For A Second Time, Virginia Tech
From the AP, five minutes ago.
Shootings in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech left at least one person dead and seven or eight more wounded Monday before police arrested the suspected gunman, officials told The Associated Press.
Police confirmed they had a suspect in custody, the university said on its Web site.
On the Web site, Tech reported the shootings at opposite ends of the 2,600-acre campus at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and said there were "multiple victims" at Norris Hall, an engineering building.
The university said there were multiple victims. Government officials with knowledge of the case said there were seven to eight other "casualties."
Students were asked to stay in their homes away from windows. The campus was closed and classes canceled through Tuesday.
"There's just a lot of commotion. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on," said student Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the building where shooting took place.
Madison Van Duyne, a student who was interviewed by telephone on CNN, said, "We are all in lockdown. Most of the students are sitting on the floors away from the windows just trying to be as safe as possible."
Officials ordered the campus closed, the second time in less than a year the 26,000-student campus was shut because of a shooting.
In August 2006, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus.
---thanks to mike, whose wonderful new blog, PROFANE, is all about the best and worst in intercollegiate athletics, for alerting me--
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Getting Worse By the Minute: Just turned on NPR: The hospital's reporting seventeen students with gunshot wounds.
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