R.I.P // VA Tech. shooting
Monday, April 16, 2007

A terrible thing happened this morning, around 7am. According to recent claims, an unidentified man rushed a dorm on the campus of the Virginia Technical Institute, targeting students. At least two were killed. Witnesses who attempted to prevent the shooter from entering their dorms claim to have thrown themselves against the door, though the gunman shot through them, killing at least one that is known.

Sources state that police were on the scene, but the suspect faded into the distance, leaving a crowd of worried students in his wake. Some classes are said to have proceeded as normal, word of the shooting having yet to pass through the entire campus.

However, nearing 10am this same morning, the suspect entered Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building on the other side of the campus that stretches over 2,000 acres. There, he is said to have entered classrooms, chained the doors to prevent his victims' escape, and shot about 46 more students and professors alike.
Witnesses state that the gunman was of Asian ethnicity, wearing a maroon cap and a black leather jacket. He apparently entered a classroom, shot the professor, and chained the door. Students in the classroom state that after the first shot had been fired, they scrambled for cover, placing anything they could get their hands on between them and the shooter. Witnesses and victims alike claim that the man shot calmly and randomly before exiting the classroom, after which, brave soles of the engineering class threw their feet and weight against the shut door to prevent further attacks, even as the killer shot through it.

Not until 9:26 did the first e-mail warnings go out to students and faculty of the institute, as stamped on copies of the message obtained by NBC news. By then, the second act of the crime was well underway. At first, administrators and police believed the dorm shooting was an isolated domestic incident and saw no need to close the vast university. They believed that the gunman had left the campus.

Witnesses at the classroom shootings state that they heard various ‘pop’s but never related the sounds to a gunshot; they weren’t as loud as movies and other media acts make them out to be. Others report that the gunman never said a word. No, ‘Get down.’ No nothing. “He just started shooting.”

The—now dead due to a shot fired by himself into his face—suspect’s identity has not yet been confirmed. He carried no identification and initial checks on his fingerprints came up empty.

---

I’m sad to say that I must be the first on this board to officially report this awful tragedy. Not only were dozens killed, but families have been stricken with panic for their children and other family members. I can only hope that those who are injured survive, and that those who don’t know a relative’s status find out soon, and the news is good.

However, for those who were brutally killed for an unknown reason, I pray that their souls are welcomed. They have gone to a better place, and did not deserve this to happen to them.

If you have any comments, remarks, or updates, please feel free to reply. This thread has been made to honor those lost, and those wounded. Do not trash this thread out of respect.

Katie, thank you for posting this. We need to remember those killed. My heart is breaking for them. I've been crying all day long. My friends here almost dont seem to care. They are saying "well, think of it this way. People die every day. You cant bring them back" and such. And that was a quote. I don't see how people can hardly care. It almost seems to me that here in Canada, people arn't really caring anymore. The world came to a stand still when Columbine happend. Why is this diffrent? Why are people not caring anymore?
I've been crying all day and just shaking. Trying to understand how someone could do this. How could he look into these young people eyes and them clamly hold up a gun, and shoot with the intent to kill.

Rest In Peace everyone killed, you will be missed. I pray all the time for you, and I will continue to pray for a long time. If not forever.

xoxo forever,
Eilee Repka

Edit:
One of my online friends, Melissa, was telling me about one of the girls who was taken to hospital and later died. I honestly thought I couldn't write poems, but I wrote this one at 2:00am this morning when I woke up and remembered the girl Melissa had told me about....



She was once the life of the party
With gaiety she danced all around
A more popular girl with the boys
In that town could never be found
But now death has gripped its victim
And the party has come to an end
As she waited for death she wondered
Where were the ones that she calls her friends?
Were they okay, were they alive?
Or was death coming for them aswell.

A preacher came by and for the first time
The plan of Salvation she heard
The promise of Heaven and eternal life
He read to her out of God's Word
But Preacher, I'm dying. Look at the history of my life,
How could God forgive such as I?
The he told of a woman who came to a well
And that for sinners Christ came to die.

Then he told her that she needed to pray
To have all her sins washed away
But she said, I don't know all the Thee's and Thou's
I've never been taught how to pray
Do you think that God would hear a rhyme
For it's all I can think of to say
He said yes, my child, He knows your heart's cry
Then as the tears fell he heard her pray.

<sub>I heard about this at school, though no one really knew what was going on and we hadn't heard that so many people had actually been shot. When I found out the magnitude of this tragedy, I felt sick to my stomach. How could someone be so heartless and do that to others? And like Eilee said, how can someone be so indifferent about something like this? Yeah, life is short and people die, but no one deserves to have their life so suddenly taken from them. The families, friends, and victims will be in my prayers.

Things like this really make you consider that life could be over at any point in time. It's scary.</sub>

Well, they've identified the gunman..

I think he may have been intoxicated and//or mentally unstable. Friends//family say that he was in a state of downward spiralling, so.. >.<

Oh, and I personally believe that the administration could have done better at locking the whole school down.. or atleast informing people of the first killings in the dorm

Yeah. big whoop to the people who didn't tell even students in that same dorm

<_<