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Title: Uni gunman 'was Chinese student'
Source:
http://www.news.com.au/
URL Source: http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/sto ... 21598,21570770-5008620,00.html
Published: Apr 17, 2007
Author: http://www.news.com.au/
Post Date: 2007-04-17 01:51:11 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 263
Comments: 10
Uni gunman 'was Chinese student' From correspondents in Washington April 17, 2007 01:40pm REPORTS have emerged that the gunman who killed 32 people in a rampage at a US university was a Chinese man who arrived in the country last year on a student visa. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported today that sources have said the 24-year-old man arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on Aug. 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai. Investigators have not linked him to any terrorist groups, the source said. Sneed also reported sources said police believe three bomb threats on the Virginia Tech University campus last week may have been attempts by the man to test the campus’ security response. The first hint at the identity of the gunman, who took 32 lives before killing himself in a rampage through the university yesterday, emerged as pictures of the victims and survivors' stories began to emerge. Student Ryan Clark was killed by the shooter while the friend of an Australian student studying at the university told how he pretended to be dead to avoid being shot. 20-year-old Clay Violand told Alana Fragar, a 20-year-old originally from Bella Vista in Sydney's north-west, that he watched as his classmates were killed. A New Zealand newspaper reported an online conversation between Ms Fragar and Mr Violand in which he said: "I watched my f---ing classmates get mauled in front of me and I was the only one who wasn't shot. I feel crazy. People died on top of me. "I am the only person who didn't get shot in my French class in Norris and I have no idea why and I don't know what to do. "I just pretended to be dead and people got shot in the face." Another student, Erin Sheehan, also played dead to save herself as the gunman burst into her German class and methodically mowed her classmates down. Sheehan, sporting glasses and a shaved head, spoke calmly as she recounted to CNN her brush with the killer responsible for the deadliest school shooting spree in US history that left 33 people dead. "He was, I would say, about a little bit under six feet (183 cm) tall, young looking, Asian, dressed sort of strangely, almost like a boy scout, very short-sleeved light, tan shirt and some sort of ammo vest with black over it,'' Sheehan said. She said he was carrying what appeared to be a black handgun and peeked in twice to the class before later coming back with murderous intent. ``He just stepped within five feet (1.5 metres) of the door and started firing,'' said Sheehan, a freshman (first year) mechanical engineering major. ``He seemed very thorough about it, getting almost everyone down. I was trying to act dead,'' she said. ``He left for about 30 seconds, came back in, did almost exactly the same thing. I guess he heard us still talking. ``And then we forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again, the door would not lock. And so he came and tried to force himself in another three times and started shooting through the door.'' Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum told a news conference last night that a preliminary identification of the shooter had been made, but he refused to disclose it pending further investigation. He said that two weapons had been recovered, but he declined to say what kind they were. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was conducting ballistics tests on them. Flinchum also disclosed that witnesses involved in the initial shooting had led police to find a "person of interest" whom they were interviewing off campus when reports of the later shootings arose. Flinchum said the "person of interest" was a male who knew one of the two initial victims but wasn't a student. Asked if police had erred in chasing that person while the real shooter was left free to resume his killing two hours later, Flinchum said that was possible, but that the investigation was continuing. The deadliest shooting massacre in US history savaged Virginia Tech yesterday, as the gunman killed 32 people and wounded perhaps dozens more, then killed himself, leaving his motive and his identity unknown. The shooter started at a co-ed dormitory, opening fire around 7.15am and killing a man and woman in a room there. Two-and-a-half hours later, he appeared in a classroom building across campus, where he apparently had chained the front doors shut, then went from room-to-room killing 30 more people, then himself, police said. Tech students were badly shaken. "Everybody's in complete shock," said freshman Rachel Wirth, 18, of Charlotte, N.C. "Everybody's wondering if they know anybody who was killed or wounded". "It was about four or five shots pretty close together," said Justice Goracke, 21, a junior who was near the classroom building at the time. "When I heard it, it kind of sounded like bullets, but there was construction going on nearby," Goracke said. "Then about 20 seconds later I heard another six shots. Then I knew: This wasn't right." Students and onlookers across the campus were dazed, asking which of their friends had been shot, and why they were left uninformed and exposed to danger for hours. Casey Burke, an 18-year-old freshman biology major who lives in Ambler Johnston Hall, where the initial shootings happened, said she wasn't aware that anything was amiss until she left her seventh-floor dorm room for class at about 8:50am. She saw a note from her residential adviser (RA) written on the white board mounted on her door: The police want everyone to stay in their rooms until further notice. Burke saw the RA talking to some other girls down the hall. She asked the RA what was happening. She didn't know, either. "It was just confusion," she said. But the RA let her go to her 9:05 chemistry class. Kyle Blasser, a 19-year-old freshman from Annandale, Va., stood on the drill field in the evening, wearing a VT hoodie sweatshirt and a VT baseball cap, staring at the classroom building where the shootings occurred. He said he still hasn't heard from a female high school friend who had a French class on the building's second floor when and where the shootings occurred. He was waiting for word of her fate. He said nothing like this ever happens at Virginia Tech. "The worst thing that happens here is petty larceny," Blasser said. Graduate student Darryl Price, 23, described seeing 20 ambulances lined up as he tried to leave the area. "At that point, you fully realise the scale of what just happened." President Bush was said to be horrified when he heard the news. "Schools should be places of safety and sanctuary and learning," he said yesterday afternoon at the White House. "When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community." Virginia Governor Tim Kaine cut short a trip to Japan and rushed home for a service today on the shaken campus. The US House of Representatives marked the shootings with a moment of silence. University officials and police faced persistent questioning from the news media about how they handled the first reports of gunfire and their delay in alerting students and locking down the campus. Campus police received the first 911 emergency call from the West Ambler Johnston Hall – reporting multiple gunshot victims – at about 7.15am, according to Steger. They sent the first email alerting the campus of a homicide investigation at 9.26am, but it didn't reach many of them until after the second eruption of gunfire. Police were still at the first shooting site investigating when at around 9.45am they received reports of the shootings across campus at the Norris Hall classroom building, which houses the engineering school. Police didn't secure the campus immediately after the first incident because they thought the first shootings were domestic in nature and that the gunman had left the building and fled the campus. "We acted on the best information we had at the time," said a grim-faced Police Chief Flinchum. He added that students had been just arriving on campus and that made it difficult to lock them in place. But some students felt they should have been notified sooner. "I just feel like there was a lack of communication, the fact that they didn't shut down campus right away, which is what they should have done. I think it's absurd," said senior John Huddle, 22. "I don't blame the university for how they acted," said junior Todd Atkins, 22. "But I feel as though it could have been a little more timely, in terms of the info being given the student body via email." The killings reignited the debate over access to guns. "Mass shootings have come to define our nation," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Centre, a Washington-based group that advocates gun control. "These tragedies are the inevitable result of the ease with which the firepower necessary to slaughter dozens of innocents can be obtained. We allow virtually anyone the means to turn almost any venue into a battlefield." White House spokeswoman Dana Perino suggested that enforcing existing laws was adequate. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," she said. Best known for its engineering school and its football program, Virginia Tech has more than 26,000 full-time students on the 1,052 hectare campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains about 257km west of Richmond.
Article from: AAP 
VICTIM: The first photo of a victim of the Virginia Tech massacre, Ryan Clark (left) has emerged. Meanwhile a survivor, Clay Violand, has told of his terror as the gunman, believed to be a Chinese student, opened fire.
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#1. To: All (#0)
Daily Mail "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Like when those Marines went nuts in Afghanistan and mowed down every person that got within 100 yards of their convoy? Oh wait, silly me. Killing in the name of the state is honorable and noble thing and makes you a hero. Seems to me that Staff and law abiding students could have put all those M-16s in Iraq to much better use than what our "heroes" are doing with them right now. So, how many tears has the VPC shed for all the dead innocents around world blown away by our brave boys? Shoot a few students and you grab the headlines for weeks. Cluster bomb entire cities and maybe you'll get a few lines on the back page. "Kill 1 and it's a tragedy. Kill 1 million and it's a statistic." - Stalin.
"The more I see of life, the less I fear death" - Me.
For sure, the Chinese shooter was a killing machine. The event has all the earmarks of a government-run insider operation, say, a mini 9/11. The American public will never know the true story, but you can bet the coverup will go on and on to take attention away from Bush's genocidal war against Israel's enemies in the Muslim neighborhood. Thirty or so murders is a slow day in Baghdad.
Life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think.
Here it comes. "Guns eeeeevillll!!" &^%&&(*^^*!
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition On THIS you can be sure.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition On THIS you can be sure. I'm not sure, but I have my doubts. Most Chinese don't own guns and no way this guy bought firearms in the US legaly with just a student Visa. Gulf of Tolkin - Operation Northwoods - Atomic bomb tests on US troops - the entire offical 9/11 story. And then some wonder why people come up with "kooky" ideas as to why events like this shooting happens. Then again I'm sure somewhere in the world is an old German geezer who is 100% sure that those damn Polacks attacked those German radio stations.
"The more I see of life, the less I fear death" - Me.
I've never been very good at math. I'd love for someone to work out the murder rate in the US vs US troops deaths in Iraq and factor in the averages for the different population sizes (i.E. 250,000,000 citizens vs 180,000 soldiers) The Bots tried this tactics before and after 9/11 with Israel saying that facting in population sizes 10 dead Israelies = 250 dead Americans f you average out the popuation size differences. Not to mention the deaths suffered by the Iraqi civilians.
"The more I see of life, the less I fear death" - Me.
I'll bet he didn't kill on Asian.
"Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war." -- Thucydides
He chained the doors to keep victims from getting out. And one report said he was a recent visa student. It is possible, we should keep an open mind on this possibility.
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
They found the receipt for the gun purchase in his backpack. Very handy.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
Emergency personnel carry one bleeding victim to safety 
The survivors: Wounded students are carried from the Norris Building
#2. To: robin (#0)
"Mass shootings have come to define our nation," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Centre, a Washington-based group that advocates gun control.
#3. To: Pissed Off Janitor, robin (#2)
#4. To: robin (#0)
The killings reignited the debate over access to guns.
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
"Peace? There's no money in peace! What we need is a war!"
--Three Stooges
#5. To: Zoroaster (#3)
The event has all the earmarks of a government-run insider operation, say, a mini 9/11. The American public will never know the true story, but you can bet the coverup will go on
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
"Peace? There's no money in peace! What we need is a war!"
--Three Stooges
#6. To: IndieTX (#5)
The event has all the earmarks of a government-run insider operation, say, a mini 9/11. The American public will never know the true story, but you can bet the coverup will go on
#7. To: Zoroaster (#3)
Thirty or so murders is a slow day in Baghdad.
#8. To: robin (#0)
#9. To: Zoroaster, Eoghan, Pissed Off Janitor, IndieTX (#3)
(Edited)
#10. To: Pissed Off Janitor (#6)
no way this guy bought firearms in the US legaly with just a student Visa.
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