At least 29 people are dead in what may be the biggest mass killing on a college campus in American history — and the death toll may rise.This massacre appears to follow on the heels of bomb threats made recently on college engineering buildings. This at a college regarded by many as in the top rank of engineering schools nationwide. Investigators are still being tight lipped, but this would appear to be a pretty well-planned hit, and the story no doubt goes deeper.
We are trying to get to more local sources and know folks down in Blacksburg who may be able to update us, but connections are tough right now and this once-tranquil rural setting, Virginia's geek paradise, will never be the same.
UPDATES: The campus newspaper, "Collegiate Times," is posting on an alternate server due to traffic and has relevant updates here for students and their families. Try to take it easy on the server. The main site was down much of the morning.
Sky News is providing a few more details, indicating that the gunman, now, according to local cops, "deceased," was possibly of Asian origin and was looking for a girlfriend. Nothing confirmed, though.
Audio interview with an injured student here, providing additional details.
Most media outlets are all over this now, so this will be our last post, at least on the breaking story itself. Implications could be interesting. Judging from the interview above, this was a methodical act. The "why," however, has yet to be fully explored. Our condolences go out to the families. This is a hell of a way to wind up an academic year, and it speaks volumes about how our coarsened culture has not only made massacres like this eminently possible. When a culture values life cheaply, denigrates religious traditions, and trashes our country's essential goodness, unstable people get the message, and things like this are the result.
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