Killing spree at VA Tech...

[mustard]

A very small city of 25,000 within a very small area with the gunman still at large? The surrounding public would be notified for their own safety. ...It's been done in my city (which is many times larger than VA tech).

Besides, it is completely inaccurate to compare a university to a city: the two are very different.

How does that translate?

BTK (wiki) - was the most recent serial killer localized in the midwest (Wichita, Kansas) and was not caught until recent - should a lock down of the town/city* ensued after the first, second, third, etc. incident according to yours and the logic of others?

When does a killer become a serial killer is it after 2 hours, 2 years,or 20 years?

It is sad to put it in such terms to say that all killers are not serial killers /mass murders. Logic would state that the original incident was a crime of passion or the such but would no longer pose future loss.

*Pop 2.6mill

 

[mustard]

An example of nothing but rash judgment

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266460,00.html

Parents Demand Firing of Virginia Tech President, Police Chief Over Poor Handling of Mass Shooting

 

[odedia]

I didn't go over the entire thread, but I wanted to note something that might have not been mentioned:

Virginia Tech was the first customer of the Apple G5 PowerMacs. They actually built a super computer from G5 chips. Steve showed a special video of it during the 2004 MacWorld, I think.

It got to be 3rd place in the world's fastest supercomputers, for that time. And it cost them a fraction of what the second place cost.

I think one of the professors in that Apple video might have been one of the victims, but I'm not sure, because it was I saw it a long time ago...

My sympathies to all the families of the victims.

 

[daneoni]

Virginia Tech was the first customer of the Apple G5 PowerMacs. They actually built a super computer from G5 chips. Steve showed a special video of it during the 2004 MacWorld, I think.

It got to be 3rd place in the world's fastest supercomputers, for that time. And it cost them a fraction of what the second place cost.

Yeah....which is why i was so interested in the story when it broke.

 

[0098386]

I normally watch the news whenever I'm eating. But yesterday my sister commandeered the TV so I missed out on all of this. Just read the papers this morning, they're all attacking the police over the snail-like response to the whole situation.

Really sounds like lives would have been saved if they cut the crap and got the message out quickly.
Terrible event really

 

[yellow]

I'm unsure how people can lay so much blame on the campus police. For one thing, Blacksburg is a tough town. There's plenty of unsavory elements there. How were the campus police supposed to know that after a shooting in a dorm on one side of campus, that someone was going to go crazy on the other side of the campus 2 hours later?

 

[Chrismcfall]

News Conference at the moment on the news channels. This really does sadden me.

 

[eightd]

Gun-loving student wrongly accused

He is an Asian-American student at Virginia Tech University, whose personal blogs reveal a recently wounded heart and an eye-opening gun fetish.

But Wayne Chiang - the subject of fevered speculation on the internet - is not the man responsible for this morning's massacre at the southern US university.

Rumours that Chiang, 23, was the mass murderer spread across the world after links to his various blogs were posted on social networking website Facebook and similar sites. Many noted the similarities between Chiang and the person described in accounts of the Virginia Tech tragedy as the shooter.

More than 80,000 people visited Chiang's sites. The sites are decorated with photos of Chiang posing with semi-automatic weapons and Russian rifles. His last post before the killings showed him proudly standing alongside 14 Russian Mosin Nagant M44 weapons.

The sites also suggested a recent break-up, quoting maudlin love songs by Justin Timberlake and Katie Melua and quoting an "American proverb": "There are plenty of fish in the sea". One of the blogs was titled "Those who love at first sight are traitors at every glance".

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I'm unsure how people can lay so much blame on the campus police. For one thing, Blacksburg is a tough town. There's plenty of unsavory elements there. How were the campus police supposed to know that after a shooting in a dorm on one side of campus, that someone was going to go crazy on the other side of the campus 2 hours later?

Simple people are idiots and want to blame someone for this. They refuses to accept the fact that no one is to blame but the shooter and everything that the campus and the police did was by the book as was done correctly.

It not helping that the media only cares about ratings and money and not the truth. If they cared about the truth they would tell them that the school did nothing wrong and the call not to cancel class was at the time and with what they knew was the correct call to make. but as I said the media gave up a long time ago giving a damn about the truth.

 

[BiikeMike]

This whole thing is quite eerie, and hasn't quite hit home yet. Things are really shaken up here even in my Part of Virginia, and I'm 200 miles away from Blacksburg.

Thankfully, all of my friends and people I know from VT are OK, I know this does not make the event any better, but its nice to know that the people I know are out of harms way, at least for now. One of my friends was visiting her parents for the weekend and decided to stay for an extra day. Monday morning, when she got the phone call, it was her dorm that the shooting took place in.

I just can't understand what why someone would do something like this. Nothing in life can be so bad to take the life of 1 person, let alone 32.

 

[LtRammstein]

I want to put in my two cents before this thing takes off like a super-sonic boom.

Where I live, Laramie, WY, my fraternity brothers call me the "Guru of News" since I rarely watch anything else (or read for that matter).

When I heard about this incident, I tried to get as many news sources together to see if they matched, or if one source has more information.

I've concluded that all the facts are pretty reasonable, and that 33 (average value) were killed, and that 15 (again, average value) were injured in some way.


The serial number on both guns (a 9-mm Glock, and a 22-mm, still unknown kind of handgun) were filed off, and that the killer was wear a tan/black vest and in the AP articles, had a backpack for ammo. A receipt for the Glock was found in the backpack. Also, they believe one of the guns, I am GUESSING that it's the Glock, since it doesn't produce as loud of a bang as the 22 hand gun would, was used in the first shooting where the gunman chained the doors from the inside.

Those are all the hard detailed facts that are, in my opinion, indisputable.

Now, there are several questions that remain. A few could be:

1) Was it premeditated? If so, both shootings or one of them?
2) Seeing a fairly basic timeline, was it possible he went off campus to get ammo, the other gun, or to "prepare himself" (in a religious context), to what was coming next?
3) Did he have someone helping him, in a way like the D.C. Sniper Shootings?

The list goes on and on...

I don't want to speculate that much, or at all, but that's what I got.

Anything I get wrong, PLEASE inform me and the thread, because I don't want people taking my theories/thoughts/reporting out of context.

Steve

 

[yellow]

The serial number on both guns (a 9-mm Glock, and a 22-mm, still unknown kind of handgun)

I think you mean .22 caliber, not 22mm.. as that would be a major size difference and a mistake, NewsGuru.

And, a 9mm handgun produces a vastly louder report than a .22 caliber handgun.

As a size comparison of fired rounds:

9mm on the left, .22 caliber on the right.

And from left to right:

.22 cal Long Rifle, .380 auto, .38 special, 9mm, .357 magnum, .40 s&w, .45 ACP, .44 magnum, 7.62x39mm, 8mm

As you can see.. a rather large difference between a .22 and a 9mm.

 

[Keebler]

I think you mean .22 caliber, not 22mm.. as that would be a major size difference and a mistake, NewsGuru.

And, a 9mm handgun produces a vastly louder report than a .22 caliber handgun.

As a size comparison of fired rounds:

9mm on the left, .22 caliber on the right.

And from left to right:

.22 cal Long Rifle, .380 auto, .38 special, 9mm, .357 magnum, .40 s&w, .45 ACP, .44 magnum, 7.62x39mm, 8mm

As you can see.. a rather large difference between a .22 and a 9mm.

i would bet that most of the wounded were hit with the .22 round as opposed to the 9mm. the 9mm would inflict serious damage whereas the .22 would do damage, but not on the same scale (but of course it can be deadly if placed in the right area . the report of a .22 weapons sounds more like a very loud crack whereas the 9mm would have a much louder report.

 

[joepunk]

Here's a little interactive timeline of the events from the NY Times

 

[joepunk]

and a few more

 

[840quadra]

That statement of mine was in no way influenced by the media or anyone else. It was my first thought when I heard the shootings were separated by 2 hours - "Why wasn't the school in lock-down?"

With hearing about this incident I thought the exact same thing. No media, no website, nothing but a few words from a cowoerker stating that there was a shooting in a dorm, and 2 hours later in classes at the school itself.

Now after hearing the media's version, including their recorded eye whiteness accounts, my thoughts have not changed. Why wasn't the campus secured after the first school shooting, ESPECIALLY after 2 weeks of bomb threats prior to this incident ?!?

 

[carbonmotion]

I'm glad the media didn't make this in to a racial thing like they did with the Hmong hunting massacre case in Minnesota. Yes, asians come in the insane flavor like everyone else.

 

[cr2sh]

Why wasn't the campus secured after the first school shooting, ESPECIALLY after 2 weeks of bomb threats prior to this incident ?!?

It seems to me like you're looking back at the events and drawing a line between them that was not obvious initially. A cops responds to find a male and female shot on campus, the reasonable action I think is to isolate the scene. I'd assume that it's a domestic fight, bf/gf, homicide/suicide type thing and start trying to figure it out. I would not jump to the conclusion that there's a lunatic on campus and that he's going to kill as many people as possible. If that were the case, why were only two students in the dorm killed?

If the killer had killed more people initially then it might be a reasonable assumption that others might be in danger.. but from the start the clues don't point that direction. You can't lock down an entire campus because two people were killed in the dorm. Should the responding police officer have called the college admin office and said "we've got a dead guy and girl over here in this dorm, let's close all the buildings down, cancel all classes and send everyone home!" At that point, from the available evidence, that sounds like an over-reaction to me.

If every time someone gets shot on a college campus, the campus goes into lockdown mode, not a lot is going to get done. Yesterday was a tragedy and it shouldn't have happened... but your conclusions are drawn in hindsight.

 

[PlaceofDis]

my short, brief thoughts:

Here.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I want to know what the school police where doing after the first shooting. I think the school made the right call after the first shooting and not shutting down because all signed pointed to a domisteic issue so it was a very safe assumtion to shut down the dorm and keep the campus open.

As for the campus police at the very least they should of made themselves very visible and around campus even more so during class changes.

Here at Texas Tech the campus police are very visible at all times and during a class change it pretty rare for me not to be able to see at least one in the medium traffic area and in the high traffic area I normal see multiple police. They have both offices in cars and ones walking around on foot all day and there seems to be more foot officers at night.
But if questionable goes on at campus their presents is noticeable increased. If the police presents was not increase then the campus police screwed up. Now the local PD for what ever city are off the hook because the local PD do not go on to college campus unless called by the campus police but will respond very quickly if called. But that is standard practiced. The local PD stays out of the college police's jurisdiction and college police are a true police department and have all the power of such.

 

[princealfie]

I'm glad the media didn't make this in to a racial thing like they did with the Hmong hunting massacre case in Minnesota. Yes, asians come in the insane flavor like everyone else.

Ignorance is always a foul thing. Of course, being Asian-American it's sad that some people don't assimilate very well into culture but it feels quite like Camus' Stranger in many ways. Portrait of the existentialist...

 

[CorvusCamenarum]

I'm glad the media didn't make this in to a racial thing like they did with the Hmong hunting massacre case in Minnesota. Yes, asians come in the insane flavor like everyone else.

Don't be so sure.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting the perpetrator had written "Ismail Ax" on himself. (You have to register to get to the second page). Does anyone have an idea as to what this might mean?

 

[Sideonecincy]

Some people have no morals...http://cgi.ebay.com/VIRGINATECHGUNMAN-COM-Virginia-Tech-Shooting-Domain_W0QQitemZ330110474916QQihZ014QQcategoryZ11153QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Transic]

*

 

[TequilaBoobs]

Ignorance is always a foul thing. Of course, being Asian-American it's sad that some people don't assimilate very well into culture but it feels quite like Camus' Stranger in many ways. Portrait of the existentialist...

Cho was depressed with rage, an insalubrious mix that others saw but didnt report. vt will definitely change their RA training and policies because this carnage was preventable. had nothing to do with his race, and i hope south koreans dont get hostility from americans.

and some schools have a cheap software program that allows them to simultaneously send out text messages to cell phones - that could handle 26k students without jamming the phone system. after last august, after the recent bomb threats, you'd think vt would invest in some precautions.

at least now most schools will have this software. just a shame people died when technology permits instant notification to communities.