Va. Tech shooting...

[Cleveland Metal]

I guess compared to what is going on in other countries, it's not all that unbelievable. Very sad and tragic tho...

[sysin]

My God, those poor innocent kids. Rest in peace. What a tragedy for the families and horrified classmates. A shame that our schools are not safe from these psychotics. The only upside was the self-imposed death penalty.

[skorb]

31 dead now.
What makes people snap like that?

prolly the same kind of shit that people like us shrug off 3-4x per week.

[CharvelRocker]

Something like this is truly unthinkable until it happens.

[mudkicker]

I live 30 miles away from VT, my sis in law works in the poultry science dept. She's safe. None of us can figure why the school didn't warn everyone after the first shooting. It took place around 7:15, an email went out around 10:00 telling students to avoid the dorm.

As that email was going out he was shooting kids in Norris Hall. It is a tragedy. The shooter took his own life, coward, I was hoping the cops would be able to assist him with that. No id so they aren't even sure if he was a student.

To make matters worse, we are having wind gust of up to 70mph from the noreaster that is rolling up the east coast, grounding the lifeguard helicopter fleet. Ambulances had to drive 40 miles to Roanoke to the critical care units. The helicopters with the short flight time may have helped save some of the kids who died.

[Newc]

What I don't get is the email alert system. Maybe it's just me and my outdated computer, but I don't get emails as soon as they're sent, and I don't know when they come in unless I turn on the little "You Have Mail" voice and crank my speakers so I can hear it across the house over the noise of the dishwasher, washing machine, Weather Channel, vacuum cleaner, etc.

Whatever happened to the telephone?

Where's the Emergency Broadcast System? What the heck has that thing ever been used for besides interrupting my TV viewing experience to test the system?

[danastas]

First off, the school probably didn't have a warning system.

Secondly, an expert on these matters said that once the shooting starts, there is no protocol that would keep students safe. A reporter asked about the wisdom of lockdowns. He gave examples of shooters using lockdowns to their advantage, by pinning students and allowing even greater deaths. He said a lockdown would have been horrible at Columbine, but the right thing to do at Beslan in Russia.

[Newc]

And what's with these idiots who work in network news? The morons on CNN are a joke. Maybe I should apply there since you don't appear to need any common sense, but just a talent for sensationalism.

I mean, this so-called "Security Expert" they've got is asking "Why can't they determine if these two shootings were related? Why not check the surveillance tape?"

I'm no forensic specialist, but I do know you can't just have a cop walk in the first room and say "yup, 9mm" and then walk into the 2nd scene and say "yup, 9mm here, too. It's the same guy". You know how common a 9mm is?

As for the security cameras, let's see: shots ring out on a college campus, dozens of people take off running, campus policy states that in such an emergency students should assemble for a headcount.
How many people are going to think that's B.S. and are going to run for their car and get the heck out of there? Dozens.
Then you've got the gunman in the crowd running for his car as well, so what do you see on the videotape? Dozens of people running for their cars and heading out of town.

And yet the "Security Expert" can't figure that one out?


NEWS: Networks Everywhere Want Sensationalism

[Newc]

First off, the school probably didn't have a warning system.

Secondly, an expert on these matters said that once the shooting starts, there is no protocol that would keep students safe. A reporter asked about the wisdom of lockdowns. He gave examples of shooters using lockdowns to their advantage, by pinning students and allowing even greater deaths. He said a lockdown would have been horrible at Columbine, but the right thing to do at Beslan in Russia.

Columbine was a one-building setup, so yeah a lockdown would have turned it into a protected slaughterhouse.

Va Tech was separate buildings, and I do believe (or at least I hope) they meant the OTHER buildings that were not taking part in the first shooting should have been locked down so that the second shooting could not have happened (at least not in the building it did happen in).

[Mike]

Just read about this. It's terrible.

[mudkicker]

First off, the school probably didn't have a warning system.

They do have a warning system, but with the high winds and several kids using ipods, most didn't hear the warning or the shots being fired. Several kids had no clue until cops were grabbing them and forcing them into the nearest building.

[mudkicker]

The initial shooting according to capus officials was being looked at as a domestic dispute. from where the first shhoting to place to the second s about a twenty minute walk.

They only locked down the dorm that the first shooting took place in. They are using the excuse that more people were commuting to campus about 14,000 student and 10,000 faculty and there was no way to get the word out fast enough. They said it would be like shutting down a city.

[El_Kabong]

I thought it was one of our gun happy members shooting a guitar tech over a bad floyd set up. This is terrible and shocking.

[mudkicker]

One of the three critically wounded that was sent to Roanoke Memorial has died. Plus, they have said that one of the two people who was killed in the first shooting was the RA. Sounds like he went to investigate a commotion and happened on the gunman.

He was in the marching band and was going to graduate with three degrees this summer.

[danastas]

Columbine was a one-building setup, so yeah a lockdown would have turned it into a protected slaughterhouse.

Va Tech was separate buildings, and I do believe (or at least I hope) they meant the OTHER buildings that were not taking part in the first shooting should have been locked down so that the second shooting could not have happened (at least not in the building it did happen in).

I can't pretend to be an expert. But apparently there's only one company in the US that's prearing universities for these scenarios, and it could be the expert interviewee was just protecting future employers, but he did say that a lockdown would not be necessarily warranted because by the time the other buildings were secured, you'd have to be certain of the killer's whereabouts.