Click to play videoBlacksburg (Virginia): The idyllic calm of Virginia Tech’s picturesque campus was shattered violently on Monday morning when a lone gunman went on a murderous rampage inside an engineering building, killing 30 people and wounding 15 others before taking his own life.
"When I saw policemen taking out their guns and looking for a target to shoot, I knew this isn't another bomb threat,” said a student, Jamal Albarghouti.
The first of two attacks on the campus on Monday began early morning at the co-ed dormitory.
Said another student, Charles Stegar, “At about 7:15 in the morning, a 911 call came to the university police department concerning an event in West Ambler Johnson Hall. There were multiple shooting victims.”
Police say they began sweeping the building where two people were killed in a dormitory room, but the shooter was still at large.
And yet, that news was not made public. Students and others were not made aware of the incident. To them, it was business as usual.
“We believed it was an isolated event and decided not to cancel classes at that time. Then suddenly two hours later, and nearly a half-mile across the campus more gunshots were heard, this time coming from the Norris Hall engineering building. For many, the warning was too late for many in Norris Hall. Students described the scene as mayhem. Just as officers reached second floor the gun shots stopped, the gunman had taken his own life,” says Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.
Witnesses described the Norris Hall gunman as a young Asian man. At 12:22 pm university officials announced that the campus had been secured, but the magnitude of the tragedy was just becoming clear.
“We have a ballpark figure on fatalities. It's at least 20 fatalities,” said Flinchum.
And yet, as the day wore on, the death toll only grew. It was a staggering loss of life and that has left a university community wondering why did it happen.
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