I’ll update this post with links as I receive them.
Eyewitness account from male student shot in the arm
Shooter was supposedly Asian, male, 6′ tall, dressed in a maroon hat and black coat. He talked very little during the 2nd shootings. Rumor has it he shot dead his girlfriend and a student adviser in the dorm around 7:15 AM, then roughly 2 hours later showed back up on campus and rampaged in the Engineering building where 30 more people were killed. The shooter then supposedly shot himself in the face which might partially explain how he has not be unidentified. However, the question now is — if the police know who his girlfriend is, how could he remain unidentified this long, especially if he was carrying what one might assume should have been registered firearms.
And for the record, people that are going to make this into a gun issue make me nauseous. If just one student or teacher had had any kind of weapon and necessarily even a gun (i.e. mace, stun gun, etc.), so many lives could have been saved. Another thing that is driving me crazy: out of all these school shootings, has there even been a single law enforcement officer scratched? I’m seeing police hiding behind trees in this incident. I’ll never forget seeing the line of officers and deputies behind a firetruck at Columbine. As kids are dying, the “brave” law enforcement is crawling up to the doors. Shooters end up killing themselves before they are even engaged in a firefight. Something just doesn’t seem right about any of that when unarmed civilians are being massacred and we have laws telling us we can’t be armed to protect ourselves on college campuses.
I sincerely hope that the next time we hear of such an incident, someone pulls out a gun and shots the son of a bitch.
Podcasts Archive
Thanks for keeping us updated. I had not heard your new info on any news stations yet. Sounds like a domestic though (boy friend/girl friend). I’m going to tune in the news and see what they are saying.
Good grief! Larry King just got through trying to make this a GUN issue, i.e. a second amendment issue; If people were not allowed access to guns this would not have happened!
Expect all of the anti-gun groups to jump all over this issue as a convienent opportunity.
We dare not ever lose our 2nd amendment rights — our first line of self defense!
CNN! Grrr, I’m changing channels.
P.S. Gunman still described as a young “Asian man.”
The FBI has stated that this shooting was not, I repeat not, terrorist related. The shooter is said to have been here on a student visa from China.
I certainly see this tragedy distorted into a movement to ban guns in the USA, and I feel NO ONE has the right to deny lawful US citizens the right to own guns, as the Second Amendment of our Constitution guarantees us.
Apparently this horrible slaughter of innocent young people is, so far, supposedly not linked to a terrorist group, but it seems to me resolving all the truth of this particular situation will take a very long while. There are rumors the dormitory shooting was separate from the mass slaughter of Norris Hall, but only time and ballistics, etc. will bring out the actual happenings of this horror. It was very difficult for me to see the grief on the faces of those responders and fellow students at VA TECH, but my reactions are bound to be far less severe than those of family, friends and rescue personnel. My heart aches from this horror which has descended so senselessly onto innocent human beings going about their daily lives.
He defaced the guns, that he purchased and could b traced, as he planned on escaping and this was done weeks before.
He was seen as a nut bar and was approached by some muslims on campus as every campus has foreign students that hate America.
They turned him into making a decision to kill himself and he writes “Ishmail AX” which shows he isn’t realy converting to Islam as he spells it wrong.
He sends a package that has a return address as “A. Ishmael” which means another might have mailed it due to the difference in spelling.
This guy was a murderer turned into a mass murder by somone sympathetic to Al Queda.
FACT: The FBI showed up quickly while this is a local jurisdiction issue.
FACT: No act deemed to “not be terrorism” is absolutely linked to terrorism. Our government just won’t tell us.
MikeR
@MikeR: Some interesting hypotheses. I’m glad you noted the difference in spelling on the return address. I was wondering if the spelling would remain consistent. Many questions remain. Whether or not this madman had connections to Islam in any way is still in question, and anyone that attempts to write it off already would be steering the investigation wrong. I’d love to see all the materials he sent to NBC.
As for whether or not he planned to escape though, perhaps yes would explain the scratched out serial numbers or he simply didn’t want them traced in the event they were found in his dorm room prior to his attack. Then he might be able to claim they weren’t his. With a mind as insane as Cho’s it’s difficult to be sure what his reasoning might be on any given day. But it’s quite clear he planned this attack for at least a month.
Thanks for the comment.
I heard a police profiler call a show and say that when he saw the photos they were perfectly centered, which means that he didn’t take them. Interesting!
As to defacing the guns, yes, he could have had them hidden elsewhere and didn’t want them traced to him if found. But if he lived within any traveling distance to his home, that should be ruled out. If he were caught prior with them in his room and tried to say they weren’t his they would need to be clean of prints. Plus the police would take his photo to all the gun and pawn shops and he’d be easily identified as having been in the shop.
The tapes have him saying something about dying like Jesus. Is anyone else skeptical as to whether on that tape he also references Mohammed, but we’re not hearing it?
My father was a big city detective. Around 1990 he said to me “never trust this government to give you the truth…I’ve seen too much of it covered up”.
Mike R
Until the unedited tapes are available, too many questions shall remain.
I’m afraid I have to agree with your father.