This morning, a gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, in a classroom across campus, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history: Gunman kills 30 on Virginia Tech campus. The gunman was killed, though it wasn't immediately clear whether the gunman was shot by police or took his own life. His name wasn't released, investigators offered no motive for the attack, and nobody is sure if the gunman was a student. However, this news story says one person described the shooter as "an Asian student wearing a vest." And this one says he is described as "a young Asian male." I don't know who that is in the above photo (found it here), if the gunman was reportedly killed. Details are obviously sketchy at this point. More on this as it develops...
UPDATE: Jozjozjoz over at 8 Asians reports that the guy in the photo IS NOT THE SHOOTER. He's Shaozhuo Cui, a photographer for the VT student newspaper. He probably got a little too close to the action before the police stopped him because he fit the description. News outlets carrying the photo probably connected the dots a little hastily, hearing the reports of an Asian male shooter then seeing this photo.
They've also got a rumor out there about who the gunman was:
According to unconfirmed rumors available to The Reference Frame, the killer was a 6-foot tall male Asian student between 20 and 25 years from Radford University whose girlfriend from Virginia Tech left him. He had two guns and wore a vest with too much ammunition.The info is over here. No doubt, we'll be hearing more about this story in the hours and days to come. I am dreading the headlines about the psycho Asian shooter. What a way to start the week...
In the morning, he went to her dormitory. She was not there so he shot her roommate and some staff of the dormitory. They didn't shut down the university, so he continued and tried to find the girlfriend in the classroom. He didn't know the exact location, so he has shot a couple of classes and then himself.
UPDATE: According to this article, authorities are investigating whether the gunman was a 24-year-old Chinese man who arrived in the United States last year on a student visa issued in Shanghai. Police believe three bomb threats on the campus last week may have been attempts by the man to test the campus' security response. Oh yeah, investigators have not linked him to any terrorist groups. I guess that dispels this ridiculous theory that wanted so badly to link the shooting to Pakistani terrorism. Then again, this opens up the door to all sorts of racist and xenophobic rhetoric about immigration... brace yourselves.
