Va Tech Massacre Shooter Identified
Via Aol.com
A Virginia Tech senior from South Korea was behind the massacre of at least 30 people locked inside a campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university said Tuesday.
Ballistics tests also found that one of the guns used in that attack was also used in a shooting two hours earlier at a dorm that left two people dead, Virginia State Police said.
Police identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior from South Korea who was in the English department at Virginia Tech. Cho, a South Korean native, was in the U.S. as a resident alien with a residence established in Centerville, Va. Cho was living on campus in Harper Residence Hall.
The bloodbath ended with the gunman’s suicide, bringing the death toll from two separate shootings — first at a dorm, then in a classroom building — to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.
Cho had lived legally in the United States with his parents for 14 years, a U.S. immigration official said on Tuesday. He moved to the United States in September 1992 and lived in Centreville, Va., said Chris Bentley, a spokesman with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed its condolences, saying there was no known motive for the shootings and that South Korea hoped the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."
Two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were found on the guns used in the shootings. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.
One law enforcement official said Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol.
Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that link was yet definitive.
“There’s no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we’re exploring the possibility,” he said.
At least 26 people were taken to hospitals after the second attack, some seriously injured. Twelve students remained hospitalized in stable condition on Tuesday, officials said.
State, local and federal investigators spent the night collecting, processing and analyzing evidence from within the classroom building, Norris Hall. The deceased were recovered from at least four classrooms on the second floor and a stairwell of Norris Hall.
The gunman, who took his life, was discovered by police in a classroom among the victims.
All of the deceased have been transported to the Medical Examiner's Office in Roanoke for examination and identification.
The names of the deceased students and faculty will be released once all victims are positively identified and next of kin notified.
President Bush planned to attend a memorial service Tuesday afternoon at the university, the White House said, and Gov. Tim Kaine was flying back to Virginia from Tokyo for the 2 p.m. convocation.
The people of Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech campus of more than 25,000 full time students struggled to find order in the wake of the shooting.
“For all the children in our community who are afraid,” one woman pleaded in a church service held for those seeking solace.
Another added: “For parents near and far who wonder at a time like this, ‘Is my child safe?”’
Investigators gave no motive for the attack.
