The 23-year-old South Korean and resident alien lived at the university's Harper Hall, Flinchum said. He was an English major, the chief said.作者: weili 时间: 2007-4-17 08:56 Virginia Tech president: Shooter 'one of our students'
BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- Police identified the gunman who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus before turning the gun on himself as student Cho Seung-Hui, university police Chief Wendell Flinchum said Tuesday.
The 23-year-old South Korean and resident alien lived at the university's Harper Hall, Flinchum said. He was an English major, the chief said.
Flinchum said ballistics tests showed that one of the two guns recovered at Norris Hall, where 30 people and the gunman died, was used in the Norris shooting and an earlier shooting at a dormitory that left two dead.
The university and police are still in the process of releasing the names of the 32 people killed in Monday's shootings. (Watch how some are asking why warnings weren't issued sooner )
A doctor at a Blacksburg hospital described the injuries he saw Monday as "amazing" and the shooter as "brutal."
"There wasn't a shooting victim that didn't have less than three bullet wounds in them," said Dr. Joseph Cacioppo of Montgomery Regional Hospital.
Even among the less serious injuries, Cacioppo said, "we saw one patient that had a bullet wound to the wrist, one to the elbow and one to the thigh. We had another one with a bullet wound to the abdomen, one to the chest and one to the head."
A law enforcement source close to the investigation said a .22-caliber handgun and a 9 mm handgun were recovered at the scene. (Watch how quickly these guns can be fired, reloaded )
Details surface
The day's first shooting, at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory, which houses 895 students, occurred about 7:15 a.m.
At the time of the later shootings at Norris Hall, police were investigating a "person of interest" in the dormitory shootings, Flinchum said Monday.
During the Tuesday news conference, Flinchum said the person of interest was an acquaintance of a woman killed at the dorm.
Col. Steven Flaherty of the Virginia State Police said authorities were still investigating whether Cho had any accomplices in planning or executing Monday's rampage.
Steger told reporters Monday that police found the front doors of Norris Hall chained shut and that by the time they got to the second floor, the gunfire stopped.
Authorities say they believed the dorm shooting was an "isolated incident" and were still investigating it when the slaughter occurred at the other campus building, Norris Hall. (Officials thought shooter had fled)
The gunman killed 31 people, including himself, and wounded 15 in Norris Hall classrooms.
Steger: Police thought dorm shooting was isolated
Steger on Tuesday defended the university response to the dorm shooting, saying police believed it to be "a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide" that was contained to one dorm room. (Watch the police chief explain where bodies were found )
Police cordoned off the dorm and all residents were told about the shooting as police looked for witnesses, Steger said.
"I don't think anyone could have predicted that another event was going to take place two hours later," Steger said, adding that it would've been difficult to warn every student because most were off campus at the time. (Watch a student's recording of police responding to loud bangs )
The gunman was dressed "almost like a Boy Scout" and wore a black ammunition vest, said a student who survived by pretending to lie dead on a classroom floor.
"He just stepped within five feet of the door and just started firing," said Erin Sheehan. "He seemed very thorough about it, getting almost everyone down, I pretended to be dead." (Watch student describe surviving by playing dead )
The shooter, who remained quiet throughout the rampage, came back 30 seconds after the first round of gunfire and Sheehan and her classmates tried to barricade the door with their bodies, she said.
After the shooter couldn't get in, he began firing through the door, Sheehan said. Of the 25 students in her German class, Sheehan was one of four able to walk out on her own when police arrived. (Watch students react to shooting )
Victims' identities being released
Courtney Dalton, an 18-year-old student who worked at West End Dining Hall, said a friend named Ryan Clark was one of the two dormitory victims.
Clark, a resident assistant at West Ambler Johnston Hall, had once worked at the cafeteria serving pizza. Sobbing, she described Clark "a happy person."
As of early Tuesday, the identities of four other victims had been released:
G.V. Loganathan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering
Liviu Librescu, a professor of engineering science and mechanics
Ross Alameddine, a student from Saugus, Massachusetts
Matthew La Porte, student, Dumont, New Jersey
The university has scheduled a convocation for 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. President Bush is scheduled to attend.
Classes have been canceled for the rest of the week, and Norris Hall will be closed for the remainder of the semester, Steger said.
There have been two bomb threats at the university this month, the latest of which came Friday. Flinchum said Tuesday they were unrelated to the shootings. (Watch gunfire on the campus )
Last August, the first day of class was cut short at Virginia Tech by a manhunt for an escaped prisoner accused of killing a Blacksburg hospital security guard and a sheriff's deputy.
Before Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States occurred in 1991, when George Hennard drove a pickup truck into a Killeen, Texas, cafeteria and fatally shot 23 people, before shooting and killing himself.作者: weili 时间: 2007-4-17 08:57 好像是南韩的。作者: thesunlover 时间: 2007-4-17 09:09 Corrected. Thanks, Searain and Weili. Thanks Lord it's not a Chinese.
Virginia Tech was rather famous, now unfortunately, much more.作者: weili 时间: 2007-4-17 09:10 希望一会儿别再说是越南、日本的......媒体啊。作者: thesunlover 时间: 2007-4-17 09:21 说到在美国杀人，中国留学生这十几年来也不含糊，由北大、清华的一男一女挑头，
当年都是爆炸性新闻。作者: weili 时间: 2007-4-17 14:29 Va. Tech Shooter was described as "Loner"
By Debbi Wilgoren and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 17, 2007; 2:00 PM
A 23-year-old English major from Centreville was the gunman who killed 32 people and then himself on the Virginia Tech campus yesterday -- the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, university and law enforcement officials said.
Cho Seung Hui was a South Korean native who immigrated to this country as a child, officials said. His lifeless body was found in Norris Hall, a classroom building, among those of several other slain students, Virginia state police superintendent Col. Steve Flaherty said. Cho, a senior, had apparently taken his own life. Cho graduated in 2003 from Westfield High School in Fairfax County.
Victims were also found in three other classrooms and a stairwell in Norris Hall, said Flaherty, who called the building "a horrific crime scene."
An affidavit for a search warrant filed this morning in Montgomery County, Va., circuit court said police found a "bomb threat note . . . directed at engineering school department buildings" near the bodies of the shooter and some victims. Investigators believe "the note is connected with the shooting incident," the agent wrote, without elaborating. The affidavit said that investigators were searching Cho's room in Harper Hall.
Law enforcement sources said that Cho died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on one of his arms. It is not clear what that is a reference to. Sources also said authorities have found what has been described as a rambling note in Cho's dorm room. The Chicago Tribune reported that the note railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charms."
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.
Inside Harper Hall this morning, students said they believed Cho lived in a suite on the second floor. The suite had a common room linking three bedrooms, each of which was shared by two students.
A reporter who briefly glimpsed the common room found it strewn with newspapers and soda cans, with one resident walking around. The common room appeared plain with beige walls. One of the doors facing the common room, which students believed led to Cho's room, was locked. Walkie-talkie conversation could be heard from behind the door. A hall monitor kicked out the reporter, saying that no media were allowed.
Investigators worked through the night gathering and removing evidence from Norris Hall, including a 9mm handgun and a .22 caliber handgun, officials said. A total of 31 people, including Cho, were fatally shot in the building.
Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum said ballistics tests showed that one of the weapons was also used in the shooting deaths of two people more than two hours earlier at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dormitory building.
"It is reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both, but we don't have the evidence to take us there," Flaherty said.
Law enforcement officials said they are still talking to an acquaintance of the female student killed in the residence hall. That person was detained off-campus after the first shooting and has been labeled a person of interest.
Cho, described by fellow students a loner, cleared a federal criminal background check at the time his green card was renewed in 2003, as did his family, a U.S. immigration official said.
"His check came back clean," the official said. "The whole family didn't have a problem."
The family of four entered the U.S. with a sponsor, typically an American relative of one of the parents, an immigration official said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was reviewing Cho's background investigation and green card renewal application form and expected to release redacted versions later Tuesday.
At Virginia Tech, he lived in Harper Hall, which according to a campus map is one building away from West Ambler Johnston. "The only thing we know about him is that he was a loner," Larry Hincker, associate vice president of university relations said.
Fellow residents of Harper Hall were rattled this morning. Timothy Johnson, a freshman from Annandale, Va., said he recognized Cho and occasionally greeted him in the hallway. "We were all just shocked," Johnson said.
Tom Duscheid, a management student from Pittsburgh, Pa., said he did not know the shooter. "I feel very fortunate," he said. "What if he went into here [with a gun]?"
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