BLACKSBURG, Va.-- --Thirty-three people were killed and at least 15 injured at the Virginia Tech campus yesterday in the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history - a massacre that left the stricken campus in mourning and overwhelmed with questions about who the gunman was and how the shooting could have happened.
Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger described the scene as "carnage," and President Bush said the tragedy's impact would be "felt in every American classroom and every American community."
The shooting took place at two locations yesterday morning. First, at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dormitory, where a gunman killed two people shortly after 7 a.m., and again more than two hours later at Norris Hall, a classroom building across the sprawling campus. The bulk of the casualties occurred there, where the gunman also took his own life. Authorities said 15 people were injured, although some news reports put the number at more than 30.
Campus police said last night that they had made a preliminary identification of the gunman but did not release his name, say whether he was a student, or shed light on a motive. Identities of students and staff members who were killed or wounded could be released today.
The day's events unfolded on television and on popular networking Web sites such as Facebook.com. The eerie pop of 27 gunshots could be heard on a student-filmed video streamed on CNN throughout the day. On Facebook, students swapped information, some saying simply, "trying not to get shot," while mourning for the missing and dead.
Students were especially upset about why the campus was not secured after the first shooting.
The first campuswide e-mail, describing a shooting and urging students to be cautious, went out at 9:26 a.m. Twenty-four minutes later, a second, more-ominous message was sent: "A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows."
The more than two-hour gap between the shootings had authorities struggling to explain why the school was not locked down after the first incident and why the entire campus community still had not been informed more than two hours later.
"After the first person was shot, the campus should have been closed right away," said Alex Moore, a 22-year-old senior from Bel Air. "It's kind of scary how little information we had, especially because we already had one shooting here."
"We're just shocked that the school would let us come to school when they knew two kids had already been shot on campus, way before classes started," said Mackenzie Melfa, 21, a junior from Towson. "We feel like this could have been prevented if our school had let us know."
Steger defended the university's response to the first shooting, saying that officials locked down the dormitory, activated a telephone tree and sounded sirens.
But one student who lived in the 895-bed dormitory disputed that account, saying he and his roommate walked out of the "locked down" residence hall at 7:40 a.m. to go to class.
"There was a cop at the first floor, but he didn't stop us from going anywhere and he didn't say anything," said Keith Stricker, 19, a freshman from Ellicott City.
Steger said that with 14,000 out of more than 25,000 of its students living off campus, determining whether people are more safe in their dormitories or classroom buildings is difficult. "The question is, where do you lock them down," Steger said at a news conference. "It takes 20 minutes to walk from some parts of campus to the classroom, so people are already in transit."
Chris Roil, 20, a junior from Towson, was taking an accounting test on the third floor of Norris Hall when he heard a rapid succession of bangs from the floor below.
"We heard faint screams," said Roil, "but they were really faint, so I wasn't sure if I had actually heard them or not." He continued with his test, as did the other students, he said.
Then a fellow student who had completed her test and left the classroom ran back in, "freaking out," Roil said. "She said it was really hot in the stairwell and it was full of smoke. A kid dove headfirst into the second-floor hallway, she said, and was like, 'I think someone is shooting people.'"
Roil's professor ushered about 20 students into a nearby office, where they listened to gunshots outside. About 20 minutes later there was a knock on the door.
"It was the SWAT team," Roil said. "They had weapons pointed straight in our face telling us, 'Get your hands up! Everyone get your hands up!'"
At an afternoon news conference, Steger, the university's president, said: "I want to repeat my horror and disbelief and profound sorrow at the events of today. I'm really at a loss of words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus."
Bush called the shooting a "terrible tragedy" and said he "would do everything possible to assist with the investigation." In a brief televised statement from the White House, he said schools "should be places of safety and sanctuary and learning."
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said last night that investigators had not determined whether the same gunman was responsible for both incidents. Some of those injured during the second shooting were hurt while escaping from Norris Hall by jumping from second-floor windows.
University officials said they also were investigating whether the shootings were connected to two bomb threats last week.
The Associated Press, quoting law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity, said the gunman had two pistols and several clips of ammunition.
Flinchum said at a news conference that at the time of the first incident, authorities believed that it was a domestic dispute, and that evidence led them to believe that the suspect had left campus. They said they were interviewing a "person of interest" in that shooting when they got word of the second attack.
It remained unclear what kind of weapon or weapons the gunman used or whether he possessed them legally. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent 10 agents from its Washington division to investigate, including personnel from Roanoke.
Spokeswoman Sheree Mixell offered no specifics about the status of the investigation. She said her agency was offering investigators use of the ATF's national laboratory in Ammendale, Md., where technicians match spent rounds to a particular weapon.
The bureau's national tracing center in West Virginia could also help investigators learn who made the weapon or weapons and who might have owned them, Mixell said.
The shootings left the 2,600-acre campus in remote southwestern Virginia stunned for the second time this year. On the first day of classes in August, a jail escapee allegedly killed a security guard at a nearby hospital and a deputy sheriff during the manhunt, prompting university officials to close the campus.
Yesterday's rampage made history as the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, supplanting a 1991 incident in Killeen, Texas, in which George Hennard drove his truck into a cafeteria and killed 23 people, then shot himself.
For many, it brought back memories of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two students killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 before killing themselves.
"Blacksburg is not a town where this happens," said Braden Eggerl of Jessup, a sophomore. "We go to football games, we love our sports. Nothing like this ever happens. The fact that something like this happened two times this year, it seems like it must be a freak occurrence.
"I'm always proud to say I go to Virginia Tech. It just sucks because of these two stupid things. ... It's going to be Virginia Tech and Columbine in one sentence for the rest of my life."
Sun reporters Julie Bykowicz in Blacksburg, David Nitkin in Washington, Matt Dolan and Chris Emery in Baltimore, and the Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this article.
COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE STUDENTS
Virginia Tech students received notification of the first shooting in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., which asked them to be "cautious" and to contact university police if any "suspicious" activity is observed. A second e-mail at 9:50 a.m. told them to stay in buildings and away from windows. The university used the home page of its Web site to update information later in the day.
TRAGEDY ON CAMPUS
Thirty-three people were killed yesterday at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Many of the victims were students shot in a dorm and in a classroom building on the campus in Blacksburg.
The shootings at Virginia Tech are amoung the worst killings by a gunman in history
35 Port Arthur, Tasmania
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33 Blacksburg, Va.
Yesterday
A gunman kills at least 32 and himself and injures dozens on the Virginia Tech campus in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history
30 Hebron, Israel
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Jewish immigrant Baruch Goldstein targets worshipers in mosque
24 Killeen, Texas
Oct. 16, 1991
George Jo Hennard crashes his truck into a Luby's restaurant and starts shooting patrons
21 San Ysidro, Calif.
July 18, 1984
James Oliver Huberty's rampage with automatic weapons takes place in a McDonald's restaurant.
17 Dublane, Scotland
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Disgraced scoutmaster Thomas Hamilton kills 16 primary schools children and their teacher
ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Founded: 1872 as a land-grant college
Original name: Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College
Formal name: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Number of students: 26,370 (largest full-time student population in Virginia)
Male students: 58%
Female students: 42%
Education offered: Eight colleges and graduate school; 140 master's and doctoral degree programs; seven programs in the school?s College of Engineering ranked in the top 25 among its peer group
Of note: Ranked 56th nationally in university research; ranked 34th nationally among public universities by U.S. News & World Report
ENROLLMANT BY RACE
CLASS OF 2010
Top five home states of out-of-state freshmen:
1. Maryland, 386 students
2. New Jersey, 190 students
3. Pennsylvania, 188 students
4. North Carolina, 101 students
5. New York, 74 students
Number of states represented: 46 (plus Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C.)
Countries represented: 35
ABOUT BLACKSBURG
Founded: 1798 by William Black
County: Montgomery County, approximately 25 miles southwest of Roanoke, Va. Population (2003): 40,066 estimated, including students
Median household income (1999): $22,513