Va. Tech Shooter Was Chinese Student
How’s this for a Shanghai-related story? The gunman who massacred 32 students at Virginia Tech University Monday was a 25-year-old Chinese national who entered the U.S. with a student visa issued in Shanghai, reported Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times. Reportedly, the shooter entered the U.S. on an August 7th United Airlines flight from Shanghai to San Francisco. While police claim to know the identity of of the shooter and have confirmed that he was a student at Virginia Tech, his name has not been released as of Tuesday evening Shanghai time. All the witnesses and victims have described him as an Asian man, about 6 feet tall who wore a black leather jacket and wielded two weapons, one a 9mm semi-automatic hand gun and a .22 caliber pistol, both purchased in Virginia. The shooter carried extra magazines and according to witnesses, was reloading his weapons as he fired at students. Sounds like it’s straight out of a video game. The early report was that the Chinese student was fighting with his girlfriend at approximately 7:15am EST, when he shot his girlfriend and the dorm’s resident advisor who responded to the gunshot. The remaining 30 shooting deaths came nearly 2 hours later in a school building a half mile away from the initial two murders. Students interviewed late Monday blamed the school’s administration and police for not alerting the student body of the first two murders. And from where I sit, safe and sound in the city where the gunman left China, it seems as though Virginia Tech’s security totally dropped the ball Monday. While, granted, it’s no one’s fault that this happened other than the gunman’s, Va. Tech officials had two whole hours to find a Chinese guy who had already murdered two people and was running around campus in a black leather jacket with ammunition clips on his belt. NBC reported that the Virginia Tech emergency action plan includes only four pages on school violence one of which tells students to “Call 911, evacuate and take cover.” Sounds really helpful. The Chinese gunman committed suicide and blasted himself in the head so badly that police could not identify him. He carried no identification. Police are not ruling out the possibility that there were multiple shooters as of Tuesday evening. Monday’s Virginia Tech massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
•MSNBC: Search for Answers Begins After Va. Rampage
•Chicago Sun-Times: Here on Visa? The Shooting Rampage…