Thirty-two people were killed and 15 were wounded in two separate morning shootings at Virginia Tech on Monday in the deadliest rampage on a university campus in American history.
Authorities have identified a “person of interest” in the first shooting and believe the gunman in the second attack killed himself.
“They are not the same person,” said Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum, but he later allowed for the possibility that the same shooter could be responsible for both shootings.
Flinchum said police have questioned the person of interest in the first shooting, which he described as a “domestic dispute,” but do not have him in custody.
“We do not have a crime to charge him with,” Flinchum added. “Until we rule him out, he remains a person of interest.”
The first attack occurred at about 7 a.m. when an unidentified man fatally shot a man and a woman at West Ambler Johnston Hall, one of the largest dormitories on the southwestern Virginia campus.
Following the first shooting, campus police locked down the dormitory but did not lock down the rest of campus or notify students, many of whom were arriving for class. Flinchum said authorities believed the shooter had left campus and may have been fleeing the state.
In the second attack, which happened at about 9:30 a.m., another unidentified man entered Norris Hall, a building housing classrooms across campus from West Ambler Johnston, and shot 45 people, killing 30 of them. Police said the shooter chained shut the building’s front doors.
After the massacre, the gunman shot himself. Police said they could not confirm the man’s identity, his motive, or the type or number of weapons used in the shootings, but have recovered two guns. ATF agents are comparing ballistic evidence from the two shootings to see if the attacks are related.
Two witnesses told The Examiner that the shooter was a college-aged Asian male. Authorities withheld the names of the dead and injured, but may release them today.
Despite the incidents occurring within hours of each other, police defended the decision to keep the campus open after the shootings at West Ambler Johnston. Law enforcement officials did not detail what happened between the first and second shootings. But witnesses told The Examiner that the campus was gripped with panic and fear for three hours Monday morning.
Kerri Murphy, a senior studying architecture, said she heard sirens as she walked to her studio in the building next to Norris Hall at about 8 a.m. She said she was not told to evacuate to a locked classroom until almost 9:30 a.m.
“I had no idea what was going on,” Murphy said. “Why they didn’t close campus right away, I don’t know. We didn’t get an e-mail until a good hour” after the initial shooting.
Melissa Blythe, who was working in the building next to Norris Hall, said it was surrounded by at least five patrol cars, a SWAT team and approximately 50 police officers.
After the initial gunfire, police evacuated students and professors before the second round of shooting began.
“All in all, I saw at least 10 injured people pulled from the building,” Blythe said. “Four of whom were in very bad shape. Two of them jumped from a third-story window. A guy and a girl. The guy broke his ankle. The girl landed on concrete.”
Wounded victims from the shootings were transported to four hospitals. Medical examiners from around Virginia were dispatched to Roanoke to help perform autopsies.
Two bomb threats in recent weeks have closed campus buildings, but no explosives were found. Authorities did not say Monday whether the threats were related to the shooting spree. This is the second shooting incident on Virginia Tech’s campus within a year. The first day of classes were canceled in August after an escaped inmate who allegedly killed a hospital worker tried to hide on campus. The 26,000-student university canceled classes today and scheduled a 2:30 p.m. memorial service on campus. On Monday, members of the Virginia Tech community struggled to comprehend the slaughter on their idyllic campus.
“It has not sunk in — it is horrible,” said Nihar Topkar, a graduate assistant who witnessed the shootout at Norris Hall. “I am sure none of us have realized the gravity of this. Right now it is just shock.”
