32 plus gunman dead at Virginia Tech

President Bush called it the "deadliest campus violence ever" in this country.

Thirty-three Virgina Tech students and faculty were murdered on April 16, 2007. The massacre started around 7 a.m., and lasted for two hours.

Photo by Alan Kim, Roanoke Times via AP

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old resident alien from South Korea, legally purchased the 9mm Glock 19 pistol and 50 rounds in early March. Read more about Cho's purchase here.

Two people were killed at approx. 7:15 a.m. on Monday morning in the school’s West Ambler Johnston dormitory. Police were called and on the scene in minutes, but they did not find the gunman. However, Virginia Tech officials did not feel the need to shut down the school.

Virgina Tech President, Charles Steger, stated in a press conference that all believed the worst had been over, that there was no reason to suspect any more shootings would occur.

Steger said many of Virginia Tech's more than 25,000 students already were headed to campus or to classes when the first shootings occurred, and that notifying them immediately about the incident would have been difficult and impractical.

"We did as well as we could," Steger said.

A little over two hours later, a total of 33 people, including the gunman, were dead, and at least 15 others injured.

Students at Virginia Tech are questioning if officials could have done more. Only until the second shooting at Norris Hall, where classes were being held, had begun did officials send out a school-wide email urging students to "be cautious." Many wondered why officials didn't warn students about the potential danger after the first shooting, at least until authorities caught the shooter.

"I'm still in a state of disbelief about this," said Justin Shaw, 20, a business major. "We have a strong sense of pride in this school. We all thought it was a safe place and I think we still do. But why didn't they cancel classes right after the first shooting?" Read more about students' responses here.

Cho, after killing two students at the dorm, crossed the 2,600-acre campus and stormed Norris Hall, where he chained the doors behind him to keep anyone from escaping.

Cho then went from classroom to classroom and shot everyone he could. Derek O'Dell, 20, a biology major from Roanoke, said Cho entered his classroom, opened fire with a handgun, then calmly reloaded and fired another eight or 10 rounds.

Cho, O'Dell said, never said a word. "It just seemed totally random," he said.

Cho was said to be a "loner." He had also written two plays which had raised red flags to the administration long before the shooting had occurred. Read more about Cho's personality and his writings here.

You should also read about Liviu Librescu, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, aged 76, who saved students lives while giving up his own.

Virgina Tech Slideshow by Yahoo! News.

"Schools should be places of safety, sanctuary and learning," President Bush stated in his national address Monday about the shootings. "When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom in every American community." Read all of Pres. Bush's commentary here.

Read Virginia Tech's college newspaper tribute here.
Read a partial list of killed: VA Tech's list; USA Today's list.
Interactive Video, Campus map, and Timeline, by USA Today

MAJOR UNIVERSITY SHOOTINGS

Aug. 1, 1966: Rifle sniper fire from the University of Texas tower in Austin killed 16 people and wounded 31. Gunman Charles J. Whitman, 25, was shot dead. May 4, 1970: Four Kent State students were killed and nine injured by Ohio National Guardsmen who opened fire during an anti-war protest. Dec. 6, 1989: Gunman Marc Lepine, 25, killed 14 female engineering students at the University of Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique Engineering School in Montreal, Quebec. He then turned the hunting rifle on himself. Nov. 1, 1991: Five people were killed and one seriously wounded by University of Iowa graduate student Gang Lu, who then killed himself. Jan. 26, 1995: North Carolina lacrosse player Kevin Reichardt and Chapel Hill resident Ralph Walker were killed in a shooting spree near campus. Law student Wendell Williamson was found not guilty by reason of insanity and is confined to state mental hospitals. Aug. 16, 1996: Three San Diego State University professors were killed when graduate engineering student Frederick Martin Davidson opened fire with a handgun while defending his thesis. Jan. 16, 2002: A dean, professor and student were killed and three wounded by recently dismissed student Peter Odighizuwa, 43, at Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va. Oct. 28, 2002: Failing University of Arizona Nursing College student and Gulf War veteran Robert Flores, 40, walked into an instructor's office and fatally shot her. Minute later, armed with five guns, he entered one of his nursing classrooms and killed two more of his instructors before fatally shooting himself. Sept. 2, 2006: Douglas Pennington, 49, killed himself and his two sons, Logan Pennington, 26, and Benjamin Pennington, 24, during a visit to the campus of Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W. Va. Sources: USA TODAY research; Associated Press