Salon.com > Joe Eaton

“It’s like when 9/11 happened”

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:44:00 +0000

As Virginia Tech students grieve the worst shooting in American history, which left 33 dead on this state university campus in southwestern Virginia, some Korean students and their parents are fearing a backlash.

Police announced this morning that Cho Seung-hui was the suspect in the shooting deaths of 32 students and staff members in two Virginia Tech buildings. Cho apparently killed himself with a gunshot to the head. Cho, 23, was a permanent U.S. resident who was born in South Korea and moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington in 1992.

At about 1 p.m. Monday in front of Harper Hall, the residence hall where Cho lived on the second floor, Young-je Ko, 21, and his girlfriend Hyun-jung Kim, 19, sat in a black Mustang preparing to leave campus. Ko, a senior accounting major, said he and other South Korean students are afraid to stay on campus. Ko said many of their friends in a Korean Christian group were also planning to leave Blacksburg for Northern Virginia.

“I think he was just a confused kid”

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:46:00 +0000

After the mass shooting on the Virginia Tech campus Monday, rumors circulated on television and the Internet about the identity of the killer. Some reports said he was a student at nearby Radford University, while the Chicago Sun-Times was reporting that authorities were investigating a 24-year-old who had entered the U.S. on a student visa on a flight from China last August. But officials now say the shooter was a little-noticed member of Virginia Tech's student body, a loner so reclusive even neighbors in his own residence hall didn't know him.

Officials say Cho Seung-hui, 23, was an English major at Virginia Tech who came to the U.S. in 1992 with his family and settled in Centreville, Va. School officials say he lived on campus in Harper Hall.

Joe was a classmate of Cho Seung-hui at Westfield High in Chantilly, Va., in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, where both graduated in 2003. (At his request, Salon has removed his last name.) Joe went to middle school with the Korean-American Cho (his family name), and had known him since eighth grade. They were in the same advanced math class at Westfield High.

School shooting suspect named

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:59:00 +0000

"On April 16, 2007 an incident involving various firearms, resulting in multiple injuries and deaths occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech at Norris Hall. Found at the scene of the incident was a bomb threat directed at engineering school department buildings. Norris Hall is an engineering related building.

"Over the preceding three weeks, Virginia Tech received two other bomb threat notes. A bomb threat note was found in the close vicinity of the shooting which occurred near the victims and presumed suspect who is deceased. The presumed suspect was believed to have multiple firearms including but not limited to a Walther p22 and a Glock 9 mm handgun ... During the investigation it was revealed the presumed suspect recently purchased a handgun at a firearms store in Roanoke, Virginia. It is further reasonable to believe suspect is the author of the bomb threat note. Additionally, it is reasonable to believe the evidence sought under this search warrant would be maintained, secreted, and stored at the presumed suspect's residence and or vehicle."

The name of the suspect is given as Seung-Hui Cho, and his address is given as 2121 Harper Hall, Blacksburg, Va.

University officials waited two hours to warn campus, students say

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:31:00 +0000

Students at Virginia Tech, where at least 33 people are confirmed dead and at least 29 wounded in the worst school shooting in U.S. history, say they were left in the dark for up to two hours after the initial murder in a campus dorm.

The as-yet-unnamed gunman apparently shot and killed a victim on the fourth floor of the West Ambler Johnston dorm at approximately 7:15 a.m., according to the timing of a 911 call to Virginia Tech police. Two hours later, at approximately 9:30 a.m., the same gunman allegedly shot scores of people in Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building across the 2,600-acre Virginia Tech campus. But residents of West Ambler Johnston say they were not informed of what had happened in their building until 9:26, when an e-mail was apparently sent to all students telling them that there had been an incident in the dorm. By that time, the gunman may already have made it to Norris Hall.

"A shooting incident occurred at West Ambler Johnston earlier this morning," the e-mail read. "Police are on the scene and are investigating. The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia tech police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case ... Stay attuned to the www.vt.edu. We will post as soon as we have more information."