2008 Woodie Awards
32 killed in shootings on Virginia Tech campus
Bruce Henderson and April Bethea (MCT)
Issue date: 4/18/07 Section: News
The U.S. House of Representatives marked the shootings with a moment of silence. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine cut short a trip to Japan and rushed home for a service Tuesday on the shaken campus.
University officials and police faced persistent questioning from the news media about how they handled the first reports of gunfire and their delay in alerting students and locking down the campus.
Campus police received the first 911 emergency-call from West Ambler Johnston Hall - reporting multiple gunshot victims - about 7:15 a.m., according to Steger. Police were still there investigating more than two hours later when they received reports of the shootings at the Norris Hall classroom building, which houses the engineering school.
Police didn't secure the campus immediately after the first incident because they thought the first shootings were domestic in nature and that the gunman had left the building and might be fleeing the state. They sent their first e-mail warning to students at 9:26 a.m., but it didn't reach many of them until after the second eruption of gunfire.
"We acted on the best information we had at the time," said a grim-faced Wendell Flinchum, the Virginia Tech police chief.
Best known for its engineering school and its football program, Virginia Tech has nearly 26,000 full-time students on a 2,600-acre campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains about 160 miles west of Richmond.
The school is ranked 34th among national public universities by U.S. News & World Report. Its engineering school is ranked 17th and its civil engineering program 11th. The emphasis on engineering is a likely reason that the school is more male-dominated than many campuses; men make up 59 percent of undergraduates.
Steger, the college president, said classes had been canceled through Tuesday. Counseling centers were being opened to help students deal with the shock. A convocation was planned for Tuesday.
"I cannot begin to covey my own personal sense of loss over this senselessness of such an incomprehensible and heinous act," Steger said.
The worst U.S. civilian shooting before Monday happened in 1991, when George Hennard killed 23 people, wounded more than 20, and then killed himself in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas.
The worst previous college shooting was in 1966, when Charles Whitman killed 16 people with a rifle from the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin before police shot and killed him.
The worst lower-school shooting occurred almost exactly eight years ago, when two teenagers killed 13 people, then themselves, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999.
University officials and police faced persistent questioning from the news media about how they handled the first reports of gunfire and their delay in alerting students and locking down the campus.
Campus police received the first 911 emergency-call from West Ambler Johnston Hall - reporting multiple gunshot victims - about 7:15 a.m., according to Steger. Police were still there investigating more than two hours later when they received reports of the shootings at the Norris Hall classroom building, which houses the engineering school.
Police didn't secure the campus immediately after the first incident because they thought the first shootings were domestic in nature and that the gunman had left the building and might be fleeing the state. They sent their first e-mail warning to students at 9:26 a.m., but it didn't reach many of them until after the second eruption of gunfire.
"We acted on the best information we had at the time," said a grim-faced Wendell Flinchum, the Virginia Tech police chief.
Best known for its engineering school and its football program, Virginia Tech has nearly 26,000 full-time students on a 2,600-acre campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains about 160 miles west of Richmond.
The school is ranked 34th among national public universities by U.S. News & World Report. Its engineering school is ranked 17th and its civil engineering program 11th. The emphasis on engineering is a likely reason that the school is more male-dominated than many campuses; men make up 59 percent of undergraduates.
Steger, the college president, said classes had been canceled through Tuesday. Counseling centers were being opened to help students deal with the shock. A convocation was planned for Tuesday.
"I cannot begin to covey my own personal sense of loss over this senselessness of such an incomprehensible and heinous act," Steger said.
The worst U.S. civilian shooting before Monday happened in 1991, when George Hennard killed 23 people, wounded more than 20, and then killed himself in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas.
The worst previous college shooting was in 1966, when Charles Whitman killed 16 people with a rifle from the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin before police shot and killed him.
The worst lower-school shooting occurred almost exactly eight years ago, when two teenagers killed 13 people, then themselves, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999.
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