<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Apr. 16, 2007? At least 29 people are dead in what may be the biggest mass shooting in American history ? and the death toll may rise.At least 17 injured students were admitted to local hospitals.Police at Virginia Tech, in Blaksburg, Va., said that the shootings happened at a dormitory and a classroom on opposite sides of the university campus.Law enforcement sources tell ABC News the shooting may have been set off by an off-campus incident. Details were unclear.Eyewitness: '40 or 50 shots'Engineering student Josh Wargo, a junior at Virginia Tech, said he was sitting in class when they began to hear "loud banging noises" followed by screaming. He said many students panicked. Some began to jump out of a window two stories above ground level."We heard almost 40 or 50 shots," Wargo told ABC News. "They were going on from the time we heard them and jumped out the window until almost two minutes later.""When I landed, I was in a daze, standing outside of the building," Wargo said. "Then I heard shots going through glass ? that's when it hit me that I had to get out of there."One of my friends called me to make sure that everyone is OK, I'm told that they're in stable condition, but some of them got shot," Wargo said. "They told me my prof was shot in the face and didn't make it but were not sure.ABC News has confirmed that there were two separate bomb threats last week at Virginia Tech that targeted engineering buildings. The first was directed at Torgersen Hall, a classroom and laboratory building, while the second was directed at multiple engineering buildings. Students and staff were evacuated, and the university had offered a $5,000 reward for information into the threats."I got the emails, but my impression was it was prank or nothing serious," said Wargo, describing the Blacksburg campus as "pretty peaceful."Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said that one person was killed in the first shooting, which occurred just after 7 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a large dormitory. Flinchum said that at least 20 more people were killed at Norris Hall, an academic building.The gunman, whose identity has not been released, is among the dead. Flinchum wouldn't say whether the shooter had killed himself.The campus is closed and classes are canceled for at least today and tomorrow. Families seeking to reunite with their children have been directed by the university to the Inn at Virginia Tech.Virginia Tech, located in the western end of the state near the borders of West Virginia and Tennessee, has more than 28,000 full time students. Its campus, which spreads out over 2,600 acres, has more than 100 buildings."The university was struck today with a tragedy of monumental proportions," said university president Charles Steger. "The university is shocked and horrified that this would befall our campus."This is the second violent incident to occur at the Virginia Tech campus in the last year.In August, an escaped inmate who allegedly killed a sheriff's deputy and a security guard was found hiding in the brush near Virginia Tech's athletic fields. While he was missing, students were told to stay in their rooms, and classes were canceled on the first day of the school year.'Utter Shock'S. Daniel Carter, senior vice president for Security On Campus, Inc. who has been studying campus crime for 15 years, said he watched the news at Virginia Tech unfold in "utter shock." Carter is based a couple of hours' drive away, in Knoxville, Tenn."Nothing like this has happened before," he said, adding that the average number of killings on all American campuses combined has hovered around 20 since the Department of Education formally began collecting data in the early 1990s.While information had not been released about the gunman, Carter said he suspected that whoever the shooter was suffered from some deep psychological problem and was likely connected to the university campus in some way."In the past, in similar cases, it's usually been a psychological issue and not just a security issue," Carter said. "One of the people who was killed was an older individual, maybe a faculty member. That could be a likely underlying factor in this case someone who has failed.""It is difficult to comprehend senseless violence on this scale," said Virginia's Governor Timothy M. Kaine in a statement. "Our prayers are with the families and friends of these victims, and members of the extended Virginia Tech community."The governor was on a trip to Japan, but his press office said he was trying to get to Blacksburg as quickly as possible.</div>It's almost in the realm of surrealness. When I first heard it, it kinda blew me away. I couldn't believe that so many people got killed. With all the security that campuses have, tragedies still happen but I've never seen one that was this massive. Usually you only hear about a specific target, not 20+ people. I really want to discover what could trigger someone to kill so many people on a college campus.
It's a shame, but whenever you have a high number of people gathered in a certain place at a certain time, there's only so much that Security can do. R.I.P. to everyone who died.
Someone that graduated from my school 2 years ago was shot 3 times. He's at a hospital and is in surgery. Personally, don't know him but hits close to home.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (chang @ Apr 16 2007, 02:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Someone that graduated from my school 2 years ago was shot 3 times. He's at a hospital and is in surgery. Personally, don't know him but hits close to home.</div>Sorry to hear that.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MLibid @ Apr 16 2007, 04:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/talk...int/6561733.stm</div>Quick thinking saves lives.80-100 rounds more rounds. Damn! Makes me think about the high school where the kid came in shooting but 5 football players rushed him and tackled him, one of the players taking a round in the shoulder, but taking the guy out before he could kill anyone. Heros.
my cousin is one of the 15 injured. sounds like hes going to be ok, but just shows how two people on this board know 2 of the people injured. small world...
Anyone else hear about the girl from VT that was also a freshman at Columbine when those shootings occured?
People don't realize how lucky Americans are. Things like this, 32 civilians killed, happen at schools, coffee shops, homes, markets, and office buildings on a day to day basis. Imagine a shooting like Va. Tech happening every day, not in the entire country, but in a 2 state area and you'll reach what the civilians or Iraq are going through. You're talking about this happening every day in a state the size of Florida. For this to be such a big deal, we are lucky.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jon_Vilma @ Apr 19 2007, 03:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>People don't realize how lucky Americans are. Things like this, 32 civilians killed, happen at schools, coffee shops, homes, markets, and office buildings on a day to day basis. Imagine a shooting like Va. Tech happening every day, not in the entire country, but in a 2 state area and you'll reach what the civilians or Iraq are going through. You're talking about this happening every day in a state the size of Florida. For this to be such a big deal, we are lucky.</div>Though what you're saying is true, America isn't a war-tainted country like Iraq or the other countries that your describing is. You don't see any wars going on inside the country walls. You don't see soldiers fighting for their lives in this country's walls. Nothing even comes close to war on American soil. So stuff like this shouldn't even happen on a "day to day basis" in America. It was totally unexpected so it is be such a big deal.<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GaMeTiMe @ Apr 18 2007, 04:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Anyone else hear about the girl from VT that was also a freshman at Columbine when those shootings occured? </div>Link?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MLibid @ Apr 19 2007, 04:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jon_Vilma @ Apr 19 2007, 03:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>People don't realize how lucky Americans are. Things like this, 32 civilians killed, happen at schools, coffee shops, homes, markets, and office buildings on a day to day basis. Imagine a shooting like Va. Tech happening every day, not in the entire country, but in a 2 state area and you'll reach what the civilians or Iraq are going through. You're talking about this happening every day in a state the size of Florida. For this to be such a big deal, we are lucky.</div>Though what you're saying is true, America isn't a war-tainted country like Iraq or the other countries that your describing is. You don't see any wars going on inside the country walls. You don't see soldiers fighting for their lives in this country's walls. Nothing even comes close to war on American soil. So stuff like this shouldn't even happen on a "day to day basis" in America. It was totally unexpected so it is be such a big deal.</div>It's not clashes between soliders I'm talking about :thumbsup:
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MLibid @ Apr 19 2007, 04:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>What are you talking about then? Give me some SPECIFIC examples of what you're talking about.</div>When a guy blows himself at a temple, he's not fighting with soliders, nor is he a solider himself. :thumbsup:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/18/...in2699800.shtmlRemember all those people who protested at the funerals for the American Soldiers who died in Iraq? Yeah they're protesting at the funerals for the victims here too.Those people are horrible excuses for human beings. Reading the article they contradict themselves.
