk to the students.
And finally:
State of Emergency Declared in Virginia
Last Edited: Monday, 16 Apr 2007, 6:18 PM EDT
Created: Monday, 16 Apr 2007, 6:18 PM EDT
Richmond, VA -- Governor Tim Kaine has declared a state of emergency in Virginia in the wake of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.
The declaration allows the governor to immediately deploy state personnel, equipment and other resources to help out in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Thirty-three people are dead after the shooting spree, which began at a dormitory at about 7:15 this morning and resumed a couple of hours later at a classroom building across campus. Among the dead are the gunman, who killed himself.
Kaine's office says the Virginia State Police are in Blacksburg investigating the shootings in cooperation with local law enforcement. The Department of Health has sent the Chief Medical Examiner and additional personnel to the area to assist with the fatalities.
The Virginia Department of Emergency Management has sent staff to the scene to help local emergency managers and first responders, and the state will help coordinate counseling for those who need it.
The governor also has ordered the lowering of the Virginia state flag in honor of those who were killed or injured in the shootings.
TO: The UConn Community
FROM: Philip E. Austin
DATE: April 16, 2007
RE: Virginia Tech Tragedy
I know I speak for the entire University of Connecticut community in
expressing our shock and grief at the unspeakable tragedy at Virginia
Tech. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who were the victims of
this violent, senseless act, their families and their friends.
The Undergraduate Student Government has asked that UConn observe a
moment of silence to tomorrow afternoon, April 17, at 2:00 p.m., the
same hour at which a public gathering is planned at Virginia Tech. I
endorse this recommendation and urge our faculty, students and staff to
participate.
VTech emailshere.
Text of E-Mails Sent by Virginia Tech
Monday April 16, 2007 11:31 PM
By The Associated Press
Timeline and text of e-mails sent out Monday by Virginia Tech to students and staff after the first 911 call at 7:15 a.m. reporting a shooting in West Ambler Johnston dormitory:
- e-mail sent at 9:26 a.m.:
Subject: Shooting on campus.
``A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.
``The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case. Contact Virginia Tech Police at 231-6411
``Stay attuned to the www.vt.edu. We will post as soon as we have more information.''
- 9:15 a.m.: Approximate time of second shooting at Norris Hall.
- e-mail sent at 9:50 a.m.:
Subject: PLease stay put
``A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows''
- third e-mail sent at 10:17 a.m.:
Subject: All Classes Canceled; Stay where you are
``Virginia Tech has canceled all classes. Those on campus are asked to remain where there are, lock their doors and stay away from windows. Persons off campus are asked not to come to campus.''
- fourth e-mail sent at 10:53 a.m.:
Subject: Second Shooting Reported; Police have one gunman in custody
``In addition to an earlier shooting today in West Ambler Johnston, there has been a multiple shooting with multiple victims in Norris Hall.
``Police and EMS are on the scene.
``Police have one shooter in custody and as part of routine police procedure, they continue to search for a second shooter.
``All people in university buildings are required to stay inside until further notice.
``All entrances to campus are closed.''
^---
Source: Virginia Tech
partial text from news source:
Gunman, 32 Others Killed in Va. Shooting
Monday April 16, 2007 11:31 PM
By SUE LINDSEY
Associated Press Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, shot up a classroom building across campus Monday, killing 32 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman committed suicide, bringing the death toll to 33.
Students bitterly complained that there were no public-address announcements on campus after the first burst of gunfire. Many said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage - around the time the gunman struck again.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
``We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,'' he said.
He defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: ``We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it.''
Investigators offered no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known if he was a student.
The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus. Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of shots echoing through the stone classroom building.
The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a half-mile away, authorities said.
Two people were killed in a dormitory room, and 31 others were killed in the classroom building, including the gunman, police said.
``Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,'' Steger said. ``The university is shocked and indeed horrified.''
Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to notify members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out. He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms to notify them and sent people to knock on doors to spread the word.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not say how many weapons the gunman carried. But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.
Flinchum said that some doors in the classroom building had been chained shut from the inside.
Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.
Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time.
``What happened today, this was ridiculous,'' student Jason Piatt told CNN. ``While they send out that e-mail, 20 more people got killed.''
Students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.
The e-mail had few details. It read: ``A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.'' The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.
Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.
Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: ``I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that.''
``We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on,'' said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.
At an evening news conference, the university president and police chief said they were still investigating whether the shootings at the dorm and the classroom building were related. But earlier in the day, the chief said he believed there was only one gunman, and he was dead.
Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said he was in the classroom building and he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory regarding the first shooting and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs ``but the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside.'' They left the building through a construction area that had not been locked.
Henneke said it is unfair to criticize the school over the delay in warning.
``People are absolutely making too much of that. You do what you can,'' Henneke said. ``We have a huge campus. You have to close down a small town and you can't close down every way in or out.''
At least 26 people were being treated at three area hospitals for gunshot wounds and other injuries, authorities said. Their exact conditions were not disclosed, but at least one was sent to a trauma center and six were in surgery, authorities said.
Up until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.
Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.
The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus. The campus is centered around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets - who now represent a fraction of the student body - practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.
A gasp could be heard at a campus news conference early in the day when the police chief announced that at least 20 people had been killed. Previously, only one person was thought to have been killed.
Latest news posted: has quotes from press coverage - interviews onsite with university president, emphasis added is mine.
Massacre in Virginia University - Breaking News
At least 33 people have been confirmed dead in an horrific massacre in a Virgina University. "This is so much worse than Columbine. We don't even know what to think of it."
by Editor-in-Chief on 2007-04-16
BLACKSBURG, Virginia - Thirty-three people were killed and 15 others were wounded at Virginia Tech university on Monday in the deadliest campus shooting rampage in U.S. history.
The dead included one suspected gunman, the university president, Charles Steger, told reporters.
The rampage took place in two separate areas, first at a dormitory as students had begun criss-crossing the sprawling campus for morning classes, and then about two hours later at an engineering and science hall a half-mile away.
The attacks sparked panic and chaos.
The 15 wounded included people shot and those hurt jumping from windows to escape the gunfire, Virginia Tech campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said.
Flinchum said the suspected gunman killed himself during the rampage.
"All I can tell you is that he's a male," Flinchum said, giving no details of his age or nationality. He also did not say how well-armed the suspected gunman was.
"We have not confirmed the identity of the gunman because he carried no identification on his person and we are in the process of attempting that identification," Steger said.
Students told CNN there were multiple bomb threats to the campus in the last few weeks. Two of the threats were aimed at the university's science and engineering school.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman said there was no indication of terrorism but that it would be part of the investigation.
Student Tiffany Otay will long remember the chilling sense of dread she felt as she huddled with classmates in a room at Virginia Tech University while a gunman stalked the hallways below.
"I guess everybody was like freaking out, hysterical," Ms Otay told CNN after a gunman, apparently acting alone, struck down 32 other people before dying himself in the worst school shooting rampage in US history.
"At one point we heard screaming because people were running out of the building and at this point, we were all kind of frightened," Otay said. "Who knows if the shooter was going to come up to the next floor?"
Blood, confusion and panic filled the campus of the venerable southern university on a blustery spring morning as the gunman first opened fire in a dormitory than re-surfaced two hours later in an engineering studies hall.
"This is an emergency. This is an emergency. Take shelter indoors immediately. Stay away from windows and remain inside," loudspeakers blared across the 2,600-acre campus, which had been closed off.
A student journalist's video of the chaos at Virginia Tech, a state university, was replayed repeatedly on U.S. television networks.
It showed people scurrying around the campus and more than two dozen shots ringing out.
The death toll was worse than a massacre at the University of Texas in Austin on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old student, killed 13 people and wounded 31 in a 90-minute spree. Whitman had killed his mother and wife the night before.
TWO HOURS BETWEEN ATTACKS
The first shooting at Virginia Tech was reported to campus police at about 7:15 a.m. in West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dormitory housing some 900 students.
It was followed by more shooting at Norris Hall, site of the science and engineering school that has given the university much of its fame as a leading technical institute in the United States.
During the two hours after the first shooting some students had ventured out again. University police were investigating the first shooting at the dormitory when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.
Student Justin Merrifield told Reuters he was outside West Ambler dormitory at 9 a.m. when he saw police and a crying student but did not realize the magnitude of the crisis until he arrived at his 10 a.m. class.
Merrifield said students were alerted by campus loudspeakers.
"There was a voice that just kept repeating, 'Gunman on campus, stay indoors, get away from windows,' over and over, basically," said Merrifield.
Steger, facing a barrage of questions over the university's initial response, stressed that its efforts to alert students could not possibly reach the thousands of people moving around the campus at the start of the school day.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," Steger said of the first shooting.
One student criticized how university officials reacted.
"I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 O'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it had no mention of locking down the campus, no mention of canceling classes," Jason Piatt told CNN.
"They just mentioned that they were investigating a shooting," he said. "That's pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, while they sent out that e-mail, 21 people got killed."
The shooting was bound to revive debate in the United States about gun violence.
"We live in a society where guns are pretty well accepted," said Jim Sollo, of Virginians Against Handgun Violence. "There are 200 million guns in this society and obviously some in the wrong hands."
Virginia Tech, with 26,000 students and some 100 buildings on 2,600 acres, is located in the town of Blacksburg and set in lush rolling hills in the southwest corner of the state, about 240 miles from Washington.
Classes were canceled for Monday and Tuesday and counselors were being brought in to talk to the students.
And finally:
State of Emergency Declared in Virginia
Last Edited: Monday, 16 Apr 2007, 6:18 PM EDT
Created: Monday, 16 Apr 2007, 6:18 PM EDT
Richmond, VA -- Governor Tim Kaine has declared a state of emergency in Virginia in the wake of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.
The declaration allows the governor to immediately deploy state personnel, equipment and other resources to help out in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Thirty-three people are dead after the shooting spree, which began at a dormitory at about 7:15 this morning and resumed a couple of hours later at a classroom building across campus. Among the dead are the gunman, who killed himself.
Kaine's office says the Virginia State Police are in Blacksburg investigating the shootings in cooperation with local law enforcement. The Department of Health has sent the Chief Medical Examiner and additional personnel to the area to assist with the fatalities.
The Virginia Department of Emergency Management has sent staff to the scene to help local emergency managers and first responders, and the state will help coordinate counseling for those who need it.
The governor also has ordered the lowering of the Virginia state flag in honor of those who were killed or injured in the shootings.
