Here is a link to some video footage shot by Martin Arvebro and Carl Nordin, two Swedish students who were visiting the campus:

http://www.roanoke.com/multimedia/wb/113323

(it’s also in my earlier post profiling Cho)

From Wired Blog comes this cell phone footage of the V-Tech campus with the sound of multiple gun shots in the background. Jamal Albarghouti is the V-Tech student who shot the cellphone video. He mentioned on CNN that he shot the footage on a Nokia N70.

This is also from Wired Blog. It’s the V. Tech websmaster’s account of the police response following the shootings. He talks about the police response after 11 am on the 16th, I presume, by when the massacre had ended. Even while applauding police cooperation, he mentions this (my emphasis):

“This was a multiple-agency response and there is little interoperability — but the police still got the job done.”

Question: Hmm..does that mean that there was no setup allowing these different teams to coordinate readily? More information and explanation needed here.

Here are the teams involved:

Virginia Tech Police Department was (and is) the lead

Blacksburg PD ( not clear whether they had joint jurisdiction)

Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department

Virginia State Police.

This is a map of the area showing the distance between West Ambler Johnston Hall where the first two killings took place at 7:15 AM on 4/16/2007 and Norris Hall where the other 30 victims were shot at between 9: 15 and 9: 30 AM (approximately – needs further verifications) and where the killer eventually shot himself.

Apparently, the police paradigm that was operative was that of the active shooter, which is

“… an armed person who has used deadly physical force on other persons and continues to do so while having unrestricted access to additional victims.”

(This includes snipers, but not usually bombers).

Question: Why would the police not believe they had a bomber around with the previous bomb threats on April 3 and April 13 (only 3 days earlier, that is, on Friday before the Monday on which the shootings took place)?

Why wouldn’t they also have a bomb threat plan in place — in addition to the sniper response?

‘Active shooter’ often entails a specialized response that has been developed in recent years called the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment. Here, the normal tactic of police to delay a confrontation to keep their casualties down is altered to allow the first police responder to get past casualties on the scene, make contact with the shoote and, often, to confront him and take control of the environment.

IARD is appropriate for armed intruders into school areas, attacks with edged weapons, attacks by shooters, attacks or carrying of explosives, and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons attacks. It’s also appropriate in certain locations, where victims are confined while in imminent danger, like schools, day-care centers, high-rise structures, sporting events, hospitals, office complexes.

IARD is said to have been developed in response to the increasing presence of suicide/killer threats, including the proliferation of school shootings.

According to wiki, IARD is only properly used when there’s been appropriate training and ballistic shields and tactical armor are also available, which let the police get into close gun battles with the sniper/shooter. The difference with established police practice is that in the active shooter cases, the usual practice of containment and negotiation do not work, as the shooter is prepared to commit suicide.

As this article, “Patrolling the New Homeland,” Law and Order Magazine, May, 2005″ indicates, IARD allows patrol and/or SWAT personnel to initiate a response after a firearm is fired and the killing spree has begun.

Question: I am not clear from this whether the IARD is the only response to the ‘active shooter’ paradigm or whether it is only one specialized response.

The Columbine High School shooting (April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado) was formative in SWAT tactics and police response, in that street officers were trained to take immediate action without waiting for the SWAT team to arrive.

This Christian Science Monitor article quotes David Klinger, a criminologist at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, on the “profound shift” nationwide to the new escalated tactics. IARD wasn’t really new – it had been offered in police training during the 1990s, but Columbine created the psychological shock necessary for police everywhere to feel the need for it, says the CSM piece (cf. “The Copy-Cat Effect” – see prior post on this). Could this psychological shock have been created unintentionally (and there is always the possibility, intentionally) by media replaying of the crime?

IARD was controversial not least for its expense ($5000 per police officer) and so was not uniformly adopted.

Question: Was IARD operational at V Tech or not? If so, what caused the delay of two hours, a delay IARD is specifically intended to circumvent?

Here is a student account of police reponse:

9:50 A.M.

We started hearing sirens outside of our building. We took it as nothing, [because] we hear police sirens around campus all the time. It was just slightly strange that we heard them during the day. Soon, the 13 of us heard an ambulance in front of our building. We took it as another bomb threat — we had been getting bomb threats in April that ended up being hoaxes.

We started getting concerned when the sirens increased in volume. The professor looked out the window with us, and we saw police cars and ambulances out on the Drillfield. Students were walking away from our building. Police officers were assembling on the sidewalk. Large black vans appeared.

My Comment:

9:50 is when the sirens went off…after the second shooting (which were apparently nothing out of the ordinary and thus not a very effective tool for alerting the campus )

Apparently, the police also thought the bomb threats were hoaxes although on the 16th obviously something did place. This part seems very odd to me. How could they not have connected the bomb threats with the killing?

Here is the University response:

“Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed the shooting at the West Ambler Johnston dorm, first reported about 7:15 a.m., was a domestic dispute and thought the gunman had fled the campus after killing two people. (My note: earlier notes mentioned that they thought that the RA was the boyfriend and had died with the victim and that was why they hadn’t bothered to alert the campus)

“We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,” he said.

(They took the word of a friend of Emily Hilscher who was the one who sent them off hunting Enily’s gun owning boyfriend, who turned out to be a red herring)

“The dormitory was locked down immediately after the shooting, Steger said, and a phone bank was activated to alert the resident advisers there so they could go door-to-door warning the 900 students in the dorm. Security guards surrounded the dorm, he said, and others began a sweep across campus.”

Door to door alert, when a murder has taken place seems rather neolithic to me! Why not a an announcement over the PA system?

“Asked why he didn’t order a lockdown of the entire campus, Steger noted that thousands of nonresident students were arriving for 8 a.m. classes, fanning out across the sprawling campus from their parking spots.“Where do you lock them down?” Steger asked.”

LR: Why not a siren and a PA announcement (or one over the local radio) telling people to leave?

“He said security on campus will be tightened now, but offered no details.

“We obviously can’t have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year,” he said.

(LR: Again, a strawman. Why not cameras and a security guard who monitors doors from a central location? Done in stores all across the country and in many schools. Or a patrol car that moves around, again done on many campuses. Especially after the Morva episode, how could they not think about that?)

“Overall, Steger defended the university’s response, saying: “You can only make a decision based on the information you know at that moment in time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it.”

(My Comment: That’s why you prepare!!! What is with these people! Not a word of self-recrimination).

“Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said there were no surveillance cameras in place that recorded the gunman entering Norris Hall, the classroom building where 31 people were killed. Among the dead was the gunman, who killed himself before police could break through a chained door and reach the second-floor room where the massacre occurred.

“Some students were upset that the gunman was able to strike a second time, saying the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m. The e-mail mentioned a “shooting incident” at West Ambler Johnston, said police were investigating, and asked students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.”

(LR: the language is very puzzling; sounded like their main concern was NOT to alarm people).

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.

(Unbelievable. They had a PA system and DIDN’T USE IT)

“I was troubled with the fact that two hours elapsed from the first shooting,” said Brant Martel, 23, a junior.

(You’re not the only one, Brant).

The blog Mirror on America makes the same point I make about rapid deployment and the lack of coorindation.

“Even for those places where a rapid response plan is in place, there has not been uniformity regarding procedures. For instance, in St. Louis County Missouri, only patrol Sergeants are allowed to have the assualt rifles….while in other departments, any trained officer can have the extra firepower. In my opinion, the more the merrier, because it’s all about decreasing the response time, so that suspects can be killed or cornered before they are allowed to murder more people. Rapid response plans will not prevent all deaths and are not designed to. The aim of rapid response units is to reduce the number of people killed in these kinds of events.

“I don’t know what the plan was for Virginia Tech or for the Blacksburg Virginia Police Department or Montgomery County Sheriff. But from what I can tell, the response appeared confused and may have been botched. It doesn’t appear that any rapid response plan was effectively used. But the large size of the campus should be taken into account. This kind of confusion is common when you have various police agencies (probably well over half a dozen in this case) attempting to respond to this kind of call, and trying to communicate and plan on the fly as the situation evolves.”

And here is Alexander Cockburn’s article on the same subject in Counterpunch (4/23), which agrees with my assessment:

“When the mass murder session began in the engineering building the police cowered behind their cruisers till Cho Seung-Hui finished off the last batch of his 32 victims, then killed himself. Then the police bravely rushed in, started sticking their guns in the faces of the traumatized students, screaming at them to freeze or be shot. Similar timidity was on display in Columbine, where Harris and Klebold killed students in the library over a period of 15 minutes and then committed suicide. The police finally mustered up the nerve to enter the library over two hours later.”

Ban psychiatric drugs from campus, he says. And bring back the posse.
Agreed.

Well – hip-hop strikes again. Virginia Tech seems to have been the scene of the worst ever shooting in the US. Only, Snoopp Doggy Dogg and his cohorts were noticeable by their absence.

One doesn’t want to score cheap points at the expense of what must be an overwhelming tragedy for the community at Virginia Tech, but maybe now, the chatterati can quit making their facile connections between vulgar language and actual violence. 32 people dead and counting. As many wounded. Violence arises in many places and for many reasons, some of which right now are only known to the killer who died in the midst of the bloody carnage he created.

Here are the victims’ names. Photos can be found on the net. I prefer not to post them.

EMILY HILSCHER

Emily Hilscher, 19, from Woodville, Virginia, was studying animal and poultry sciences, and was known in her hometown as an animal lover.

Some reports have suggested Emily was Cho’s girlfriend, but police have denied this.

Family friend John W McCarthy said: “She worked at a veterinarian’s office and cared about them her whole life.”

She lived on the same floor of West Ambler Johnston Hall as fellow victim Ryan Clark, where she was killed.

One friend said of her on Facebook: “She was so filled with life and always had something wonderful to say or was always making me smile.”

RYAN CLARK

Student counsellor Ryan Clark, 22, from Martinez, Georgia, was in his final year studying for a triple major in biology, English and psychology.

Known as “Stack” by his friends, Ryan was a member of the Marching Virginians campus band.

He was the second victim in West Ambler Johnston Hall.

His friend, Gregory Walton, said: “He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know.”

PROFESSOR KEVIN GRANATA

Professor Kevin Granata, from the Engineering Science and Mechanics department, carried out orthopaedic research in hospitals before joining the university.

He was regarded as one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the US for his work on cerebral palsy.

Fellow professor Demetri P Telionis said: “With so many research projects and graduate students, he still found time to spend with his family, and he coached his children in many sports and extracurricular activities.”

PROFESSOR GV LOGANATHAN

Professor GV Loganathan, 51, lectured in civil and environmental engineering and had won several awards for his teaching.

He had served on the faculty senate and was an adviser to about 75 undergraduate students.

Professor Loganathan moved to the US from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu in 1977 to teach. He had worked at Virginia Tech since 1982.

His brother, GV Palanivel, said: “For us it was like an electric shock.”

Indian killed in US gun rampage

PROFESSOR LIVIU LIBRESCU

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, was a Romanian-born Israeli academic in the Engineering Science & Mechanics Department. He was also a Holocaust survivor and moved to Virginia in 1985.

Internationally renowned for his research work, he has been hailed a hero for blocking a doorway to protect his students.

His son Joe said he had received e-mails from several students who said he had saved their lives.

CHRISTOPHER JAMES BISHOP

Jamie Bishop, 35, was an instructor in foreign languages and literatures teaching German and he helped organise the Virginia Tech exchange programme with a German university.

He was formerly a Fulbright scholar at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel and colleagues there said they were “deeply, deeply shocked by his death”.

On his own website, Jamie said he had lived in Germany for four years and “spent most of his time learning the language, teaching English, drinking large quantities of wheat beer, and wooing a certain Fraulein”.

That “Fraulein” was his wife Stephanie Hofer, who also teaches at Virginia Tech.

JOCELYNE COUTURE-NOWAK

Canadian Jocelyne Couture-Nowak was a French instructor. Her husband, Jerzy Nowak, is the head of the horticulture department at Virginia Tech.

She was the mother of two girls.

Jocelyne, who had previously lectured in child development, was described by one Virginia Tech student as “an excellent teacher” who was “extremely nice and understanding”.

In the 1990s, she lived in Truro, Nova Scotia, and was instrumental in creating the town’s first French-speaking school.

MINAL PANCHAL

Minal Panchal, 26, who was from Mumbai (Bombay) in India, was in her first year of a masters degree in building science.

She had a degree in architecture from Rizvi College in Mumbai, and was passionate about it because her father was himself an architect.

A friend in Mumbai described her as “a brilliant student and very hard-working”.

Second Indian dies in US shooting

DANIEL PEREZ CUEVA

Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, was from Peru.

He was studying international relations and was killed in a French class.

REEMA SAMAHA

Reema Samaha, 18, from Centreville, Virginia, was a freshman (first year) and a talented dancer.

Her brother, Omar, watched her perform at a street fair the day before she died, but said: “I never got to say goodbye.”

Her sister, Randa, said Reema’s family had tried repeatedly to contact her but without success: “So we drove down here praying for the best and just preparing ourselves for the worst and that’s what we got, we got the worst.”

Reema was a pupil at Westfield High School, where the gunman, Cho, also studied.

MATTHEW LA PORTE

Matthew La Porte, 20, from Dumont, New Jersey, was a freshman in university studies.

He graduated from Carson Long Military Institute in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, in 2005.

JARRETT LEE LANE

Jarrett Lane, from Narrows, Virginia, was a senior (final year) in civil engineering and a valedictorian of Narrows High School.

There he played the trombone, competed in athletics and played football and basketball.

The school has erected a memorial in his honour bearing photographs, musical instruments and his athletic jerseys.

Jarrett’s brother-in-law, Daniel Farrell, said he was “full of spirit” and added: “He had a caring heart and was a friend to everyone he met.”

ROSS ALAMEDDINE

Ross Alameddine, 20, from Saugus, Massachusetts, was a sophomore (second year) English major. He was shot during a French class.

Friends described him as “an intelligent, funny, easy-going guy” in a memorial posted on internet networking website Facebook.

His mother, Lynnette, was angry at how long it took to inform parents about the shootings: “It happened in the morning and I did not hear until a quarter to 11 at night.”

CAITLIN HAMMAREN

Caitlin Hammaren, 19, from Westtown, New York, was a sophomore reading international studies and French.

John P Latini, principal of Minisink Valley High School, where she graduated in 2005, said: “She was just one of the most outstanding young individuals that I’ve had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator.”

MARY KAREN READ

Mary Karen Read, 19, from Annandale, Virginia, was born in South Korea into an Air Force family and had lived in Texas and California.

Her uncle, Ted Kuppinger, said: “She was a beautiful girl, very caring and loving.”

Her aunt, Karen, said she had struggled to adjust to Virginia Tech’s sprawling 2,600-acre campus, but said she had recently begun making friends and was looking into joining a sorority.

She was killed in French class. She had yet to declare her main subject of study.

JUAN RAMON ORTIZ

Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26, was a graduate student in civil engineering.

He was married to Liselle Vega Cortes and came from Bayamon, Puerto Rico.

His father, also called Juan Ramon, said: “He was an extraordinary son, what any father would have wanted.”

DANIEL O’NEIL

Daniel O’Neil, 22, of Rhode Island, was a graduate student in engineering who also played guitar and wrote his own songs, which he posted on a website, www.residenthippy.com.

Friend Steve Craveiro said: “He would come home from school over the summer and talk about projects, about building bridges and stuff like that.

“He was pretty much destined to be extremely successful.”

Daniel also worked as a teaching assistant at Virginia Tech.

MAXINE TURNER

Maxine Turner, 22, from Vienna, Virginia, was a senior studying chemical engineering and was expecting to graduate in May.

She had taken German as an elective – she was shot in the German class.

Maxine had recently helped to found a chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a sorority for women in engineering. She had also accepted a chemical engineering job in Maryland.

She was described in a web tribute as “an absolutely amazing, intelligent woman”.

Her father, Paul Turner, said: “It’s a terrible loss. I cannot understand the legislators in this country, not putting in laws that protect people.”

HENRY LEE

Henry Lee was from Roanoke, Virginia. He was a freshman, studying computer engineering.

LESLIE SHERMAN

Leslie Sherman was a sophomore at Virginia Tech, studying history and international studies.

Her grandmother Gerry Adams described her as an avid traveller, who was planning a trip to Russia this summer.

“She was so happy. Life was going so well for her,” said Ms Adams, who described the family as “just besides themselves” with grief.

ERIN PETERSON

Erin Peterson, 18, was a freshman.

Her father Grafton said: “My baby didn’t make it.”

JEREMY HERBSTRITT

Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, was from Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.

He was a graduate student in civil engineering.

JULIA PRYDE

Julia Pryde was a graduate student from Middletown, New Jersey.

She was described as an “exceptional student academically and personally” by the head of the biological systems and engineering department where she was seeking her master’s degree.

Last summer she travelled to Ecuador to research water quality issues and planned to return this year.

MICHAEL POHLE

Michael Pohle, 23, from Flemington, New Jersey, was expected to graduate in a few weeks with a degree in biological sciences.

Vice principal at his former high school, Craig Blanton, said: “He had a bunch of job interviews and was all set to start his post-college life.”

He was described by a former sports coach as “a good kid who did everything that good kids do”.

PARTAHI LUMBANTORUAN

Partahi Lumbantoruan, 34, from Indonesia, was a civil engineering doctoral student and had been studying at Virginia Tech for three years, said his father, Tohom Lumbantoruan, a retired army officer.

“We tried everything to completely finance his studies in the United States,” he said.

“We only wanted him to succeed in his studies, but… he met a tragic fate.”

LAUREN MCCAIN

Lauren McCain, was 20, from Hampton, Virginia.

She was doing international studies.

BRIAN BLUHM

Brian Bluhm, 25, formerly from Detroit, was a graduate student in civil engineering and was doing a masters in water resources.

AUSTIN CLOYD

Austin Cloyd, from Blacksburg, Virginia, was a first year in international studies and French, and wanted to be a US ambassador.

Her former pastor, Rev Terry Harter, said Austin was a “very delightful, intelligent, warm young lady” and an athlete who played basketball and volleyball in high school.

Her family had moved from Illinois to Blacksburg, when her father took a job in the accounting department at Virginia Tech.

RACHAEL HILL

Rachael Hill, 18, was from Glen Allen, Virginia.

MATTHEW GWALTNEY

Matthew Gwaltney, 24, from Chester, Virginia, was a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering.

WALEED MOHAMMED SHAALAN

Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, of Zagazig, Egypt, was a doctoral student in civil engineering.

He is said to have called home a day before the shooting to say he was returning to Egypt next month to take his wife and one-year-old son to the US.

He is said to have been shot while trying to save another student.

“He was the simplest and nicest guy I ever knew. We would be studying for our exams and he would go buy a cake and make tea for us,” Waleed’s flatmate, Fahad Pasha said.

The Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement that it was planning to fly his body to Egypt.

NICOLE WHITE

Nicole White, 20, came from Smithfield, Virginia, and was a junior doing international studies and German.

A personal account of the shooting and aftermath:

 

Another account:

http://ntcoolfool.livejournal.com/

A Follow Up on a Most Emotional Day

Apr. 17., 2007 | 01:37 pm

This entry is meant for those truly concerned about the events of today, and of course of the people involved (mainly Kate). This is not a post that can be used for any reason by reporters or journalists simply trying to get a story out of what transpired today. There are way too many emotions flying around at this point that any duplication of this entry used for anything other than true and pure concern, such as trying to use it to find out who is to blame or as a slander towards VT is in my opinion inhumane.

Now that that is out of the way…

Thank you to everyone who has expressed concern for Kate and all of us here at VT. It has been a very emotional day for all of us where not a single student has been able to sit calmly for more than a half hour without shaking their head in pure disbelief. Kate is for all intents and purposes fine. She came out of surgery with flying colors and with a sense of humor still. She now has a giant cast around her hand which is constantly attended to with bags of ice and a supportive family and friends by her side willing to help her in any way possible. When she came out of surgery, she was not aware of exactly HOW large the magnitude of this tragedy really was, and made us all in the room cry a bit from the story she told us being in the same room with the lunatic who changed our lives forever. It really hit me hard how much of a heroine Kate really was today, and how glad I am that she is alright, breathing and living. As she held my hand today I couldn’t help but be overwhelemed with the feeling that I could get through all of this relatively unscathed now that I knew that my other half was going to be alright. Rest assured, I will be at the hospital for the remainder of all of this. My mom asked if she needed me to have her come down. My response was that it didn’t matter what I needed, but what Kate needs, and right now I think she needs me by her side.

I came home after visiting hours with the notion that it would be impossible to sleep tonight, so I simply sat listening to the concerns of others for a while and the other stories of the other people on campus. It was at this time that I came into contact with an extremely nice representative of ABC’s Good Morning America, who not only was concerned for Kate, but was genuinely concerened about all the students at Tech and wanted to know if there was any way she could help us with anything. With the help of this representative, I went through my phone book and was calling up as many people as possible from Tech to see if everyone they knew on campus were accounted for, and we made a list of people that we still needed to get word on. She has helped me through the night getting back to me on the condition of these students, as I let the parties concerened know of the news (good or bad). I think that perhaps one of the things overlooked by many journalists today, was that we were not interested in giving interviews because we were the same as our parents in that we needed to know that everyone was ok and breathing and living. Kate was really a truly fortunate person from the events of today, and I wish I could say that everyone I know is fine and made it through ok, but even that isn’t the rubric for concern. What happened today will hit us all regardless if we knew someone personally hurt or not. And for all of us, we need to be there for each other to help us get over the insane amount of trauma we no doubt have gained from this experience.

Link | Kommentar hinterlassen {78} |

Madness on Campus

Apr. 16., 2007 | 11:47 am

I woke up this morning in Kate’s bed to the sound of not one, but two alarms waking us up for classes and whatnot. I remember telling Kate the night before that I was going to come onto campus with her at 9am so that I could go to the library to get some work done. The alarm blares and I realize I have absolutely no motivation to leave the bed. Kate tells me it’s ok, she keeps telling me that she’ll be back in an hour anyways, so it will be ok if she came back and saw my lying right where she left me. I agree with a firm roll over and immediately go back to sleep.

I wake up again to the blare of my own alarm telling me that it’s time to get up for my own class. I hit the snooze button, and simply lie there. I overhear a lot of commotion in the main room, Kali and Steph are awake and talking about something. Kali then enters the kitchen and calls someone which I overhear, and heard the magical words that class is canceled for today. Lying in bed, this is the greatest news I could have ever heard, I get out of bed, put on clothes real quick and come out, and greet the roomates. They simply point to the tv where I find out that there has been yet another shooting on campus. First in AJ which is where Kate lived for two years, and then in Norris hall. I try calling kate but she isnt answering her phone. I am assuming she is in Mcbride because I have had a few german classes in that building but im not sure. We check her schedule to find out that she in fact had her german class in Norris Hall. Now I’m freaked out, and franticly try to call her, but she isn’t picking up.

fast foward a couple minutes, i get a call from montgomery hostpital. A very kind nurse, wanted to give me a message from Katelyn Carney. I obviously oblige and ask what the message is. She says, ok, the message is “I’ve got red on me” Of course I instantly think, what a hilarious thing to say in a situation like this, but at the same time, I’m now MORE worried than i was before, and ask the nurse if she is able to patch me through to kate.

Right as she picks up the phone she tells me “I got red on me” I laugh, and immediately try to find out if shes hurt or what to expect, and she lets me know that shes fine, stable, good, not hurt…only slightly.

The story goes that she was in class and they heard a banging, her teacher opened the door to find out what was going on, and after not seeing anything, closed the door. Not more than two seconds later, a gunman entered her room, to which the class responded by getting underneath the desks and basicly hiding as well as possible from this guy. He then shot at the class somewhere between 8 to 12 times and then left. Kate was hit in the hand by a stray bullet, after speaking with her on the phone while she was/is at the hospital,I found out that she still has a peice of a bullet lodged into her hand, and has fractions on her index and pinkey finger. She is about to go into surgery to get that cleaned up and will be there for the next three days. Again she was not specific on exactly what transpired there, but it must have been very stressful for her. She said that the gunman, who looked asian, left and She and another classmate barricated the door while others attended to the wounded and injured. The gunman came back and tried to get in, but because of the barracade couldnt and proceeded to shoot at the door at hip level, while kate was and the other classmates were at ground level.

He wondered off after that, I dont know what happened to him after that, except the police say he’s dead. Anyways, the class was then escorted by police to the drillfield where they got into cop cars and then abulances, which is how kate is now at montgomery hostpital. She is truley my hero for not only going through such an experience but also by being able to take action and make sure that this gunman was unable to return to the classroom.

the police now say that 22 are dead. I remember kate crying on the phone saying that she didnt think the teacher Herr Bishop made it out of the whole thing. I’m not sure on that one either.

Because of whats transpiring, my phone cannot connect to the network, its constantly busy. For everyone who has been calling me wondering whats going on, im sorry, ill try to get back to everyone as soon as possible.

(http://icantread01.livejournal.com/)

 

April 16th, 2007

This live journal post claims to be a journal entry of Cho’s.

I can’t confirm its authenticity, but decided to save the link.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:jYi4RPlUBKYJ:blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/04/virginia_tech_s.html+virginia+tech+livejournal&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&lr=lang_en&client=firefox-a

Garance Franke-Ruta, a senior editor at The American Prospect magazine and author of the blog theGarance, suggests that the university’s response to the initial shooting – which school officials said they thought they had contained because it was thought to have been related to a domestic dispute – overlooks a more fundamental issue: domestic violence. From her post:

“Because the first victim was a woman, and possible had a romantic connection to the killer, the police did not see her murder as a threat to the community. Now the police are pretty plainly telling the public that they failed to warn the campus there was a killer on the loose because they failed to understand that men who kill their partners are also threats to society.”

“I was sitting in class when we heard loud popping noises a couple rooms down… The teacher and a student went into the hallway and rushed back in and told everybody to get down. We put a table against the door and had a few students holding down the door. The gunman tried to shoulder his way in and when he saw that he couldn’t, he put two shots through the door it was the scariest moment of my life…” (Wash Po blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/virginia-tech-blog-roundup/)

pr 16 2007 4:52 PM EDT

Gunshots ‘Sounded Like A Hammer’: Virginia Tech Students Speak About Shootings

‘The hardest part for us is not knowing the names of the people who were hurt,’ Virginia Tech senior Lauren Petty says.

By Gil Kaufman

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Newsvine
• Send
• Print
• You Tell Us

Just two doors down from Norris Hall, where the majority of the victims were killed in Monday’s shooting rampage on the campus of Virginia Tech university, Junior Tanner McKibben was huddled on the floor.

McKibben was crouched alongside other students in a classroom in Pamplin Hall behind closed blinds, staring at a television and trying to get more information on the shootings. “I was in the middle of class and I’d gotten word from people by text message that the early shooting happened. I thought only one person had been shot, so I continued on to class,” said McKibben, 21. “But more people started coming in and saying there had been big shootings, and then officials told us not to leave the room and to get away from the windows and close the blinds” (see “Cho Seung-Hui, Virginia Tech Gunman, Described As ‘Loner’ “).

(See also “Students From Across U.S. Respond To Shootings: ‘It Is Beyond Unsettling’ “, “On Virginia Tech Campus: ‘I Can’t Believe This Happened Here’ “ and ” ‘People Are Missing’: VT Student Reflects On Loss Of Friend” for more student reactions and accounts.)

McKibben said he was locked in the classroom for nearly three hours, unable to check his voicemail or e-mail due to overloaded systems. When he got back to his apartment at around noon, he spoke to a friend who was in Norris during the rampage who said he’d seen people crying and running around in the building as word spread of the incident.

“The shooter didn’t come in his room, but [my friend] said there were 10 people who came in the room crying and they said they saw a guy jump out of a third story window and break his leg, which made them think twice about jumping out the windows themselves,” McKibben said.

“My friend said he could hear the shots and they sounded like a hammer. He saw a guy who was shot in the arm run by and then he shut the doors to the room they were in and there were people in there crying hysterically. They said the shooter came into one classroom and shot everyone, including the teacher, and then he lined people up in the hallway and shot them.”

A good friend of senior Lauren Petty was also in Norris during the shootings, and told her that he saw the shooter reloading his gun and preparing to open fire again. “He [my friend] quickly closed the door and hid in a classroom and he luckily got away,” said Petty, 22, a communications major from Pittsburgh. “The hardest part for us is not knowing the names of the people who were hurt. Everyone I know is glued to their TVs, and most of my friends are leaving town to get away for a while.”

Brent Dillie, a senior from the Pittsburgh area, was in his off-campus apartment when the second round of shootings began. The engineering major was supposed to be at a class in the building next door to Norris Hall, but had begged off after his girlfriend called him at 8:30 a.m. to tell him about the shots fired at West Ambler Johnston residence hall.

“My younger brother was in the area around the second shooting when that was going on. He saw 10 or 15 cop cars and 10 or 15 ambulances rushing up and he was removed from the area,” Dillie said. “The cops were outside their cars with their guns out and using their car doors like shields, like you see in the movies.”

Dillie said despite last week’s bomb scares and an incident last semester with an escaped convict, he’s always felt safe on campus and predicted he’d feel safe again on Wednesday when classes resume. “It’s a couple of freak things, but this isn’t a dangerous place at all,” he said. “Most of my friends don’t even lock their doors.”

McKibben agreed with Dillie, saying this kind of incident could happen at any open campus where people are free to come and go as they please, whether they are students or not. If anything, McKibben said he was angry that the communication on campus about the incident was not better.

“The worst part is that the first shooting happened between 7:15 and 7:30 and I was walking to class at 7:45 for a test at 8 and I had that class and then almost all of my 9 a.m. class before I heard anything,” he said. “I heard local elementary schools were canceled before then and I was walking to class at 7:45 — and who knows if that guy could have been around me?”

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1557235/20070416/id_0.jhtml

Now this report is interesing because, it suggests that police enetered the building around 10:32 and also that initially for some some reason they thought there were two shooters at the scene.

:48 AM Dave: did you get the email?
9:51 AM me: Yeah crazy. I have two students who have emailed me bc they live in that dorm and may not be allowed to leave to go to class.
Dave: yikes
9:52 AM they are talking like the cops are looking down in the steam tunnels
me: Wow.
That’s scary

9:53 AM me: You think this is hte bomb threat person?
Dave: that was the first thing that came to my mind, but i have no reason to think that
me: who knows
Dave: i just mean if they can’t find the shooter they might shut down like they did ont he first day of classes
9:54 AM me: Well, that’s true. I had assumed that they knew who it was and had them there in the dorm, but if they are searching for them they might shut down.
Do you know if anyone was hurt?
9:55 AM Dave: nope, no details at all
all the guys on the outside are watching out the window. there are cops around burruss??
9:59 AM me: Oh did you just get the email. A gunman is loose on campus, don’t leave the building and stay away from the windows?
10:04 AM We are in total lock down here. No one in our out of the building. In the office they were saying that two people were hit and one died, but it was just a rumor. And that there is a second possibly unrelated gunman over here on this side of campus.
——————————————————————————–

14 minutes

10:27 AM Dave: bill has a police scanner
10:28 AM something about “multiple victims” 🙁
me: oh yeah, finding out anything. All classes are cancled now
Yeah I had heard multiple victims and one fatality.
10:31 AM me: I”m in my office with the door locked
10:32 AM Dave: “people are running out of norris”
me: what does that mean?
Dave: “cops are running into norris”
10:33 AM me: oh, like maybe there is a shooter in there?
Dave: that’s one of the buildings, between burruss and torgersen? i dunno yeah

——————————————————————————–
15 minutes

10:50 AM Dave: it sounds like there’s more than just one wounded. i’ve overheard the following rumors:
a faculty member has been shot
me: I heard that. Shot in the arm.
Dave: someone picked up a bloody girl multiple people have been carried out of a building on stretchers
me: yikes
10:53 AM Dave: Two kids jumped out a a window somewhere says CNN?
10:58 AM Dave: they are acting like things are calming down on the drillfield
me: that’s good
10:59 AM So have they caught someone then?
Dave: they haven’t seen anyone that looks caught but they just say it looks like it’s calming down
11:00 AM Dave: there is a new rumor that the hospital is already overloaded with shooting victims
me: surely not
Dave: right that’s what everyone’s reaction is
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.
on the www.vt.edu
11:01 AM me: So it is just the shooter from the dorm shooting that is on the loose?
Dave: impossible to tell

Dave and I spent the next hour talking about how things were hitting the national news and each of us reporting back on getting in touch with our families to let them know we were ok. Around noon the we were told to leave our buildings and go home immeadiately. Since Norris was in between our buildings, I got a ride home with one of the other grad students and met Dave at home. Both of us went out the back of our buildings and didn’t see the magnitude of the scene on the drillfield. The other grad student and I wondered about the number of ambulances lined up on the street behind our buildings but shrugged it off as a precaution. On the way home I got a call from my dad. I told him what I understood to have happened. There was a domestic relationship related shooting and then another unrelated shooting. Multiple people were injured, but there was only one fatality. The university president gave the first press conference while we were on our way home. When I got home Dave informed me that 20 people had been killed. I was stunned. I still can’t believe that I had no idea at the time of what was happening just two buildings away from me.

(http://mollie.vox.com/)

This was supposed to be the emails sent by the university but its been pulled:

http://www.nowpublic.com/chilling_emails_from_students_while_terror_underway

This is also interesting because it’s contradicted at the time and later. Now, the police say there was no evidence of any second shooter, that there’s no suicide note – the report sounds quite confident. But then things completely change and there if the confused account of a suicide note being found. They had just executed the search for the dorm. Also interesting is that students were saying that Ambler Johnston where the first shooting took place at 7:15 was not locked down until 10 AM and that students were going in and out.

Tuesday, April 17th 2007 7:58PM
Students state lockdown occurred late morning
T. Rees Shapiro, CT Staff Writer

Students have stated that Ambler-Johnston Hall was not on lockdown until as late as 10 a.m. yesterday morning.

Meredith Hawkins, a sixth floor West Ambler-Johnston resident described how the halls weren’t under firm security measures until after the second shooting had occurred.

“My roommate left for class at 7:45,” Hawkins said, “and she left the dorm as if nothing had happened.”

“Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at all.” Hawkins said.

“The first word of any lockdown didn’t happen until around 9:45 or so,” Hawkins said. “But they were allowing people to leave, but if you did leave you weren’t allowed back in.”

“It was around 10 or so, maybe even later, that they stopped letting people leaving entirely, but before then, you could just go as you please.” Hawkins said.

Joann Cassano, a sophomore 4th floor West Ambler-Johnston resident, confirmed the same description of the supposed lockdown of the building.

“Us 4th floor people were allowed to leave around 9:10,” Cassano said.

Tuesday, April 17th 2007 6:54PM
Press Conference confirms warrant
Kevin Anderson, Saira Haider, and Tim Tutt, CT Staff

At a press conference this evening at The Inn at Virginia Tech, Colonel W. Steven Flaherty, the superintendent for the State Police confirmed that a search warrant has been executed for Cho Seung-Hui’s dorm room located in Harper Hall. The police are currently evaluating evidence retrieved from the scene.

Police confirmed a .22 caliber handgun and a .9 millimeter handgun.

Gov. Tim Kaine was also present at the press conference.

The weapons found on the scene in Norris Hall have been found to have been legally purchased by Cho according to Virginia gun laws.

Flaherty stated that Cho did not leave behind a suicide note.

Currently the major “thrust” on the investigation is to positively identify the victims. The staff at the medical centers have been working 12-hour shifts to ensure the quality of these investigations.

Kaine mentioned appointing several independent law enforcement members to do a thorough “After-Action Review.” These reviews will evaluate how procedures were executed during the shootings.

The governor deemed the shootings a horrible tragedy. Once he had heard word of the incidents Kaine immediately left Japan, where he had been for a two-week trade tour through Asia. He arrived back in the United States at Dulles International Airport at 11:00 a.m.

The governor stated that this conference was not for political purpose, but to help comfort the families.

Flaherty continued to say that there has been no comment on the person of interest from the first shooting in West Ambler-Johnston Hall. There has also been no proof or evidence of an accomplice.

A rumor stating that Cho’s parents had committed suicide in their home has been proven to be false.

Also:

“27 videos.

Forty-three photos showed Cho with guns (sometimes pointed at the camera), a knife, a hammer, bullets and in a state of rage. ”

Accourding to MSNBC there are 23 QuickTime video files of Cho talking to the camera about his “hatred of the wealthy.” The package did not contain any images of the shooting on Monday.

The Superintendent also noted that the vehicle portrayed in the video was known about since the first day, but would not release any more information on it.

The FBI in NY handled the recovering of the package.

The main goal of authorities is to try to determine what happened and why this tragedy occurred.

From this point, the authorities believe they will have very little to tell the public on a daily basis as this investigation continues.

The parcel that Cho delivered to NBC was mailed at the 118 N. Main St. US Post Office

This report goes to show that English dept was aware of problems.

Thursday, April 19th 2007 3:34PM
Exclusive: Classmate comments on Cho’s personality[Full Report]
Taylor Shapiro, CT Staff Writer

Alison Mitchell, a senior environmental policy and planning student at Virginia Tech, was in Bob Hicok’s Intro to Short Fiction class in the Spring of 2006. So was Cho Seung-Hui.

In that spring a year ago she recalls there were about 20 kids in her class. The class setting was a very similiar format to other English classes at Tech, they all sat in a circle, with Hicok toward the front, closest to the chalk board, and the other students completing the ring so every person could see each other. Except for Cho, Mitchell explained.

“Cho would sit as far away as possible from the rest of us,” Mitchell said. “He would sit toward the back, away from Hicok.”

He apparently, Mitchell described, preferred his own personal space.

“Cho avoided being near people,” Mitchell said. “He isolated himself from everyone.”

Most English classes involve levels of discussion, which was the same for Hicok’s class, but Cho chose not to speak.

“He just sat,” Mitchell said. “And looked angry all the time, a grumpy look. I could tell he was depressed.”

“He never spoke in front of the class, which was something that bothered Hicok,” Mitchell said.

Because the class sat in a large circle, Mitchell mentioned how he looked during class.

“He always looked down, but there was something about his face, his expression, it’s hard to explain,” Mitchell said.

“His eyes, they looked angry, and he almost always frowned,” Mitchell said. “He sometimes had an intensity,a fierceness, like he was thinking about a lot, but it was totally inward.”

“It didn’t look like he paid attention, he was not engaged,” Mitchell said. “He moved very slowly.”

“I definitely thought it was creepy,” Mitchell described. “I would not approach him, ever, he seemed creepy.”

“But he always looked unhappy,” Mitchell said. “And it wasn’t like a single instance, it was everyday.”

“It honestly seemed like he hated everything, everyone,” Mitchell described. “He would sometimes glare at people while they talked.”

“I can remember one time he asked (Cho) a direct question in class,” Mitchell said, “And he just glared at Hicok and then grunted a gutteral sound, like an ‘MMM.’ It was like Cho was angry at Hicok for asking, for speaking to him.”

However, Mitchell noted a peculiarity about the way Hicok was running the class, like Hicok was up to something.

“The way class was run was everyone had to participate,” Mitchell said. “I definitely made an effort, he made it clear that our grade heavily depended on our class participation.”

“In the first few classes, Hicok made such an effort about speaking in class,” Mitchell described. “He was adament about it, that participation was really important, and it seemed to me like Hicok was aiming his speeches about class participation at Cho.”

“It seemed like Hicok was aware of how Cho acted in other classes,”Mitchell said. “Like the English department people had warned him.”

Mitchell then described how Cho would never answer questions directed to him in class by other students, which Hicok obviously observed.

“After the first few classes,” Mitchell said. “Hicok asked Cho to come speak to him after the period was over.”

“But from what I saw it looked like Hicok just talking to Cho,” Mitchell said. “Cho didn’t talk much, and seemed annoyed with Hicok whenever he did try to speak to him.”

“Hicok would regularly speak to Cho, at least once a week,” Mitchell said.

Occasionally, Mitchell described, Hicok would ask Cho his oppinion on something, to get him to speak.

“Sometimes Hicok would say, ‘Cho, do you have anything to add?’ and Cho would just say ‘No,’ in a very deep voice,” Mitchell said.

However, despite his the battle with depression Mitchell said she observed, she was still surprised to learn he was the shooter.

“I wouldn’t have expected him to go and kill people,” Mitchell said, “I was shocked, I didn’t think he was violent.”

“I could tell he was struggling with some emotions though,” Mitchell said.

Not only did Mitchell know Cho, but she also knew Julia Pryde, one of his fatal victims.

“I worked with Julia on a sustainable development economics project on global obesity,” Mitchell said.

“Julia was a pretty smart girl, who always had interesting things to say in our discussions.”

“It’s shocking that he killed all these people,” Mitchell said. “But I wasn’t concerned about him beforehand.”

“Some people might have asked Hicok about his strange behavior,” Mitchell said. “But I didn’t, It didn’t seem like he needed it then.”

Cell phone video shots: http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?vid=143565