Massacre at Virginia Tech

A gunman yesterday killed 30 persons in a Virginia Tech classroom building before killing himself about two hours after two persons were found fatally shot in a school dormitory.

University officials said in a press conference last night that they’re still investigating whether the two incidents are related.

Officials could not say last night whether the same person was the shooter in both incidents.

Two persons — one male and one female — were found dead in a dorm room in West Ambler Johnston Hall, a co-ed dormitory that houses about 900 people, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

The man was identified last night as Ryan Clark, 22, of Martinez, Ga., near Augusta, a resident assistant at the dorm. Mr. Clark, who had been at the school since 2002, had completed his course work and was set to walk across the graduation stage next month with bachelor’s degrees in psychology, biology and English, his twin brother said last night.

An additional 31 persons, including a gunman, were killed in the academic building Norris Hall, Chief Flinchum said. He said some of those killed were university staff members.

Officials still are identifying victims and notifying next of kin, said Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger, adding that no names will be released until that is completed, possibly sometime today.

Mr. Steger said that at least two doors to the classroom building had been chained from the inside and that when police entered the building, they heard the sound of gunfire.

Victims were found in different rooms on the second floor of the building. Officials said rescue efforts were complicated by high winds that prevented helicopters from being used to transport the injured. The gunman was not identified, but law-enforcement officials said last night that he was a 24-year-old Asian in the U.S. on a student visa.

Other law-enforcement sources said that the gunman was carrying two 9mm pistols and several fully loaded magazines and that he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Police said the body had no identification on it, and it was not known whether the gunman was a student at Virginia Tech. Investigators did not offer a motive for the shootings.

At least 15 persons were being treated at area hospitals for gunshot wounds and injuries sustained from jumping out of windows to escape, Chief Flinchum said. The Blacksburg school’s first public announcement about the incidents came in the form of an e-mail just before 9:30 a.m. informing students about the first shooting. The e-mail was sent more than two hours after the shooting occurred and just as the second shooting began.

Mr. Steger said police identified a person of interest in the first shooting and had located the person and were interviewing him when they received reports of the second shooting.

He said last night that the person was not a student and was still a person of interest in the investigation, but he also said police did not think another gunman was still on the loose.

Mr. Steger called the incidents “a tragedy of monumental proportions” and defended the university’s response, saying authorities “decided what the best course of action was” based on information available at the time. “You don’t have hours to reflect on it,” Mr. Steger said. University police responded to a 911 call at 7:15 a.m. about an incident, possibly a domestic dispute, at West Ambler Johnston Hall, which immediately was shut down. Investigations “led us to make the decision that it was an isolated event,” Chief Flinchum said.

Story Continues →