THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2007
VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING
5A
Security always top priority
University Relations shows sympathy, applies lessons learned
BY ERICK R. SCHMIDT
Officials from the University on Kansas responded Monday to the morning's deadly attacks at Virginia Tech and addressed safety concerns
Todd Cohen, director of University Relations, said the University had response plans which were constantly being updated.
"We always have to learn from other tragedies and apply them," Cohen said. "It's appalling, unfortunate, and all we can do is pray for the survivors at Virginia Tech and try to apply the lessons learned."
Cohen related the attacks to the Columbine, Colo., shootings in 1999.
"It could be like Columbine, where you look at what happened and change accordingly," Cohen said. "We'll be looking at what worked and what didn't."
Chancellor Robert Hemenway released a statement Monday morning;
"Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the Virginia Tech University family today. The horrific tragedy that occurred this morning is so immense it is difficult to comprehend."
Hemenway also addressed security in his statement to the KU community.
"It is a chilling reminder why campus security must always be a top priority. The safety of our students, faculty, staff and visitors is paramount," he said.
Jennifer Jensen, Goodland junior, said she heard about the shootings through classmates who were watching news stories on their cell phones during her morning class.
"Both the amount of people around and seeing the police drive
ing around makes it feel like a pretty safe place," Jensen said. "I just think it's horrible. I should be more protection, but I don't know what that would mean. It could happen anywhere."
Kansan staff writer Erick R.
Schmidt can be contacted at eschmidt@kansan.com.
University staff and students interested in offering their condolences Virginia Tech can sign a banner this morning from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of Wescoe Hall. Student Union Activities provided the banner and will send it to the university. SUA is also giving out maroon ribbons in honor of the victims.
Edited by Katie Sullivan
An unidentified person is carried out of Norris Hall at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., on Monday after a shooting incident. A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom on the campus, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman is killed but it's unclear if he was shot by police or took his own life.
Alan Kim/THE ROANOKE TIMES
VIRGINIA TECH (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Two people died in a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall, including the gunman, who put a bullet in his head. At least 15 people were hurt, some seriously.
At an evening news conference, Police Chief Wendell Flinchum refused to dismiss the possibility that a co-conspirator or second shooter was involved. He said police had interviewed a "person of interest" in the dorm shooting who knew one of the victims, but he declined to give details.
"I'm not saying there is someone out there, and I'm not saying there is someone who is not," Flinchum said. Ballistics tests will help explain what happened, he said.
Sheree Mixell, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the evidence was being moved to the agency's national lab in Annandale. At least one firearm was turned over, she said.
Mixell would not comment on
think I was the last," said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.
The instructor was killed, he said.
Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at the professor, who had stayed behind, perhaps to block the door.
what types of weapons were used or whether the gunman was a student.
Trey Perkins, who was sitting in a German class in Norris Hall, told The Washington Post that the gunman barged into the room at about 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a minute and a half, squeezing off about 30 shots.
The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired
"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last."
Students jumped from windows in panic. Young people and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. Many found themselves trapped behind chained and padlocked doors. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.
Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.
Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door — "what sounded like an enormous hammer."
ALEC CALHOUN Virginia Tech junior
"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I
on the students, Perkins said. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face" he said.
Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."
Students said that there were no public-address announcements after the first shots. Many said they learned of the first shooting in an e-mail that arrived shortly before the gunman struck again.
"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm.
Steger defended the university's conduct, saying authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.
Shooting rampage on Virginia Tech campus deadliest in history
Fatal shooting
Aug. 1, 1966:
Shooter fires riffe from an observation deck at the University of Texas; 16 killed, 3 wounded.
total shootings at U.S. colleges or universities in recent years
Nov. 1, 1991: Graduate student from China shoots and kills five University of Iowa employees and himself, wounding two others.
1 death
Aug. 28, 2000: A University of Arkansas grad student dropped from a doctoral program and the professor overseeing his work are both shot dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
Oct. 28, 2002: A fallin University of Arizona Nursing College student enters an instructor's office and fatally shoots her; the Gulf War veteran later kills two other instructors and himself
May 4,1970:Four
May 4, 1970: Four students killed, nine wounded by National Guard troops trying to quell anti-war protests at Kent State University in Ohio.
Aug. 15, 1996:
A graduate student at San Diego State kills three professors with a handgun while defending his thesis.
Jan. 16, 2002: Graduate student is dismissed from Virginia's Appalachian School of Law, kills the dean, a professor and a student; wounds three other students
Sept. 2, 2006:
Man kills himself and his two sons during a visit to the Shepherd University campus in West Virginia.
April 16, 2007:
Gunman kills 32 people in a dorm and classroom building at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
gunman also is killed.
STUDENTS (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
SOURCE: AP research
"I'm just dumbfounded, speechless," Drake said. "It makes me realize something like that can happen anywhere."
Kansas women's basketball coach Bonnie Henrickson spent 14 years of her coaching career at Virginia Tech, including the seven years before she came to Kansas in 2004. She said the Virginia Tech campus was similar to the University of Kansas campus.
"It's a safe place, it really is," Henrickson said. "It just shows you what a scary world we live in."
Henrickson, who was in her office when she was told about the shootings, said she immediately called current Virginia Tech women's basketball coach Beth Dunkenberger to make sure she was all right.
"She said, 'You can't possibly imagine what it's like right now," Henrickson said. "The senselessness is just hard to grasp. It's tough to watch."
more at Virginia Tech, told The University Daily Kansan he saw SWAT members surrounding the building where the second round of shootings occurred, but that he didn't think much about it.
Christopher Grey, a sopho-
"We've had two false bomb threats lately, and I just thought of that," Grey said. "I just walked in and sat down."
For the next two hours, Grey and six others, including a professor, were locked in their classroom across the street. They watched the scene unfold as "police car after police car" and "ambulance after ambulance showed up and sped off," Grey said.
When the classroom was finally unlocked, Grey returned to his oncampus residence hall and began watching news coverage.
"It's pretty depressing to see the death toll rise. Just incredible." Grey said.
He said all of his friends were so far accounted for.
"I honestly never thought anything of this magnitude would happen anywhere, not just on campus," Grey said. "It always just felt so secure."
Joshua Nold, Auburn, Kan. junior, said the news immediately reminded him of the Columbine High School attack in 1999.
"It makes you wonder if it was someone going through misfit stuff," Nold said. "That's not the type of thing you think goes on in college."
Nold said he would never expect anything similar to happen at the University.
"Lawrence seems like too peaceful a place. That's probably the same way they felt out there in Virginia, though," Nold said.
Kansan staff writer Erick R. Schmidt can be contacted at eschmidt@kansan.com.
Edited by Joe Caponio
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