News-Letter

Violence erupted at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute on Monday in the largest mass shooting in recent U.S. history, claiming 33 lives and wounding many students and teachers.

The president of Virginia Tech has called the shootings a tragedy of monumental proportions, and people at Virginia Tech, Hopkins and across the world have expressed their shock and horror at Monday's events.

The shooter was 23-year-old Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui, an English major who moved to the U.S. as a child from his native South Korea.

The tragedies of Monday morning have evoked an enormous outpouring of sympathy from the entire country. In only a little more than two days, the Facebook group "A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia Tech Shooting" has grown to more than 280,000 members from colleges and regions around the world.

On the Hopkins campus, many students, staff and faculty were deeply touched by Monday's shootings.

Many Hopkins students who remember clearly the killings of several students, including the death of Alpha Phi president Linda Trinh in 2004, "know from bitter experience that Virginia Tech will never be exactly the same," President William Brody wrote in an e-mail to the Hopkins community on Monday night.

On a more hopeful note, Brody also wrote that "we also know that members of the [Virginia Tech] community ... will draw great strength from each other. They will support each other and console one another. They will emerge from this tragedy scarred but strong."

The rampage at Virginia Tech began at approximately 7:15 a.m. at a residence hall where Cho, armed with a 9-mm pistol and a .22-caliber handgun, killed two students.

Over two hours later, police received a 911 call that further gunfire had erupted at Norris Hall on the opposite end of campus.

Upon arrival, police found that the front doors had been chained closed from the inside. Later, after forcing their way in, police canvassed the building, finding dozens of gunshot victims dead, including Cho, presumably at his own hands.

In the wake of the tragedy, many have criticized the lack of a quick warning to the Virginia Tech community that an armed gunman was roaming the campus after having already killed two people. No e-mail was circulated until 9:26 a.m., over two hours after the initial violence.

However, some students feel that the administration and police forces should not be blamed for the delay.

Fred Angel, a freshman at Virginia Tech, said, "Being a student with a very close friend lost during the shooting, a friend that lived right down the hall, I feel no blame is to be placed on the administration or police.

"They did what they could with the information they had. No one can predict what a maniac and as we know now a clearly disturbed student would do."

None of the students trapped inside the building in which 31 people died knew of the attacks in the residence hall, and some even thought that Cho was playing a practical joke when he entered the classrooms with a gun.

After the shootings, students were told to remain in their rooms with the windows and doors locked, away from the windows, in case there were two separate gunmen (as originally thought by police).

Classes were cancelled, and Norris Hall, the building in which 31 of the 33 deaths took place, has been closed for the remainder of the semester.

At Virginia Tech, victims are remembered and memorials are being organized by their friends, families and teachers.

Angel said of his slain friend, "My friend Caitlin was a great, great person. [She] cared for everyone and [was] clearly the most loved person on our hall. We will miss her and all the other 31 victims."

President Bush offered words of condolence and healing in a brief televised statement on Monday.

"Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech," he said, echoing the sentiments of many across the country.

The shootings at Virginia Tech raised security concerns on some college campuses. It remains to be seen whether Hopkins, will adjust its security systems in response to Monday's shootings.

A senior at Hopkins, John Lichtefeld, said, "The only response [he] would expect from Hopkins is to ensure that we have an emergency response plan and adequate help for people under too much stress under campus."

The shooting occurred just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, in which two students killed 13 people before turning the guns on themselves in Littleton, Colo.

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