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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 13:24:44 GMT -5
By NED POTTER, DAVID SCHOETZ, and the staff of ABC News Apr. 16, 2007— At least 29 people are dead in what may be the biggest mass shooting in American history — and the death toll may rise. At least 17 injured students were admitted to local hospitals. Police at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., said that the shootings happened at a dormitory and a classroom on opposite sides of the university campus. Law enforcement sources tell ABC News the shooting may have been set off by an off-campus incident. Details were unclear.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 13:29:03 GMT -5
Statement by Virginia Tech's President Apr 16 01:24 PM US/Eastern
By The Associated Press Statement by Virginia Tech President Charles Steger on Monday afternoon after the fatal shootings of 21 students: Well, today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions. There were two shootings which occurred on campus. In each case there were fatalities. The university is shocked and indeed horrified that this would befall us, and I want to extend my deepest and most sincere and profound sympathy to the families of these victims, which include our students. We are currently in the process of notifying next of kin. The Virginia Tech police are being assisted by numerous other jurisdictions including Montgomery County. Crime scenes are being investigated by the university police, the FBI and the state police. We continue to work to identify the victims that have been impacted by this tragedy. I cannot begin to convey my own personal sense of loss over this senseless and incomprehensible heinous act. The university will immediately set up counseling centers. So far, centers have been identified in Ambler Johnston and the Cook counseling center to work with our campus community and their families.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 13:43:53 GMT -5
More: Update: 31 Dead in Virginia Tech Shooting If you are a student or the parent of a student who attends Virginia Tech and want to talk about today's tragedy, please send an e-mail to news@wrcbtv.com.Government officials have told The Associated Press the death toll from the Virginia Tech campus shootings has risen to 31. That makes it the deadliest mass shooting in U-S history. The school's Web site says the shootings happened at the opposite ends of campus -- one at a co-ed residence hall and another at an engineering building. The university's president describes it as a tragedy of "monumental proportions." The university has told students to stay inside and away from windows as police swept the campus and worked to establish whether the gunman acted alone. All entrances to the campus have been closed and classes are canceled through tomorrow.
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Kordax
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Post by Kordax on Apr 16, 2007 14:34:24 GMT -5
In the early 80's, I was on campus 3/4 times a year recruiting VA Tech engineering students on behalf of major manufaturers. It's a fantastic setting for a university, a beautiful mountain town (Blacksburg), and a major braintrust resource for the City of Roanoke & the entire Roanoke Valley.....
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HonorH957
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Post by HonorH957 on Apr 16, 2007 17:48:34 GMT -5
What a very sad day. The investigation that is sure to follow is probably going to have lots and lots of questions, first and foremost: Why, when the first call came in at 7:15 a.m. about a shooter, wasn't the campus and all buildings locked down immediately? Time line on this is going to be critical.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 18:51:50 GMT -5
It is a beautiful campus. I spent quite some time on a surveillance up there. The Sanhines (sic) shooter ran to ground there after the murder and we sat on him for days, until he decided to return.
Sad story and I am sure that blame aplenty will be assigned. Most of it not towards the actual shooter.
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Kordax
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Post by Kordax on Apr 16, 2007 19:00:41 GMT -5
Sad story and I am sure that blame aplenty will be assigned. Most of it not towards the actual shooter.
As I'm watching pretentious press-ites ask accusatory questions, you couldn't have nailed it better than that!
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Post by topspin34 on Apr 16, 2007 20:22:13 GMT -5
My dad went to school there and William & Mary back in the early 50's . It's a beautiful campus. Also, Herb Adcox's grandson, I believe, is a student there. He played on the tennis team in 2004 and is still a student there. He is also a McCallie grad.
October 16, 2004
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Virginia Tech's men's tennis team continued to have positive results on the second day of the 20th Annual South Carolina Invitational. The event features players from 31 teams and is being played at four venues throughout the city of Columbia, S.C.
In singles action, Brent Wilkins (Jr., Richmond, Va.) advanced to the Flight A-2 semifinals with two victories on Saturday. Wilkins crushed Alex Fridzon (Wofford), 6-1, 6-0, then pulled out a come-from-behind 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 quarterfinal win over fourth-seeded Bastain Moldhenke (College of Charleston). Wilkins will play Liron Kling (College of Charleston) Sunday at 8 a.m. in the semifinals.
VIRGINIA TECH SPORTS 2004
Fourth-seeded Reeves Robinette (So., Chattanooga, Tenn.) won two tight matches to advance to the B-2 singles semifinals. Robinette edged Michael Barber (Wofford), 6-4, 7-6 (2), then was pushed to the limit before eliminating sixth-seed Nick Owen (Campbell), 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (4). He will face eighth-seed Justin Malina (College of Charleston) Sunday at 8 a.m.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 20:28:16 GMT -5
Here is the list the blame will go to and that has already been assigned or alleged...... - President Bush
- The Republicans("As the Virginia Tech community struggles with the mourning and questioning that is certain to follow, the continued prayers from this Congress are with the students, their families, the faculty and the staff at Virginia Tech," Pelosi said).
- The Supreme Court
- The Congress
- The Media
- The manufacturer(s) of the gun(s)
- The Blacksburg Police Department ("As some students fled the scene, they were tackled to the ground and handcuffed by police seeking to stop the killer fleeing in the chaos".)
- Montgomery County Sheriff's Office
- The Virginia Tech Police/Security Department ("Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that.")
- The shooter's parents/teachers/clergy
- The Courts of wherever this predator is from
- La Migra ("Authorities were investigating whether the gunman who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history was a Chinese man who arrived in the United States last year on a student visa.")
- Virginia Tech ("I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm.)
- The girlfriend ("He was said to have quarrelled {sic} in a dormitory with his girlfriend, whom he believed had been seeing another man".)
- The National Rifle Association ("The shooting will re-open the often heated debate over gun controls in the U.S., whose Constitution declares that the people's right to bear arms must not be infringed.")
- Hollywood
- Video games
- The shooter
The fact that so many innocent people were murdered in cold blood will be lost in all the agendas that are already driving this story and will continue to do so as the rest of the story unfolds.Sad.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 20:47:19 GMT -5
What The Right To Bear Arms Wrought At Virginia Tech posted April 16, 2007
Opinion by: Jack Reeves Rutledge, GA The Virginia Tech massacre made me grateful for Andy Griffith. I usually watch Keith Olbermann, but tonight he began to describe the Virginia Tech events. I could not watch. The right to keep and bear arms. It's tied to a time when we feared Indians, the British, and bears. We needed to bear arms. Consider what the right to arms did at Virginia Tech.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 21:22:29 GMT -5
Gun bill gets shot down by panel HB 1572, which would have allowed handguns on college campuses, died in subcommittee.
By Greg Esposito A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly. House Bill 1572 didn't get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws. The bill was proposed by Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Gilbert was unavailable Monday and spokesman Gary Frink would not comment on the bill's defeat other than to say the issue was dead for this General Assembly session. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 16, 2007 22:21:10 GMT -5
- The Police Chief and the Virginia Tech President
Parents Demand Firing of Virginia Tech President, Police Chief Over Poor Handling of Mass Shooting
Monday, April 16, 2007 Parents of a Virginia Tech student expressed outrage Monday at what they call an inadequate response by college brass to the worst mass-murder shooting in American history. John and Jennifer Shourds of Lovettsville, Va. demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum who he said "screwed up" the handling of separate shooting incidents that left 33 students dead, including the shooter. “My God, if someone shoots somebody there should be an immediate lockdown of the campus,” said John Shourds. “They totally blew it. The president blew it, campus police blew it.” However, John Shourds said he had doubts about the effectiveness of Virginia Tech’s campus police from the start. He called the force, “an Andy Griffith and Barney Fife” operation. "They are really small police force for 20,000 students and they are not the best and the brightest,” said Shourds.
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Felix
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Post by Felix on Apr 17, 2007 7:57:35 GMT -5
Everybody who hears of this, or much more immediately, has lost a friend or releative, will have to deal with horror and grief and a feeling of sudden insecurity. Welcome to the randomly violent world that underlies our daily routine, our feeling that order, not chaos, is the norm.
Next will come the effort to analyze this particular situation, identify and track the shooter and his motives, if knowable. As far as blame, the act itself rests on the shooter, who took up a weapon and treated his fellow students and their faculty as objects to be destroyed. How he reached that point is an academic excercise with limited predictive value for other shootings.
As tcrash has outlined the course of examination and blame assignment, a great deal of rationalization will be used to defend or explain every person or organization with even the remotest connection to VPI or the shooter.
But it all boils down to one person (pending investigation of possible other shooters) deciding to embrace the oldest, primal sin, to treat another human being as having no value.
Thirty-two of them. Sometimes evil is the only explanation.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 17, 2007 7:59:44 GMT -5
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Post by xterragirl on Apr 17, 2007 8:03:57 GMT -5
I heard that the crime rate on this campus was little to none. If that is true, I somehow doubt that the campus police department was an "Andy Griffith and Barney Fife" operation.
I'm sure that there are many questions that will need to be answered in the coming days. As for me, I am only offering my prayers for the students (as well as students everywhere), family, staff and friends.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 17, 2007 8:18:51 GMT -5
While on the aforementioned homicide surveillance, we worked closely with the VPI Police Department.
They were very professional, experienced and highly trained. I am awaiting the call for the resignation of the entire Department for causing this tragedy.
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Post by mightejoe on Apr 17, 2007 8:23:09 GMT -5
->In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday the university shooting in Virginia showed that America's "gun culture" was a negative force in society.
And this from the country that holds the record for mass killings with the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 17, 2007 8:27:59 GMT -5
- Charlton Heston
Blaming Charlton Heston
With a view to Monday's deadly shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, European newspapers are blaming the lack of gun control measures in the United States and implying that Charlton Heston is indirectly responsible for the scope of the killings.
In America, "buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's license."
Across the continent on Tuesday, European media rubber-neck at Monday's massacre in the United States. Most seem to agree about one thing: The shooting at Virginia Tech is the result of America's woeful lack of serious gun control laws. In the strongest editorialized image of the day, German cable news broadcaster NTV flashed an image of the former head of the National Rifle Association, the US gun lobby: In other words, blame rifle-wielding Charlton Heston for the 33 dead.
Papers reserve their sharpest criticism for the 2004 expiration of a 10-year ban on semi-automatic weapons under the then Republican-controlled Congress. Others comment on the pro-gun lobbying activities of Heston's NRA. Some papers also draw analogies between school shootings and Muslim fundamentalist suicide bombers.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 17, 2007 8:41:26 GMT -5
Gunman Identified at Massacre at Virginia Tech April 17, 2007 — Cho Hui Seung, a resident alien of the United States, a South Korean national and a Virginia Tech senior has been identified as the gunman in the shootings that left 33 people dead on the Virginia Tech campus Monday, ABC News has learned. The student killed two people in a dorm room, returned to his dorm room where he re-armed and left a "disturbing note" before entering a classroom building on the other side of campus to continue his rampage, sources said. Cho's identitiy has been confirmed with a positive fingerprint match on the guns used in the rampage and with immigration materials. It is believed that he was the shooter in both incidents yesterday. Sources say Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol, sources said. Witnesses had also told authorities that the shooter was carrying a backpack. Sections of chain similar to those used to lock the main doors at Norris Hall, the site of the second shooting that left 31 dead, were found inside a Virginia Tech dormitory, sources confirmed to ABC News. In all, the massacre at Virginia Tech left 33 people dead — including Cho himself — in the worst shooting in moder American history. Took 'em long enough. I guess it took some time get the cover-up going.
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Kordax
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Post by Kordax on Apr 17, 2007 9:20:17 GMT -5
How about blaming greedy colleges & universities while everyone else is casting about looking to blame evryone & everything EXCEPT THE PERP? educationusa.state.gov/usvisa.htmForeign students pay their tuition, room & board, book costs & everything else with CASH -- the more foreign students they have, the more their 90/10 ratios improve (financial aid / cash payments). We read the well wrought propaganda colleges spin out -- "we need to attract the world's best & brightest", "we all benefit from a multi-cultural diverse student body", and "other countries will attract bright international students if we don't." But follow the $$$$ -- universities are willing to admit killers as long as they pay the freight with cash....
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Post by legaltender on Apr 17, 2007 11:15:27 GMT -5
Gee, that was special. Like learning that the clowns at Westboro Baptist Church today announced they will picket at the funerals of murdered VT students. Everyone gets to use this tragedy for their own narrow advantage.
There isn't even the slightest chance that this will lead to a serious discussion of whether guns are too easy to get. Law-abiding citizens packing heat sometimes do prevent horrors like this, or minimize the number of innocent victims. But it's not jackbooted totalitarianism to have background checks at gun shows. The VT shooter apparently had the gun purchase receipt in his backpack, so he presumably broke no law and skirted no policy.
One of the saddest things I read is that while volunteers from Roanoke funderal homes helped collect and count the bodies today, the victims' phones and PDAs still rang and vibrated.
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Post by legaltender on Apr 17, 2007 12:07:40 GMT -5
From the Chicago Tribune:
Cho Seung-Hui left a "disturbing note" describing his hatred of the privileged class in society. He had been on anti-depressants and scrawled "Ismail Ax" on his forearm in red ink, apparently referring to an Islamic prelate. His note railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 17, 2007 14:03:13 GMT -5
College gunman left note Cho had shown recent signs of violent, aberrant behavior, according to an investigative source, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women. A note believed to have been written by Cho was found in his dorm room that railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. Cho was an English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service, the Associated Press reported. Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled."
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Post by daworm on Apr 17, 2007 14:59:53 GMT -5
And your point is what? That we need stricter gun control laws so that he couldn't have bought a handgun in the first place?
Suppose he'd acted out his aggression by driving a Ryder truck through an Easter parade? Would your response be that we need stricter vehicle rental control?
Or maybe he could have walked into that classroom with a gallon of Clorox and a bottle of ammonia and padlocked the doors without bringing the keys. Should we have tighter regulations on cleaning fluids?
Or perhaps he could have brought a 5 gallon bug sprayer full of gasoline and a BIC? Lighter control, anyone? Fuel control? Must have that permit to fill up the tank, you know...
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Post by legaltender on Apr 17, 2007 18:21:09 GMT -5
And your point is what? That we need stricter gun control laws so that he couldn't have bought a handgun in the first place? OMG, you've peered into my soul. The sentence was neither unclear nor ripe with innuendo; he broke no law and skirted no policy. Everybody keeps saying, "We thought it was construction" when multiple shots rang out around 9:20. That tells you no one was told about the campus shooting two hours before. It's inexcusable. The shooter was still at large. Even if the classrooms weren't in lockdown, why wasn't everyone made aware?
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Post by tcrashfx on Apr 17, 2007 19:01:06 GMT -5
It's not against Virginia law or VPI Policy to commit murder?
And neither is possession of all the other tools of mass murder aforementioned against any law or policy.
Or are you part of the Ryder Truck-Household Chemical-BIC Lighter Control Crowd, too.
You missed the point altogether.
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Post by legaltender on Apr 17, 2007 19:36:22 GMT -5
No, you overlooked the apparently excitable sentence: "The VT shooter apparently had the gun purchase receipt in his backpack, so he presumably broke no law and skirted no policy."
He bought his weapons legally.
By definition, criminals break the law.
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Post by el Gusano on Apr 17, 2007 21:29:06 GMT -5
I think we need to ban blunt objects, personally.
Three times as many people are beaten to death as shot, so they're obviously very, very dangerous and far too easy to obtain.
We need to go for the real killers before we go after guns. After all, if you don't have a Louisville Slugger, you can't beat someone to death with it.
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Post by legaltender on Apr 17, 2007 22:02:06 GMT -5
It's a big country and there are a lot of unhinged people. The debate should last its usual couple weeks.
I heard it was six.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2007 22:11:30 GMT -5
CSTCC will have a "Memorial Wall" that students (and I would guess the general public) can sign at the main campus on Amnicola Highway at the amphitheater from 10A-2p tomorrow (Wednesday, 04/18/2007). No decision on what will happen to the wall yet.
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