Shooting rampage at Va Tech..

[Mermaid]

The world's gone crazy. My heart goes out to those poor kids, their families, and the Virginia Tech community.

 

[Rudyjohn]

Horrific. Almost beyond comprehension.

I'm listening to the live press conference right now and it truly is horrific. And to think that VA Tech's information system was down or off or whatever. Students were IMing each other across the 2k acre campus to take cover during this 2 hour ordeal.

 

[supermom262]

It is awful. I know we are praying for all these families affected by this.

 

[BeachSiO2]

I read somewhere that the first reported shootings were around 7:30, but classes weren't cancelled. Students were told to just "be careful". Then the larger part of the massacre was later in an engineering building completely across campus where people wouldn't be if there wasn't class happening.

Does anyone know if there was any truth to that? If so it seems like shots fired would be a sufficient reason to cancel classes?

 

[JB]

It's real easy to look at the university officials and day "they should have done this or they should have done that." But as a staffer at a major university, it is almost impossible to "lock down" an entire college campus. Initially, they thought the dorm shooting was a domestic incident.

Not defending the Va Tech administration by any means, but just trying to shed some light on their line of thinking. Needless to say, if I had a child enrolled there, I would be on my way to pick him/her up right now.

 

[BeachSiO2]

It's real easy to look at the university officials and day "they should have done this or they should have done that." But as a staffer at a major university, it is almost impossible to "lock down" an entire college campus. Initially, they thought the dorm shooting was a domestic incident.

Not defending the Va Tech administration by any means, but just trying to shed some light on their line of thinking. Needless to say, if I had a child enrolled there, I would be on my way to pick him/her up right now.

Oh, I understand about a lockdown. I went to a 20k+ person school that would have been impossible to shut down. I was just thinking that from the standpoint that there was a person with a gun shooting people in a school dorm that was unaccounted for.

It's just weird to me that it is okay to make students go to class if there is a "domestic incident (with gunfire)" in a dorm. After Columbine I thought there might be a little more sensitivity to the fact that the people might be crazy enough to go somewhere else and start shooting others. I guess I am just saying that cancelling classes for one day would be a reasonable precaution to take. Now, if there is a college football game scheduled, it's a different story as those should never be cancelled..

 

[Smiling JOe]

I read somewhere that the first reported shootings were around 7:30, but classes weren't cancelled. Students were told to just "be careful". Then the larger part of the massacre was later in an engineering building completely across campus where people wouldn't be if there wasn't class happening.

Does anyone know if there was any truth to that? If so it seems like shots fired would be a sufficient reason to cancel classes?

That is what VT representatives said at the press briefing. I wasn't there and cannot make that call about when to shut down classes. The number of people killed in the dorm has not been released. What if only two people were killed in the dorm at 7am. Is that reason to shut down classes for the day? The Campus Police Chief stated that they had reason to believe that the shooter was leaving campus and the state after the dorm shooting. They haven't even confirmed that this second shooting was done by the first shooter. Way too early to start throwing out guesses, and especially to second guess the people who are still investigating.

 

[BeachSiO2]

That is what VT representatives said at the press briefing. I wasn't there and cannot make that call about when to shut down classes. The number of people killed in the dorm has not been released. What if only two people were killed in the dorm at 7am. Is that reason to shut down classes for the day? The Campus Police Chief stated that they had reason to believe that the shooter was leaving campus and the state after the dorm shooting. They haven't even confirmed that this second shooting was done by the first shooter. Way too early to start throwing out guesses, and especially to second guess the people who are still investigating.

First, I have to say yes, one murder with a firearm in a school dorm and no one in handcuffs is a good enough reason to cancel one day out of the entire school year.

I agree that it is not fair to second guess decisions that are made especially while investigating is going on and I appreciate the difficult situation that the officials are in, but that being said. There is NO WAY IN H$!# I would be going to class if there had been people killed on campus and I knew about it. It would be worth me missing a Monday in the middle of April and calling it a Spring Day/long weekend and saying I was having mental anguish.

I guess the other part that bothers me is that I knew someone who could have been in those classrooms if it had been a few years ago as they got there BS in Engineering from VT, and if it had been in the engineering building where I went to college, it could have been me.

 

[TNJed]

If they knew they didn't have a suspect in custody after the first shooting, I would think that reason enough to cancel classes until further notice regardless of what they "thought."

 

[Smiling JOe]

If they knew they didn't have a suspect in custody after the first shooting, I would think that reason enough to cancel classes until further notice regardless of what they "thought."

If that is the case, I guess you could make the same case for one or two students being killed who lived in a house near campus. There is really no difference, is there? The first shooting just happened to be in a dorm on campus instead of an apartment, adjacent to campus.