US:First shots in college dormitory before killer crossed campus and moved from classroom to classroom
Engineering student Josh Wargo was sitting in a second-floor classroom at the Norris Hall building of Virginia Tech's sprawling campus at about 9.30 yesterday morning when he heard a series of loud bangs followed by screams.
"We heard almost 40 or 50 shots. They were going on from the time we heard them and jumped out the window until almost two minutes later. When I landed, I was in a daze, standing outside of the building. Then I heard shots going through glass - that's when it hit me that I had to get out of there," he said.
While Wargo and his classmates fled, the horror continued inside as a gunman described by witnesses as a young man of Asian appearance wearing a maroon cap and a black leather jacket shot more than 50 people, killing at least 33.
Gene Cole, who has worked in Virginia Tech's housekeeping services for more than two decades, was on the second floor of Norris Hall when he saw a person lying on a hallway floor.
As Cole approached, a man wearing a cap and holding a black gun stepped into the hallway.
"Someone stepped out of a classroom and started shooting at me," Cole said.
He fled down the corridor, then down a flight of steps to safety.
"All I saw was blood in the hallways," Cole said.
Earlier yesterday, shortly after 7am, a gunman believed to be the same young man entered West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed dormitory on the other side of Virginia Tech's campus.
Some witnesses said he was looking for his girlfriend and when he failed to find her he shot one person dead.
Aimee Kanode, who lives in a room one floor below where the first shooting happened, said that at about 8am, someone knocked on her door and told her to stay inside.
"They had us under lockdown. They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again," she said.
While police and emergency services focused on the dormitory building, the gunman made his way across campus to Norris Hall, walked into a classroom, and started shooting.
Hector Takahashi was in class in a nearby building, talking with other students about the incident at the dormitory.
"Then all of a sudden, we were like, 'Whoa - were those shots?'" he said.
Details of what happened inside Norris Hall remained unclear last night and authorities would not confirm reports that the gunman lined up his victims against a wall before shooting them.
Student David Jenkins suggested the killings had been more random. "From what I heard, he chained up some of the doors so people couldn't get in and he basically was just going to every classroom trying to get in, and just started shooting inside classrooms," he said.
Jenkins, who heard the earlier shots at the dormitory, said that one of his friends was in one of the classrooms targeted by the gunman.
"He was very fortunate. He said every single person in the room was shot, killed and was on the ground. He laid on the ground with everyone . . . he played dead and he was okay," he said.
Police and Swat teams converged on Norris Hall, ordering everyone to remain inside and locking down the campus for three hours after the shooting ended. Authorities confirmed that the gunman then shot himself dead.
The dead and wounded were rushed to nearby Roanoke, where hospitals struggled to cope with the sudden rush of trauma wounds, while the medical examiner's office waited for reinforcements before carrying out autopsies.
With more than 25,000 full-time students, Virginia Tech is Virginia's largest university, with more than 100 buildings over 2,600 acres. Last August the opening day of classes was cancelled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the area near Virginia Tech.
Last week the university received two bomb threats and when they heard the first reports of yesterday's shootings, some students were sceptical.
"At first I thought it was something like a joke because going through something like this twice in one year didn't seem possible," said 18-year-old Dennis Hollich.