Source Material

Much has been made in the past about how the Matrix movies glamorized gunplay and some have even suggested such movies were responsible for giving impressionable young folks the idea to go around shooting up their schools.

It happened in the aftermath of the Columbine massacre. It happened in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre.

However, Mrs. Lawhawk and I have wondered if these kids had watched a movie that actually touched on all aspects of the school massacres - Heathers - a movie that shows loners or outsiders looking to gain some measure of revenge against their classmates.

The bad boy in that movie, James "JD" Dean and played by Christian Slater, was a sociopath who thought nothing of killing overachievers to make them look like suicides to help his girlfriend, Veronica Sawyer (and played by Wynona Ryder) get ahead, and then decided to blow up his high school to make some grand statement.

In the end, he blew himself up as Veronica looked on.

The movie dealt with a revenge fantasy - watching the popular kids get offed and the malcontents and backbenchers get ahead in the process.

VA Tech Shooter Had Plenty of Ammo Left

Seung-Hui Cho appears to have had nearly half his ammunition left when he decided to kill himself rather than be captured by police in Norris Hall:

Police found 203 live rounds in Norris Hall, where Seung-Hui Cho killed 25 students and five faculty members before committing suicide on April 16, State Police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty told a panel investigating the massacre. Cho also shot two other students elsewhere.

"He was well-prepared to continue on," Flaherty said.

Cho fired 174 shots from two handguns on the second floor in a span of nine minutes, taking his own life at 9:51 a.m. as police on the stairwell approached the floor, Flaherty said.

That means he fired off less than half the 377 rounds of ammunition he brought with him in to Norris Hall that fateful morning in April.

It would also seem to suggest that Cho knew that what he was doing was wrong and would not have been taken alive by police.

Graduation Day at Virginia Tech

Today marks an important step for the Virginia Tech community. It's graduation day for thousands of students and is the first since the April 16 massacre of 31 students by Seung Hui Cho.

Today, Scott and thousands of others will graduate, walking across the stage less than four weeks after Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people and injured 29 more before killing himself. In many ways, the graduation promises to be like any other.

The students, under the gaze of family members, will fill Lane Stadium and listen as retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid gives the commencement speech. They will flip tassels, cheer and applaud. They will party afterward.

But like the weeks that preceded it, the day will oscillate between merriment and mourning.

The students who were killed will receive posthumous degrees in their areas of study, each name read out loud.

I wish the graduation class lots of luck and wish them well. This semester has probably been one of the most difficul times of their lives and while many will reflect on the tragic circumstances, they should be proud of their accomplishments.

Developing: Colorado School Lockdown

A high school was locked down Thursday amid unconfirmed reports that two masked men were seen entering the building.

Officers from various law enforcement agencies could be seen outside Boulder High School, and the entrances to the parking lot and the building were blocked off.

Boulder Police spokeswoman Julie Brooks confirmed that the school was locked down and that authorities were on the scene, but she released no further details. She would not confirm a report by KOA Radio that a school staff member had seen masked men entering the building.

Hopefully this was just a misunderstanding and that the staff member was mistaken in what they had seen, but law enforcement is not taking any chances.

UPDATE:
Still no new news on the situation, but I found an article showing that the school had been subject to threats last month in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech murder spree:

Seventy percent of Boulder High School students were absent Thursday, in part because of graffiti found in March in a bathroom saying, "Everybody dies April 19."

Right now, there's no way to know if there's any connection or whether this is simply a wild goose chase.

UPDATE:
Classes were cancelled for the day, but nothing out of the ordinary was found in a sweep of the school's grounds.

Elizabeth Edwards: Race Baiter

John Edwards' wife Elizbeth seems to think that President Bush rushed to the campus of Virginia Tech faster than he did to Louisiana and New Orleans because the people on the college campus were prettier.

Right.

At Virginia Tech, the mass murder was over in a matter of minutes and the horror revealed itself over a span of hours.

The situation in New Orleans was anything but secured within hours. The flooding of New Orleans occurred hours after the hurricane actually made landfall and the full extent wasn't felt for several days as the city was cut off from the outside world for all intents and purposes by the flooding and damage to roads leading in and out of the city plus damage to the airport and rail links. Having the President show up too soon meant taking away resources that were devoted to rescue and relief operations, when it was clearly apparent that there were thousands of people unaccounted for over an area of 90,000 square miles - and hit not just Louisiana, but Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and points inland.

President Bush went to New Orleans on September 15, which was about two weeks following the landfall. The city was still largely without power and local law enforcement was struggling even with infusions of state and federal assistance plus the assistance of law enforcement from around the country.

Edwards complains that President Bush waited too long to go to tour the devastation done by Hurricane Katrina and now they’re complaining he went to Virginia Tech too soon. To these people, President Bush can do nothing right. Ankle biters.

Virginia Tech Massacre Investigation Continues

It has now been confirmed that Cho Seung-Hui did not use extended capacity ammunition magazines. Will the various media outlets that peddled theories on high capacity ammo clips being one of the reasons for the high body count retract their claims and issue corrections? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, there are those who seek to forgive the shooter for his murderous rampage. I just don't get it.

There's an interesting USA Today piece on the way the big media outlets and bloggers handled the news of the crisis and how they disseminated information. The hook used against the bloggers is that they jumped all over a possible suspect, Wayne Chiang, who was a gun enthusiast and met the description of an Asian man behind the shootings. It is certainly true that some bloggers jumped on that possibility, but then again, as I note above, the media also had no trouble jumping to conclusions about high capacity ammo clips being involved, when no such thing occurred. That news item has not been retracted and continues to shade coverage including the possible legislative response to the crisis.

The USA Today piece notes that some news outlets simply rewrote the history by posting over prior incorrect versions with new and more accurate versions without noting the earlier stories and the corrections made.

As with any crisis, there are those who manage the fine line of getting the news out in a timely fashion as accurately as possible, and then there are those who jump to conclusions without having all the evidence in hand.

What I try to do when I post on breaking news stories is to post updates in running order, from oldest to newest at the bottom of the respective postings. You can see the developments as they occur, including references to corrections or adjustments in the prior text.

No Links Between Cho and Victims

Investigators have pored through Cho's computers and phone records and have found no links between him and his 32 victims. This means that it is increasingly likely that no one will ever entirely know why Cho went on one of the worst spree killings on a school campus in US history.

Flaherty said investigators also have been unable to answer one of the investigation’s most vexing questions: Why the spree began at the West Ambler Johnston dorm, and why 18-year-old freshman Emily Hilscher was the first victim.
He said police have searched Hilscher’s e-mails and phone records, but come up empty. Hilscher’s mother said she had not been updated on the investigation Friday night and declined to comment.
“We can’t make a link at this point,” Flaherty said. “We haven’t found anything to link Mr. Cho and Ms. Hilscher.”

So, was Hilscher simply a target of opportunity and in the wrong place at the wrong time? Possibly, though it doesn't make sense why Cho would first kill two people in Johnston Hall and then not only amble back to his dorm room to send off the package to NBC News and then return to campus to renew his murderous rampage in Norris Hall.

And the issue of whether Cho could have been stopped at any point or that campus officials could have done more will be raised in any lawsuits from victims' families, which are apparently inevitable.

UPDATE:
Cho apparently had sufficient ammo to continue his murderous rampage but committed suicide nonetheless before law enforcement could possibly take him alive. Meanwhile, Confederate Yankee points out that there are some folks who want to put Cho on the same level as those he murdered. One such person is a Virginia Tech psychology student who thinks that someone who murdered 32 people in cold blood should be remembered in the same breath as the murderer himself.

A senior Virginia Tech psychology major has identified herself in a letter to the editor in the Collegiate Times as the person who's been placing a stone at the memorial for Seung-Hui Cho.

The writer, Katelynn L. Johnson, wrote in the lengthy letter that she placed the stone at the memorial at 4 a.m. last Thursday morning in the dark to avoid drawing attention.

"I refuse to do what is popular and agree with everyone around me that only 32 people died on Monday. 33 died."She said in the letter that she intends to continue adding a stone whenever it is removed, as was the case earlier this week.

33 people died. However, 32 were murdered and the 1 other person, Cho, was responsible for that slaughter before killing himself. Conflating the numbers doesn't do any justice to those who Cho killed. The important thing to keep in mind is that these people didn't simply die - Cho brutally and methodically murdered them. Johnson just doesn't get it.

Into the Mind of a Killer

What was Cho Seung-Hui Cho thinking in the days and weeks leading up to the massacre at Virginia Tech? That's the big question that investigators are trying to figure out.

Was he taking a page out of the demented playbook of other mass killers like the Columbine school massacre duo?

He was definitely training for something major in the days and weeks before the massacre as he went to a rifle range to train.

Cho honed his deadly skills during at least two visits to an outdoor public firing range in the Jefferson National Forest, a short drive from the university campus, and a separate session in Roanoke, Va., in mid-March.

"When I saw him up here, he was kind of mediocre," said Randy Elmore, 54, of Pembroke, Va., who regularly visits the range.

"He wasn't that great of a gunman."

Once he wore camouflage, Elmore recalled. He would occupy shooting stalls at the edges, in either the first or 10th of the 10 booths. He never brought a target and mostly shot aimlessly at an open range, Elmore said.

Karan Grewal, 21, a Cho suitemate, told The Post the troubled gunman started working out in February - making daily visits to the university gym to pump iron.

"Even when I didn't go, I saw him getting ready to go to the gym," Grewal said.

But the loner never used free weights, since he had no one to "spot" him. "I didn't see him bench-press, ever," Grewal said.

At around the same time his workout regimen began, Cho began stockpiling guns and ammo.

On Feb. 2, he ordered a Walther P22 pistol from a Green Bay, Wis.-based Web site, thegunsource.com, paying $267 with a credit card. The gun arrived six days later at JND Pawnbrokers, across the street from the university. Cho picked up the weapon on Feb. 9.

Around March 12, Cho bought a Glock 9mm from Roanoke Firearms.

Investigators also believe Cho used eBay to buy ammunition for his slaughter.

The eBay account for Blazers5505, which has been linked to Cho, bought two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22 - one of the weapons used in the massacre. The clips were bought from a gun shop in Idaho.

Once again, we see that there is no mention of extended ammo magazines. The question still remains how Cho's mental health status was not entered into the FBI database that would have flagged him as being ineligible to purchase firearms.

More details have also come out about his family life, and the continue to reinforce the impression that he was a loner and very quiet in most aspects of his life.

In Seoul, there was never much money, never enough time. The Cho family occupied a shabby two-room basement apartment, living frugally on the slender proceeds of a used-book shop. According to relatives, the father, Seung-Tae Cho, had worked in oil fields and on construction sites in Saudi Arabia. In an arranged marriage, he wed Kim Hwang-Im, the daughter of a farming family that had fled North Korea during the Korean War.

Their son was well behaved, all right, but his pronounced bashfulness deeply worried his parents. Relatives thought he might be a mute. Or mentally ill. “The kid didn’t say much and didn’t mix with other children,” his uncle said. “ ‘Yes sir’ was about all you could get from him.”

In 1984, relatives who had moved to the United States invited the family to join them. It took eight years to get a visa. In 1992, they arrived in Detroit and then moved on to Centreville, Va., home to a bustling Korean community on the fringe of Washington. They found jobs in the dry-cleaning business and worked the longest of hours. Dry cleaning is a favored profession among Koreans — some 1,800 of the 2,000 dry cleaners in the greater Washington area are run by Koreans — because it means Sundays off for church and sparse need for proficient English, exchanges with customers being brief and redundant.

The goal, of course, was to own one’s own business. But it did not happen for Seung-Tae Cho. He began as a presser — an 8 a.m.-to-10 p.m. job — and that is what he is today. His wife worked in the same capacity until a few years ago, when she accepted a job in a high school cafeteria so the family could have medical insurance.

They lived in a nondescript row house in a modest section of town, friendly but not overly sociable. Jeff Ahn, president of the League of Korean-Americans of Virginia, said the family was uncommonly private among the throbbing Korean-American community of about 200,000 in and around Washington. They shunned the more prominent Korean-language Christian churches, and prayed at a small church outside of town.

High school did not help Seung-Hui Cho surmount his miseries. He went to Westfield High School, one of the largest schools in Fairfax County. He was scrawny and looked younger than his age. He was unresponsive in class, and unwilling to speak.

And that haunted face.

Classmates recall some teasing and bullying over his taciturn nature. The few times he was required to speak for a class assignment, students mocked his poor English and deep-throated voice.

Virginia Tech Massacre: New Questions About Cho's Gun Purchases

Should Cho ever have been able to purchase the guns in the first place? According to the New York Times, the federal background check should have resulted in a denial of the gun purchase.

How then was Cho able to buy the gun when the federal background check found no problems?

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.

The special justice’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.

The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include “determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority” that as a result of mental illness, the person is a “danger to himself or others.”

Mr. Cho’s ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.

As suspected, Virginia provided an incomplete picture of what they knew about Cho and his mental health treatment as required by the court in 2005.

Authorities are also trying to figure out whether anyone else may have known that Cho was about to go on the rampage. They've been looking at computer and cell phone records to see if he spoke with anyone in the runup to the massacre, and have also been looking at the computer files of Emily Hilscher, who was Cho's first victim at Johnston Hall.

Also, Cho's sister issued a statement on behalf of the Cho family and it is in marked contrast to the statements issued by other relatives.

On behalf of our family, we are so deeply sorry for the devastation my brother has caused. No words can express our sadness that 32 innocent people lost their lives this week in such a terrible, senseless tragedy. We are heartbroken.

We grieve alongside the families, the Virginia Tech community, our State of Virginia, and the rest of the nation. And, the world.

Every day since April 16, my father, mother and I pray for students Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Brian Roy Bluhm, Ryan Christopher Clark, Austin Michelle Cloyd, Matthew Gregory Gwaltney, Caitlin Millar Hammaren, Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Emily Jane Hilscher, Jarrett Lee Lane, Matthew Joseph La Porte, Henry J. Lee, Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, Lauren Ashley McCain, Daniel Patrick O'Neil, J. Ortiz-Ortiz, Minal Hiralal Panchal, Daniel Alejandro Perez, Erin Nicole Peterson, Michael Steven Pohle, Jr., Julia Kathleen Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Joseph Samaha, Waleed Mohamed Shaalan, Leslie Geraldine Sherman, Maxine Shelly Turner, Nicole White, Instructor Christopher James Bishop, and Professors Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Kevin P. Granata, Liviu Librescu and G.V. Loganathan.

We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced.

Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act.

We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person.

We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.

He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.

The family is under police protection.

Virginia Tech Massacre: Burying the Dead Amid Questions

The families of those murdered by Cho Seung-Hui are in the process of burying the dead. Professor Liviu Librescu was buried earlier today in his adopted homeland of Israel. He gave his life to give his students extra time to escape a classroom in Norris Hall through the windows.

Engineering Professor Liviu Librescu's body was wrapped in a prayer shawl according to Jewish tradition, and his two sons intoned the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead.

A representative of the Romanian government posthumously awarded the Romanian-born Librescu the country's highest medal for his scientific accomplishments and heroism. Romanian officials laid a wreath at the grave.

"I walked through the streets today with my head held high because I have such a father," his elder son, Joe, said.

Librescu, a 76-year-old aeronautics engineer and lecturer at the school for 20 years, died trying to barricade the door of his Virginia Tech classroom to keep the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, away from his students.

"It's so painful for me to think of your last moments, in which you suffered. I'll never know what went through your mind, but I hope very much that wherever you are, you will watch over your family," Librescu's weeping wife, Marlena, said.

Librescu's family said his last moments were recounted in numerous e-mails from students after the attack.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu told The Associated Press after the massacre. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

As the students jumped, Librescu was shot dead, one of the 32 victims in the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

A child in Nazi-allied Romania during World War II, Librescu was deported along with his family to a labor camp in Transnistria and then to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani, his son said. According to a report compiled by the Romanian government in 2004, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were killed by the Romanian regime during the war.

My earlier comments on Professor Librescu are here.

Virginia's Governor has called for a moment of silence to honor and memorialize the dead.

I've seen several reports today claiming that Cho suffered from autism, but his problems appeared to go much deeper than that.

VIRGINIA Tech gunman Cho Seung-hui was diagnosed with autism after the family emigrated to the United States, a relative in South Korea said.
"From the beginning, he wouldn't answer me," Kim Yang-soon, Cho's great aunt, said in an interview yesterday with Associated Press Television News. He "didn't talk. Normally sons and mothers talk. There was none of that for them. He was very cold."

"When they went to the United States, they told them it was autism," said Kim, 85, adding that the family had constant worries about Cho.

The uncle gave a similar account, but said there were no early indications that the South Korean student who killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech University in the US had serious problems. The uncle asked to be identified only by his last name, Kim.

Cho "didn't talk much when he was young. He was very quiet, but he didn't display any peculiarities to suggest he may have problems," Kim said by telephone.

Autism support groups are speaking out over the possibility that Cho suffered from autism. Even more bizarre is the reaction from some of Cho's relatives.

This was a deeply disturbed guy and his mental illness didn't make things any easier - especially as far as treatment was concerned. Yet, he was sufficiently capable of being admitted to a prestigeous university like Virginia Tech. If he was indeed autistic, it could have been a mild form such as Aspergers. Without having access to the medical records of those who treated him, it's impossible to say what was going on. Consider the symptoms of Aspergers:

• Narrow interests or preoccupation with a subject to the exclusion of other activities
• Repetitive behaviors or rituals
• Peculiarities in speech and language
• Extensive logical/technical patterns of thought
• Socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior and interpersonal interaction
• Problems with nonverbal communication
• Clumsy and uncoordinated motor movements

Does this mean that autism or Aspergers played a role? That's for the clinicians and forensic pathologists and forensic psychologists to figure out. I doubt we'll ever know precisely what was going on in Cho's head before he went on his rampage.

The Washington Post attempts to clarify the timeline of events.

Virginia Tech classes are set to resume Monday. It will be a good long time before people on the campus are able to get back to something approaching normalcy.

WDBJ7 has profiles of all the victims.

Meanwhile, did Cho actually use high capacity clips? Confederate Yankee has been sparring with ABC News over that point, and while some news reports claim that Cho only used the standard magazines available to the two handguns, one report claims that a high capacity magazine was also recovered. ABC News went with the notion that high capacity clips were involved even before the dust had settled and before evidence was even gathered from the crime scene. Now, we have conflicting reports on the matter. It remains to be seen whether the high capacity clips were involved. Either way this resolves, the reporting of this aspect has been quite poor.

Meanwhile, the NRA is attempting to get out in front of this issue by calling for stricter restrictions on the sale of firearms to those with mental disorders. It also appears that the state of Virginia may have been lax in providing mental health information to the database relied upon by firearms sellers to approve the sales. Newsweek claims that Cho should have failed the background check as a result.

UPDATE:
Howard Kurtz notes the following about the blowback against the media by the public:

In all the years I've been chronicling the media, I have rarely seen the tidal wave of resentment that has washed over television organizations that showed the now-infamous Cho video. In the minds of many Americans, this was a horribly offensive act, and no amount of explanation about the obligations of journalism is going to change that view.

There's a lot of reason that the public has had enough with the media's mendacity and claims of journalistic integrity that ring hollow with every new scandal that shows that the emperor has no clothes.

It turns out that the package sent to NBC news added little to law enforcement's understanding of Cho's intentions and that all it did was increase the likelyhood of copycats. Indeed, there was a spate of copycat threats called in all across the country. Schools in several parts of the country closed today as a result of the threats, which happen to coincide with the anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

NBC News, which fired Imus for saying reprehensible statements on air, made the decision to release and highly publicize inflammatory and reprehensible imagery created by Cho in the leadup to his going on a rampage on the Virginia Tech campus. Is NBC News going to hold itself accountable for the emotional damage done to the families of those who lost loved ones? If Imus was forced out of his well paying job, why not those who decided to make the Cho multimedia package available and the highest profile items on the NBC websites and broadcasts?

Is this not a double standard? All claims to newsworthiness aside, the emotional harm done to the victims is just as real. Where are the apologies? Where are the mea culpas from NBC News?

UPDATE:
Here's another report from the graveside of Professor Librescu that is especially poignant:

He was honored not only by Israel and the U.S., but his native land as well. At the funeral, a representative of Romanian President Traian Basescu presented his family with the Order of the Star of Romania both for his bravery and his contributions to science.

Over the course of the week, Librescu’s son Joe spoke of the two homes he loved in Israel and in Virginia. “He saw himself as something of an ambassador for Israel in a place where there were very few Israelis, and in his field of study.”

Librescu loved his university, his research and his students, and his father’s decision to give his life to protect his students, “he behaved exactly as I would expect him to,” Joe said, and was proud that, as far as he knew, none of the students in his father’s class were killed.

His son Joe said that remarkably, though he hadn’t seen his father in six months, or spoken to his father for several weeks before the tragedy, he had been able to reach him just a day before his father had been looking forward to a family reunion planned in Romania in June. Sadly, that reunion turned out to be in Israel, around Librescu’s grave, surrounded by the international press.

Virginia Tech Massacre: Media Overload?

Yesterday we learned that Cho sent a multimedia package to NBC News with the intent to have the world view him and his rambling and raving statements.

NBC News chose to air portions of the videos and posted the images that were included in the package, along with portions of the manifesto.

People have both criticized NBC News for publishing those details and some have even demanded that all the information be released without any editorial input.

Among those who are criticizing NBC and its decision to publish the items are a number of families, who cancelled their appearances on NBC to protest the decision.

There are folks, like Jane Hamsher who noted that the media and law enforcement took steps to prevent the Columbine killers from having their writings and other items released to the public. Why was that sensible step not taken?

It's a very good question and there is no right answer. The media outlets have determined that this stuff is newsworthy, so they pump it out there every 30 seconds. The news broadcasts were virtually unwatchable because it was wall to wall coverage of Cho's visage and rambling statements. Still, I do understand that there is some newsworthiness of these items and that people have a morbid fascination as to the inner workings of someone who went out and slaughtered so many people.

And in the course of releasing the images, it would appear that folks have managed to link some of the images to a movie that he may have watched.

Detectives say Cho Seung-Hui repeatedly watched the South Korean movie Oldboy in the days leading up to the massacre in which 32 people were killed.

The film's themes of obsession and revenge also occur in Cho's own writings.

In a chilling video sent by the student to the American TV network NBC he appears to re-enact scenes from the movie in a series of photographs.

In one he holds a gun to his own head and in another wields a hammer, images that appear in the film.

The video also confirms that Cho had been planning the killings for some time.

As a counterpoint to the production of these images, we've repeatedly been told that many of the more disturbing images from the 9/11 attacks would not be aired out of sensitivity to the victims and survivors to the attacks because of the severe emotional content of watching such images. How exactly is this situation any different? People were emotionally wrecked hearing about the loss of their loved ones and/or watching their loved ones being carried out of the VA Tech buildings. They're again devastated watching the news pimp Cho's videos and images. Where is the decency or at least restraint in what should be produced.

I know this puts me in the uncomfortable position of hoping that the media doing the right thing by the families and victims and that their judgment would be one of compassion and restraint, but one has to believe that people will ultimately do the right thing. Problem is, that too many in the media have not done the right thing - here included.

Brian Williams tellingly recognizes that NBC News is in a no-win situation.

In an interview last night on MSNBC, Mr. Williams said NBC had been concerned about the sensitivities of broadcasting as much of the material as it did.

“This was a sick business tonight, going on the air with this,” he said.

It could have been a slightly less sick business by withholding the bulk of the photos and multimedia packages.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin notes the issues raised by the temporary detention order and how that the law as it is currently written does not prevent someone from purchasing a firearm. The law as it is currently written required an involuntary hospitalization, which was not the case here. It appears that the law may have to be reviewed and amended to deal with situations where an individual may not be allowed to purchase a firearm if they have been deemed to be an imminent threat to themselves or others. This is an issue raised by Mark Levin and Hot Air as well.

Still, there is the nagging question over whether someone would self report that they were indeed involuntarily hospitalized for mental health issues. Also, if the law is changed to adjust for the mental health treatment, what information can or should be included in the databases utilized to conduct the background checks? I tend to lean towards including a search of mental health and other medical facilities for ailments that might affect a person's judgment and health situation that might make them unsuitable to purchase a gun.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has a very lengthy posting on the situation, and notes a report stating that because the judge referred Cho to an outpatient treatment for his mental health situation instead of being committed, he was kept out of the system that would have quite possibly kept Cho from being able to purchase the weapons. A detailed look at mental health laws and confinement follows.

Here's a detailed accounting of what Cho did once he entered Norris Hall and turned it into his own personal killing field.

Also, here's a very touching look at the victims of the massacre.

UPDATE:
Frankly, it seems that Cho was throwing everything and the kitchen sink into his rants and manifestos. You can draw almost any conclusion you want about the motive depending on the page.

What I see is disjointed thinking and someone who felt compelled to kill for the sake of killing - perhaps because he felt persecuted.

There's 9/11 references, biblical references, the timing of the attacks nearly coincides with the Branch Dividian incident, Columbine massacre, and OKC. Now add the neo-Nazi stuff, and you've got just about every major theme considered.

I'm waiting for someone to blame this on Quentin Tarantino. After all, his movies include mass violence, draw on Asian chop-socky films, and even Kill Bill had a supposed reference to the Crazy 88s - which the characters say were so named because it sounded cool.

UPDATE:
Was the source of the Ismail/Ishmail scrawled on Cho's arm not the James Fenimore Cooper Book The Prairie, but another book named Ishmail by Daniel Quinn? AJ Strata thinks there might be something to that angle. There's also a website named Ismail.com that references the book and appears to be managed by Quinn.

UPDATE:
Law enforcement says that there was nothing new to be added to their knowledge of Cho and his motives in the package received (and released) by NBC. Go figure.

IRS: Six-Month Extension To File For Those Affected At Virginia Tech

The Internal Revenue Service today granted a six-month tax filing and payment extension to those affected by the shootings Monday at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va. This relief applies to the victims, their families, emergency responders and university students and employees.

“Taxes are the last thing the Virginia Tech family should be worried about at this time,” IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said. “Our hearts go out to the people affected by this tragic event.”

The relief announced today allows taxpayers affected by the events at Virginia Tech to have until Oct. 15, 2007, to file and make payments associated with their 2006 individual tax returns due April 17. No filing and payment penalties will be due for those who qualify for this extension as long as the returns are filed and payments are made by Oct. 15, 2007.

In order to claim this relief, taxpayers need to call the IRS at 1-866-562-5227 and identify themselves to the IRS before they file and or make payment.

Please note that taxpayers with questions not related to the Virginia Tech situation should visit IRS.gov or contact the regular IRS toll-free number at 1-800-829-1040.

It's nice to see the IRS take this step. However, I can't help but notice that they only provided a 48-hour reprieve for those affected by the Nor'easter, where you might have hundreds or thousands of people who were flooded out of their homes and/or lost their paperwork in flooding. I expect that the IRS will issue yet more extensions to handle the Nor'easter situation, but they should have done a better job from the outset - just as they properly handled the Virginia Tech situation

Victims Remembered and Questions Swirl Around Response

Condolences continue to pour into Blacksburg from all corners of the country and President Bush attended a special service on the campus to remember and memorialize those who died.

So, we learn that other students began to realize that Cho was a ticking time bomb and that even some professors thought something wasn't quite right and referred Cho to counseling because of several creative writing pieces that included extremely disturbing themes.

He was a chubby-cheeked campus creep who stalked at least three pretty co-eds - terrifying one enough that her parents called the cops on him - before he wound up unleashing Virginia Tech's bloodbath.

"I stopped telling friends to come to my room, especially girls," the shaken roommate of mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui, identified only as John, revealed in a chilling interview yesterday.

One night earlier this year, the twisted Cho "closed the door [of their room] and turned to me and said, 'Hey, you want to know why I went up to that girl's dorm room the other night?' " John said.

The brother of a roommate of Cho said that Cho was an extremely quiet person who didn't say much of anything to him in the eight months they lived together. There were several times when his brother commented that Cho's quiet demeanor creeped him out and that Cho wouldn't even return simple greetings like "hello" when they would pass in the halls. He was a loner and spent quite a bit of time on the Internet.

The New York Times is reporting that the two hour delay was due to chasing down a lead that turned out to be false.

And new information emerged that may help explain a fateful two-hour delay by university officials in warning the campus of a gunman at large. According to search warrants and statements from the police, campus investigators had been busy pursuing what appears to have been a fruitless lead in the first of two shooting episodes Monday.

After two people, Emily Jane Hilscher, a freshman, and Ryan Clark, the resident adviser whose room was nearby in the dormitory, were shot dead, the campus police began searching for Karl D. Thornhill, who was described in Internet memorials as Ms. Hilscher’s boyfriend.

According to a search warrant filed by the police, Ms. Hilscher’s roommate had told the police that Mr. Thornhill, a student at nearby Radford University, had guns at his town house. The roommate told the police that she had recently been at a shooting range with Mr. Thornhill, the affidavit said, leading the police to believe he may have been the gunman.

But as they were questioning Mr. Thornhill, reports of widespread shooting at Norris Hall came in, making it clear that they had not contained the threat on campus. Mr. Thornhill was not arrested, although he continues to be an important witness in the case, the police said.

Of course, folks are getting into the overheated debate over gun control and whether the concealed carry restrictions played a role in this horrible criminal act. Some would like to see the Second Amendment repealed. Good luck with that. No way in hell that would happen. Besides, criminals by their very definition, are going to violate whatever laws are on the books to obtain the weapons. Law abiding citizens are the ones would be most harmed by such restrictions.

Some folks who are commenting on the weapons used have no clue about what weapons were involved, let alone the gun laws that are applicable in the case. Keith Olbermann for example. He decides to blame President Bush and the GOP for letting a certain law expire that would have prohibited the sale of high capacity ammunition clips. Big problem Keith - the weapons actually used in the massacre could not even use the expanded ammunition clips. Confederate Yankee slices and dices Olbermann's feeble argument and takes ABC News to task for peddling that bogus argument about expanded ammunition clips despite no evidence they were even part of the criminal acts at Virginia Tech.

There's a separate question of whether the screening process to purchase handguns was sufficient, and that is an issue that should be examined. I wonder just how much screening would actually be sufficient to avoid selling a weapon to someone who is mentally unstable. Are you going to prevent sales to people who are taking certain medications - such as those used in treating mental illness, sleep disorders, or even acne.

Meanwhile, the training and tactics of the police responding to the developing situation at Virginia Tech is being scrutinized from all corners.

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee posts another lengthy rejoinder to the misstatements about the state of firearms laws over the past decade and its application to the extended ammo clips.

UPDATE:
The more we learn about Cho, the more people are realizing just how much of a ticking time bomb this guy was. He appears to have had serious issues and worried the heck out of a lot of people.

Flopping Aces note that the police appeared to have acted reasonably based on the information that was developing from the initial crime scene - Johnston Hall where the first two people were found shot to death. The police were going on evidence that pointed to a lovers' quarrel and that a complete shutdown of the campus wasn't warranted.

We also learn that Cho was taken to a mental health facility in December 2005. Apparently they were quite concerned about his condition. It's quite difficult to deal with someone suffering from mental illness, let alone someone who may not be willing to be treated or recognize that something is wrong.

And Hot Air points to a mental health expert who believes that Cho wasn't simply suffering from depression, but schizophrenia.

How he related to his roommate was just too bizarre to be depression. The bizarre content of his plays — mashing a half-eaten “banana bar” in someone’s mouth, the hypersexual, nihilistic (death obsessed) obsessions in the absence of depressive guilt or tearfulness are another clue. The progressive decline of a period of years. Those with schizophrenia, especially in their earliest years, are not readily recognizable as such — their condition is evolving. But here was someone who, as early as 2005, was carrying himself so strangely that he was a spectacle. The depressed withdraw and disappear. Those who are so peculiar in their manner so as to be inappropriate (taking cell phone pictures of his teacher, speaking inaudibly, pulling a cap low over his eyes) exhibit signs and symptoms more indicative of schizophrenia. He was communicating in a rambling manner reflective of what we appreciate as autistic thinking — characteristic of schizophrenia. In a similar vein, Mr. Cho’s stilted communication in his homicide note (deceitful charlatans — not the language of a 23-year-old college kid) is also the manner of a schizophrenic’s communications, as is his pronounced delay in responding to questions.

I'd actually be interested to read what the mental health experts who actually treated Cho in 2005 had to say on the matter - since they actually interacted, or attempted to interact, with Cho.

Ace makes an interesting observation about why people don't come forward when they see someone acting strangely. It's part of our cultural experience. Two of the women who were harassed by Cho declined to press charges. Maybe people don't want the hassle. Maybe people second guess themselves. And more to the point is whether people should report people who simply act weird.

I have no idea if it's a good idea, on balance, to start reporting the chronically strange to the authorities. I'm not sure what the cops could do, precisely, if they do in fact determine someone is deeply weird -- which is itself not an accepted diagnosis in the DSM IV. And cops can't "keep an eye" on certified weirdos forever.

But maybe it is about time people stopped being so damn nice and nonjudgmental and acted a little bit nosier and a little bit more the tattletale. Previously we've seen assassins and mass-murderers described so, so many times as "quiet" but "no one I'd ever imagine was capable of doing something like this." It's been speculated that that last bit was bullshit all along -- that people did suspect they were capable of doing something precisely like that -- and, perhaps because that cliche has been so well parodied, people are now much more willing to admit, "Yeah, I figured he was nuts, and maybe a pedophile, and maybe likely to shoot up the joint one day."

We'd probably have the police chasing after half the population that may act weird from time to time. There is no way to separate out the genuine weird and potentially dangerous from the transitory weird and nonthreatening types.

Besides, as it was pointed out elsewhere yesterday, you could find similar disturbing screenplays and themes written by Hollywood types and that wouldn't make anyone blink an eye, but Cho's writing in the university setting did raise eyebrows.

UPDATE:
Here come the copycats, including an incident at a New Jersey high school. Friday also marks the anniversary of the Columbine massacre, so there may be yet more threats called in forcing the shutdown of schools and facilities around the country. And for one student it cuts real close. Regina Rohde was at both Columbine and Virginia Tech when gunmen went on their shooting sprees.

UPDATE:
The updated list of victims can be found here. The VT College Paper is also covering various aspects of the crisis and its aftermath, including interviews with people in the English Department who interacted with Cho, along with a suspicious incident that was called in this morning and turned out to be a bogus threat.

UPDATE:
This is definitely going to be the lede on tonight's news broadcasts. What makes this stuff newsworthy? Is anyone in the media balancing the need to know versus the way this information may affect the families who lost loved ones or might spur copycats. Cho sent a package to NBC News - with the intent to become infamous in his last murderous acts. Well, he's succeeded in the murderous intent and his name and visage is definitely known to many.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has more details and analysis. How was Cho able to take the video in the window of time between the shootings, and where exactly was it shot? It would also appear that he used hollow point bullets, which would be particularly lethal ammo.

Others blogging: Sister Toldjah, Dan Riehl, and follow the links at memeorandum.

A Hero Remembered

Yesterday marked two extremely sad occasions. One was Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel (Yom HaShoah) and the other was the massacre of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech. There was a common thread between the two.

Out of the pain and suffering come tales of heroism and hope.

One of the heroes from the scene at Virginia Tech had a connection to the Holocaust. He was a Holocaust survivor who gave his life so that others could live.

Liviu Librescu put his body between the gunman shooting up Norris Hall classrooms and his students. He used his body to keep the door closed and gave his students time to escape through the window before being shot to death by Cho.

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.

Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

His final act was one of supreme sacrifice. He was a hero.

Others noting Librescu's heroism: Hot Air, The Jawa Report, Israellycool, and Law School Conservative.

It was also an act of hope.

Words cannot describe the kind of heroism involved, but Librescu wasn't alone. Andrea Peyser notes another hero from the scene of such carnage.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey points to another hero - a student named Derek O'Dell who blocked a door with his body to keep Cho from entering another classroom.

Virginia Tech Massacre: Where Things Stand

Once again, I want to extend my condolences to the families and friends of those affected by yesterday's murderous rampage on the campus of Virginia Tech.

Reading the news reports this morning doesn't exactly shed any new light on the incident. The basic questions - who, what, when, where, why, and how are still unknown for the most part. We only have a vague description of one person who was involved in the shooting and officials are leaving the door open to the possibility of another gunman or co-conspirator involved. An Asian man was identified as a gunman in one of the two shooting locations. He was apparently a student at the university.

Results from forensics and ballistic tests are being run to determine whether the two shootings are related and if the same weapons were used in both.

MSNBC, among others, conflate the total number dead - those murdered and one gunman - to bring the total death toll to 33.

“We learned that the shooter in the second instance in Norris Hall is an Asian male who is a resident of one of our dormitories on campus,” university president Charles Steger said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show, confirming that the killer was a student. His name was not released.

“We’ll be getting the ballistics report this morning to see whether or not the gun in the first shooting is the same weapon ... used in the second.”

Injured victims in stable condition
At least 15 people were injured during the shooting, some seriously. Victims were reported early Tuesday to be in stable condition at two area hospitals.

Local authorities have scheduled a media briefing for 9 a.m. Tuesday.

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush will attend Tuesday’s convocation at Virginia Tech to remember those affected by the deadliest campus violence ever in this country.

The names of all the victims have not yet been released by law enforcement, but that doesn't mean that people don't know who some of the victims are. Virginia Tech students have been using online community sites to share information and find out what is going on. Some of those murdered have been identified:

Liviu Librescu,76, engineering science and mathematics lecturer, according to Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

-- Kevin Granata, age unknown, engineering science and mechanics professor, according to Puri.

-- Ryan Clark, 22, of Martinez, Ga., biology and English major, according to Columbia County Coroner Vernon Collins.

-- G.V. Loganathan, 51, civil and environmental engineering professor, according to his brother G.V. Palanivel.

No one knows any other details about the shooter, other than the reports that the individual had two handguns. No word on extended ammo clips. No word on how, where, or if the guns or ammo were purchased. Debate began almost immediately over concealed weapons bans and gun control. Campus security was also questioned, especially considering the timeframe and location of the two shootings.

Speculation on such topics appears to be the name of the game at many of the media outlets and on some blogs. My coverage yesterday pointed out some of the stories.

Politicians are jumping into the fray as well, though some are cancelling appearances out of respect for the families and victims. Sen. John McCain for one issued a statement on the Second Amendment and his support for lawful gun ownership. That's just what we need is for bloviation by politicians before all the facts are even known. One gets the sense that McCain just loves to hear his voice. I don't. I think he needs to really back off here. It's unseemly.

Indeed, this is a time for prayer, remembrance, and support of the university community.

UPDATE:
Via Michelle Malkin, here's a clearinghouse of information for Virginia Tech students, faculty, family and friends who are trying to get information about loved ones. Also, an Israeli lecturer was among those murdered. Dan Riehl has more.

UPDATE:
A more complete list of those killed in the attacks is here. The New York Times is now reporting that the same gun was used in both the Norris Hall shooting and the Johnston dorm.

The name of the shooter has also been released:

Ballistics tests confirm one handgun was used in both shootings. Name of shooter is confirmed as Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea. A 9 milimeter handgun and a .22 caliber handgun were recovered at Norris Hall.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has more on Cho's background:

Seung Hui Cho, a permanent resident of the United States, a Korean national and a Virginia Tech student has been identified as the gunman in the shootings that left 33 people dead on the Virginia Tech campus Monday, ABC News has learned.

The student left a “disturbing note” before killing two people in a dorm room, returning to his own room to re-arm and entering a classroom building on the other side of campus to continue his rampage, sources said.

Cho’s identitiy has been confirmed with a positive fingerprint match on the guns used in the rampage and with immigration materials. It is believed that he was the shooter in both incidents yesterday. Sources say Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol, sources said. Witnesses had also told authorities that the shooter was carrying a backpack. Sections of chain similar to those used to lock the main doors at Norris Hall, the site of the second shooting that left 31 dead, were found inside a Virginia Tech dormitory, sources confirmed to ABC News.

It is interesting that there was a series of photos taken of an Asian man being detained somewhere on the campus as the incident was progressing.

Also, Hot Air notes that one of the professors murdered, Prof. Liviu Librescu had been trying to keep the door shut was a Holocaust survivor and gave his students time to escape through the window before being shot.

UPDATE:
Reports now indicate that Cho may have been behind the bomb threats called into the campus two weeks ago.

A bomb threat directed at Virginia Tech engineering school department buildings was found Monday at the scene of the mass shooting at Norris Hall, an engineering building, according to a search warrant affidavit filed this morning in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

The affadavit said the suspect in the shootings, who has been named as 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, was believed to have multiple firearms, including but not limited to Walther P22 and Glock 9mm handguns. The affadavit goes on to say that an investigation has revealed the suspect recently purchased a handgun at a Roanoke firearms store.

"It is further reasonable to believe suspect is the author of the bomb threat note," reads the affadavit written by a Virginia State Police special agent.

The warrant was taken out to search a dorm room at 2121 Harper Hall for tools, documents, computer hardware, weapons, ammunition, explosives, instructional manuals for criminal acts of mass destruction, writing utensils and/or paper similar to that used to communicate threats to Tech's campus in the recent past.

The contents of another note, left by Cho, has not been released.

UPDATE:
Details relating to the note :

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationhave been releasedThe note included a rambling list of grievances, according to sources. Cho had shown recent signs of violent, aberrant behavior, according to an investigative source, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women.

A note believed to have been written by Cho was found in his dorm room that railed against “rich kids,” “debauchery” and “deceitful charlatans” on campus.

The English major from Centreville, Va., a rapidly growing suburb of Washington, D.C., came to the United States in 1992, an investigative source said. He was a legal permanent resident.

His family runs a dry cleaning business and he has a sister who graduated from Princeton University, according to the source.

The legal permanent resident would appear to be the reason that no red flags were raised when Cho went to purchase the two guns used in this horrific attack.

UPDATE:
Fox News is reporting that at least one family is calling for the Virginia Tech President and police chief fired. Expect to hear more reports such as this, but I'd caution against making these kinds of conclusions before all the information is available.

UPDATE:
Fox News is reporting:

According to the Chicago Tribune, the note railed against "rich kids" and "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

The Tribune also said Cho had been behaving strangely lately, setting a dorm room on fire and allegedly stalking women.

Sources told the Tribune that the words "ISMAIL AX" were also found written in red ink on the inside of one of Cho's arms.

The reference may be to the Biblical sacrifice of Abraham, in which God commands the patriarch to sacrifice his own son. Abraham begins to comply, but God intervenes at the last moment to save the boy.

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the son is Isaac, father of the Jewish people; in Islam, it is his older half-brother, Ismail (Ishmael in Hebrew).

Beats me what to make of that, though it is quite possible for people to conclude that Cho may have been a Muslim based on the scrawled name and biblical references. It is quite curious.

UPDATE:
Apparently Cho's writings were so disturbing that he was referred to the university's counseling service.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled."

"There was some concern about him," Rude said. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.

The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that he left a note in his dorm room that included a rambling list of grievances. Citing identified sources, the Tribune said he had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women.

Developing: Virginia Tech Shooting Incident; 32 Killed

Keep scrolling for updates and to see how the situation developed as news reports came out.

One person has been killed and one wounded in a shooting at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, a state government official tells The Associated Press.

This is a developing story and will update as information becomes available.

UPDATE:
Classes have been canceled today at Virginia Tech and the hunt continues for the gunman.

A gunman was "loose on the campus" the state university said on its Web site. The advisory said a shooting had occurred at a residence hall and that students should stay in their homes away from windows.

"There's just a lot of commotion. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on," said student Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the building where shooting took place.

The shooting was reported at West Ambler Johnston Hall.

UPDATE:
The latest reports indicate that there might have been multiple shootings and seven to eight casualties. More here.

UPDATE:
17 injured in the shooting incident. No word on whether the assailant(s) have been taken into custody or not. From the report, it would appear that there were at least two assailants as the shootings began at opposite ends of the campus.

UPDATE:
Multiple fatalities are being reported, and there is some confusion as to whether the same assailant may have managed to get free of the lockdown to resume the shooting rampage. In fact, there's an unconfirmed report that 20 people were killed in the attack at the Blacksburg campus. I hope that someone got those numbers wrong and confused casualties with fatalities - as there were reports of 17 injured in the shooting spree.

UPDATE:
WDBJ in Roanoke, VA is reporting that VA Tech officials have confirmed 20 people were killed and that an assailant was taken into custody. So far, that appears to be the source of the story.

UPDATE:
Make that 22. My thoughts and prayers goes out to the VA Tech community. The VA Tech website is getting hammered by people trying to get information. For more information, see here.

UPDATE:
The number of people murdered appears to be at least 20, with at least 20 others wounded. The assailant was apparently killed according to the Fox News reports.

UPDATE:
The death toll from this incident continues to climb. Police report that there was a single assailant who was killed by police, though that may not be clear either. There is sketchy information as to the assailant's identity or appearance, though some suggest he may have been Asian and wearing a vest that had multiple clips of ammunition.

Since the reports indicate that there was a single assailant and police are conducting a search for a second assailant as a matter of routine, one has to wonder how if there was a single gunman that he managed to get across campus to continue his murderous rampage despite a lockdown and police swarming the campus.

Hot Air has more, including a photo of students being carried out of one of the campus buildings by police.

UPDATE:
ABC News is reporting that at least 28 people were murdered, plus the shooter. Why is ABC News conflating the death toll of those murdered with the shooter? One caused all the death and misery and the others were nothing more than innocent victims. There was also several bomb threats called in last week. No word on whether these are related incidents. However, the fact that the shootings appear to have occurred in two distinct locations across the campus has not been adequately explained:

Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said that one person was killed in the first shooting, which occurred just after 7 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a large dormitory. Flinchum said that at least 20 more people were killed at Norris Hall, an academic building.

The gunman, whose identity has not been released, is among the dead. Flinchum wouldn't say whether the shooter had killed himself.

ABC News has confirmed that there were two separate bomb threats last week at Virginia Tech that targeted engineering buildings. The first was directed at Torgersen Hall, while the second was directed at multiple engineering buildings. Students and staff were evacuated, and the university had offered a $5,000 reward for information into the threats.

UPDATE:
Virginia Senator Jim Webb has released a statement on the massacre at Virginia Tech. President Bush was shocked and horrified by the attack.

There are additional reports suggesting that the death toll is as high as 32.

UPDATE:
The VA Tech shootings is now the deadliest mass shooting at a school in the nation's history. 31 people are confirmed murdered.

MSNBC has this curious report, which headlines the higher death toll, but the actual story carries a lower death toll while providing some details on the suspected killer:

Authorities said the gunman was dead after he shot nearly 50 people at two locations on campus. Twenty-one were confirmed dead, NBC News reported. At least 28 others were injured, at least four of whom were in critical condition, NBC affiliate WSLS-TV in nearby Roanoke reported, quoting local hospital officials.

The name of the gunman, whom witnesses described as a young Asian man wearing a maroon cap and a black leather jacket, was not released. It was not immediately clear whether he shot himself or was killed by police.

The man did not appear to be shooting at random, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported, quoting federal law enforcement officials. He appeared to have specifically targeted the two locations, a co-ed dormitory and a classroom in an engineering building.

Officials told Williams that they were investigating reports that the gunman may have chained the doors of the classroom closed so his victims could not escape.

Given the updates of various news stories, the numbers will continue to fluctuate for some time.

Thinking on the Margin has been liveblogging this developing situation from the VA Tech campus. He provides a map of the campus, though not the distance involved to traverse from the dorm to the engineering building.

UPDATE:
The NYT is reporting that the identification of the gunman is going to prove difficult because of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot to the head and a lack of identification on the body.

The shootings started early in the morning and as they unfolded, many of the details emerged from witnesses who recorded images on their cellphones or described fellow students jumping out of campus building windows. The university has more than 25,000 full-time students on a campus that is spread out over 2,600 acres.

The identification of the gunman was proving difficult because the suspected shooter did not have identification among his effects and was further complicated because of the severity of an apparently self-inflicted wound to the head, according to a federal law enforcement official. He said investigators were trying to trace purchase records for two handguns found near the body.

Other reports indicate that a 9-mm handgun and a 22-caliber gun were recovered.

UPDATE:
An interview of one student injured in the gunfire.



UPDATE:
Pajamas Media has running updates.

UPDATE:
It was a lone gunman with two handguns who caused all the carnage. He is described as an Asian who died from a self-inflicted gunshot. Still no identification or motive.

UPDATE:
Another presser was held by the VA Tech police and the VA Tech president a short time ago. They're saying that they still have a person of interest that is not in contact with law enforcement at this time. They have a preliminary identification of the shooter at the Norris Hall shooting. Two people were killed in the dorm, and it was first treated as a domestic dispute. While the Administration was discussing the situation at the dorm, the reports of the shooting at the Norris Hall site started to come in. Police arrived on scene and found the doors barricaded and shooting occurring. It was after the doors were breached by police and reached the second floor that the shots ended - the gunman had killed himself, but not before murdering 30 other people.

There are serious questions about how the school administration handled the reports of the first shootings and whether they did enough to inform the student body that there was a developing situation.

ABC News also wonders whether high capacity ammo clips were to blame for the shooting. What isn't asked is whether the ban on firearms possession on campus may have also played a role. The sad fact is that people who have bad intentions will disregard whatever laws are on the books and obtain illegal weapons or equipment to carry out their deadly intentions.

Others weighing in on the crisis at Virginia Tech: Patterico, Michelle Malkin, Rick Moran, AJ Strata, Ace of Spades, Sister Toldjah, and Outside the Beltway.

UPDATE:
Even though I linked to Malkin above, please take note of the email she reprinted from a student who was in Norris when the shootings occurred.

UPDATE:
Dan Riehl has been taking a pulse of the Virginia Tech online community and they're not happy with the media's coverage and savaging of university officials for not instituting a lock down or taking other steps to secure the campus after the first incident. There's a lot of raw emotion there.

UPDATE:
The AP report has more eyewitness detail and the university's response as the crisis was unfolding. There will be memorial services all throughout the week in Blacksburg and surrounding towns.

UPDATE:
There are some reports surfacing that the shooter may have been a Chinese man. That's still unconfirmed and law enforcement isn't exactly tripping over itself to release the identification of the shooter.