BLACKSBURG, VA. — Gunfire erupted on the Virginia Tech campus Monday in the Blue Ridge Mountains, killing at least 32 people in a dorm and an academic building, in attacks more than two hours apart. A gunman took his life after the second incident, police said.
The attacks -- the worst such incident in modern U.S. history -- raised questions about campus security officials' response to the first shootings, in which two people were killed at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory at 7:15 a.m. Angry students asked why university officials failed to lock down the campus after that incident.
Thirty others were slaughtered at Norris Hall, an engineering building, by a lone assailant who methodically fired at students and teachers before turning a gun on himself. At least two dozen others were injured, authorities said. Witnesses said some panicked students leaped from second-floor windows to escape the killer.
It was widely assumed that the same gunman had committed both attacks, but campus Police Chief Wendell R. Flinchum would not confirm that. Flinchum said investigators were still questioning a "person of interest" in the first shooting. By late Monday, police had not identified the dead gunman -- who carried no identification -- nor uncovered a motive.
Erin Sheehan, who was in a German class when the gunman entered, said that she played dead while wounded students lay around her. Sheehan told the campus Collegiate Times newspaper that the assailant, whom she described as Asian wearing what appeared to be a black ammunition belt, peeked into the room after her class had started. Moments later, she said, he began shooting through the door.
She said that she and several students "forced ourselves against the door" to keep the gunman out, but the volley of bullets drove them back. When she scanned the room moments later, she said, "everyone was either dead or injured."
Sheehan said she was one of five people to emerge unscathed from the classroom after the gunman moved on.
Although authorities did not identify any of the victims, colleagues confirmed that German instructor Christopher James Bishop, 35, was among the dead.
Authorities said the gunman apparently blockaded the front entrance of Norris Hall with chains. Heavily armed police surrounded the engineering hall and rushed in, reportedly using stun grenades. Flinchum said investigators recovered two guns.
