Virginia Tech president: Shooter was Asian studentPOSTED: 7:02 a.m. EDT, April 17, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/vtech.shooting/Story Highlights• NEW: No ID on shooter; school president says it was Asian student living in dorm
• At least two professors among the dead in Virginia Tech massacre
• Police have preliminary identification of campus gunman
• University officials say 33 dead, including gunman
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BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- The gunman who opened fire in Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, killing 30 people before turning the gun on himself, was "an Asian male who was a resident in one of our dormitories," university President Charles Steger said Tuesday.
Steger didn't provide further details and he said he was still uncertain whether the student gunman at Norris was the same one who fatally shot two people in a dorm two hours earlier.
He added, however, that he didn't think a second gunman was on the loose.
University police Chief Wendell Flinchum said Monday night police have a preliminary identification of one gunman, but they are not ready to release it. (Watch how some are asking why warnings weren't issued sooner )
As the campus, and the nation, reel in the wake of the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, questions are many but answers are few.
Did the same gunman kill two people in a dormitory and then two hours later chain the doors of an academic building and begin to kill as many as he could?
Should campus officials have canceled classes after the first shooting, at the dorm? 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 30 people and wounded 15 in Norris Hall classrooms.
Steger told reporters Monday night that officers found the front doors of Norris Hall chained shut and that by the time they got to the second floor, the gunfire stopped.
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 )
Surviving by playing deadThe gunman was dressed "almost like a Boy Scout," said a student who survived by pretending to lie dead on a Norris Hall classroom floor.
"He just stepped within five feet of the door and just started firing," said Erin Sheehan.
She described the gunman as a young man wearing a short-sleeved tan shirt and black ammunition vest.
"He seemed very thorough about it -- getting almost everyone down -- I pretended to be dead," she said. (Watch student describe surviving by playing dead )
"He was very silent," said Sheehan, one of only four students in her 25-student German class who were not shot.
The gunman left but returned in about 30 seconds. "I guess he heard us still talking," said Sheehan.
"We forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again, because the door would not lock."
The man tried three more times to force his way in and then began firing through the door, she said.
Student Tiffany Otey was taking a test inside Norris Hall when the shooting began. She and about 20 other people took refuge behind a locked door in a teacher's office.
Police officers with bulletproof vests and machine guns were in the area. (Watch a student's recording of police responding to loud bangs )
"They were telling us to put our hands above our head and if we didn't cooperate and put our hands above our heads they would shoot," Otey said. "I guess they were afraid, like us -- like the shooter was going to be among one of us." (Watch students react to shooting )
Some students leaped from windows to escape, said Matt Waldron.
"These two kids, I guess, had panicked and jumped out of the top-story window, and the one kid broke his ankle and the other girl was not in good shape just lying on the ground." (Watch gunfire on the campus )
Dormitory shooting two hours earlierThe day's first shooting, at the dormitory, left two people dead. That shooting occurred about 7:15 a.m.
The dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, houses 895 students and is located near the drill field and stadium. (Campus map)
At the time of the later shootings at Norris Hall, police were investigating a "person of interest" in the dormitory shootings, Flinchum said. But the man -- a non-student who knew one of the victims -- had not been arrested, and it is unclear if he has any link to the other gunman, he said.
Victims' identities being releasedCourtney 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.
She said Clark, a resident assistant at West Ambler Johnston Hall, had once worked at the cafeteria serving pizza.
"He was a happy person; this is really sad," she said, sobbing.
"All I can do is pray for his family now," she told CNN.com. (Watch the police chief explain where bodies were found )
As of early Tuesday, the identities of three 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.
Convocation on campus TuesdayThe university, which has more than 26,000 students, has scheduled a convocation for 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. Classes also have been canceled Tuesday. In Washington, the House and Senate observed moments of silence for the victims and President Bush said the nation was "shocked and saddened" by news of the tragedy.
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
