Shooter Identified; Classes Cancelled for Remainder of Week

In a morning press conference, Virginia Tech identified the shooter in
yesterday’s mass murder on the Virginia Tech campus, and Virginia Tech officials
and law enforcement officials released more details about the killings. The
killer was 23 year old Cho Seung-Hui, a native of South Korea and an English
major at Virginia Tech.

Cho was a resident alien with an established residence in Centreville,
Virginia. He was living in Harper Hall on the Virginia Tech campus. Cho used a 9
millimeter handgun and a 22-caliber handgun in the shootings in Norris Hall
yesterday, in which he killed 30 students and faculty before taking his own
life. Virginia State Police Superintendent Steve Flaherty told the media during
the press conference that Cho killed students in four classrooms and a stairwell
in Norris.

Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum said that one of the two weapons
seized in Norris Hall was used in the killing of two other students in West
Ambler Johnston residence hall two hours before the shootings in Norris. Police
would not definitively say that Cho was also the shooter in West Ambler
Johnston, just that the weapon was the same. Police also said that they have no
information that relates the shootings to bomb threats received in the last two
weeks on Virginia Tech’s campus.

The remains of Cho’s victims are currently in Roanoke and will be released
once all victims are identified and next of kin are notified.

There will be a 2 p.m. convocation in Cassell Coliseum on the campus of
Virginia Tech. President George Bush and his wife Laura will be present, as will
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and his wife.

Classes are cancelled for the remainder of the week at Virginia Tech.
Administrative offices will open Wednesday the 18th and remain open. Norris Hall
is closed for remainder of the semester, and plans will be made to hold classes
in alternative locations.

For more updates, log on to Virginia Tech’s web site at the link below.