Virginia Tech Shooting
There was a terrible shooting today at Virginia Tech. Thirty-three people are dead, including the gunman, and 27 people were injured. According to Federal officials, this is the deadliest shooting rampage in American history.
Apparently the gunman, described by a witness as “He was about in his 20’s, I would say. He was Asian. He had on a maroon hat and a black leather jacket,”, opened fire in a dorm, and two hours later opened fire again in a classroom all the way across campus. And the students had no clue there was a shooting earlier.
Kirsten Bernhards, 18, said she and many other students had no idea that a shooting had occurred when she left her dorm room in O’Shaughnessy Hall shortly before 10 a.m., more than two hours after the first shootings.
“I was leaving for my 10:10 film class,” she said. “I had just locked the door and my neighbor said, ‘did you check your email?’”
The university had, a few minutes earlier, sent out a bulletin warning students about an apparent shooter. But few students seemed to have any sense of urgency.
BoingBoing has a good roundup of media and information.
It’s so sad that crazy people have to go around shooting innocent people. Read some of the posts on Wired blog 27bstroke6 to get a feel for how horrific this really is. There are numerous eyewitness accounts.
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16 April 2007, 22:59
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I’ve seen this at like 12:00 and it already seemed horrific. It just reminds me some Columbine things. Also some things that happened here in Montréal, the Dawson’s College thing ( Only [that's even too much] 2 dead including the gunman) and at the polytechnique ( don’t remember ). I can’t think why people do these sort of things, that’s crazy…
Yes, it’s a sad thing, but I’ve mentioned this to a few people and I wonder: if this had happened in a different environment, like say the local grocery store, would the incident have made the same impact?
Also, some, including myself, were questioning VTech’s emergency alert system. It’s sad that above, you mentioned that some people just didn’t get that sense of urgency. It was a disaster, an emergency, a dangerous thread and yet many students were oblivious to it all.
What does that say about their alert system?
It’s very bad, indeed, and I feel for them, I do.
@Jonathan
It is crazy. Why just shoot everyone you meet? Why would you do it? It makes no sense.
@Maria
You’re right. If it was a grocery store, a bad neighborhood, Iraq, no one would care.
Exactly. How could they not immediately alert everyone that there’s been a shooting?
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