Campus response to fatal shootings at Virginia Tech | 04.17.2007 | 06:54:34 | Views: 7651 | ID: April 17 '07: On Monday, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech after a gunman stormed a dormitory and the engineering school, killing many students execution-style the Roanoke Times reported. Response to the shootings has been under question after email notifications about the first shooting came nearly two hours later according to local and regional officials who have asked whether more could have been done to save the lives of students and faculty, the Times reported. The Times wrote, "Bombarded with security questions at afternoon and evening news conferences, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed the shooting at the West Ambler Johnston dorm, first reported about 7:15 a.m., was a domestic dispute and thought the gunman had fled the campus after killing two people." According to the Associated Press, after the first shooting began, "Police were still investigating around 9:15 a.m., when a gunman wielding two handguns carrying multiple clips of ammunition stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus." Steger said a larger lock-down of the campus following the first shootings was almost impossible because of "thousands of nonresident students [who] were arriving for 8 a.m. classes, fanning out across the sprawling campus from their parking spots." "Where do you lock them down?" Steger said at the press conference. "We obviously can't have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year," the university president said. The AP said response operations included "SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles [who] swarmed over the campus." According to the New York Times the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, was a resident student of South Korean descent who had been suspicious of his girlfriend having an affair.
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