20 dead at Virginia Tech!

[Hicks]

Holy Crap!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/vtech.shooting/index.html

[DeWalt]

This is so sad...

And this is happening right now... I hope they can succesfully take care of this safely and quickly.

[Hicks]

Now up to 25. This is horrible.

[Ldub]

Now 31 dead, including the gunman.

[Jordana]

Yes, this is really sad & crazy.

The thing that I'm looking forward to getting clarity on is the 2 hour time window between the 1st shooting & the 2nd. How did that happen? How were classes still going on, even though they knew there was a gunman loose on campus? And what did he do during those 2 hours? Maybe I'm missing something, but this is so sad - especially since it looks like only 2 were killed in the 1st shooting, and the rest in the 2nd. So many lives could've been potentially prevented...

I'll be interested in reading the news reports when the craziness of today clears up. For now, my heart simply goes out to all of those students, faculty & everyone's families...

[Wendy!]

This is terrible. The university is in for it, I'm with you Jordana, what the hell happened in that 2 hour window of time. The death toll is now at 33. I fear this world more and more.

[stonelake]

It seems pretty reasonable for them to conclude based on the initial shooting that this was an isolated incident- a murder. I'm also hearing that they thought they had the shooter. Also they assumed that students would be safer in class than in transition or just wandering around campus.

Those things in combination with what is apparently a pretty draconian cancellation policy and they don't seem like total idiots.

Their assumptions turned out to have a terrible result, but it's easy to see how they got there.

[Jordana]

Yes, I definitely understand that the university was probably acting on the best information they had at the time when they continued to hold classes. Kind of reminds me in 9/11 when people evacuated the 2nd tower, and then were told to go back to their offices b/c it was thought to be safer up there then down below (where debris was falling)....

Still, it's just totally bizarre - probably especially as we're more used to these random shootings to be 1 or 2 people. 30+ is a very large number and 2-hours is a large timeframe between each shooting. I'm really curious to know what the shooter did during that timeframe. (And it is confirmed that it was only 1 shooter for both incidents - right? I heard various rumors that maybe there were 2 shooters, but the news seems to be saying now that it was the same guy...)

[cyncast]

this is heartbreaking.
truely.

[Juan]

Yeah I was watching the news when i got home from work and heard about this on the news. Totally insane. Poor people it is a sad day for this to happened to them.