33 Dead After Virginia Tech University Shooting

[Queen Prawn]

Very different - that is what my dad is here with (green card - legal resident).

[LosMediasBlancas]

I understand some violence. I understand a guy who keeps a gun in the house for protection and there is a domestic disturbance and he just loses it, kills his wife and maybe his kids all within 2 minutes. Thirty seconds later, he regrets it.

I don't understand a guy who planned this a month ahead of time, shot two people in the morning, waited two hours, locked up a building, killed 30+ people inside, shot them each no less than 3 times (according to reports), wounded many others and at NO point during this massacre did he have a moment of clarity that made him stop. Not as he squeezed off 100+ rounds of ammo, not as he watched victim after victim hit the floor, not as he heard the screams and saw the blood. As far as we know, he only stopped because the cops had finally gotten into the building.

This MFr was a special kind of animal.

[WilliamTell]

The killer killed 3 other people from his high school it sounds like......

[aboz56]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...7071vtech1.html

[daa84]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...7071vtech1.html

http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

[RockRaines]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

 

creepy insight.

[StrangeSox]

The killer killed 3 other people from his high school it sounds like......

I know someone who works there (but he's only been there this school year). He said the place is a media circus outside.

[Top Notch]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

 

creepy insight.

 

Thanks for sharing that. Good article.

[Texsox]

One of my Scouting lists reported that one of the wounded was an Eagle Scout and applied emergency first aid to himself and probably saved his own life.

[witesoxfan]

One of my Scouting lists reported that one of the wounded was an Eagle Scout and applied emergency first aid to himself and probably saved his own life.

 

That's incredible. Hopefully he makes it all the way back, but that is wonderful.

[Rex Kickass]

yeah, he used direct pressure enough to stem the bleeding from his artery enough to not bleed to death.

[Bonderman38]

What a horrible tragedy..so many lives lost. Including one from the Tigers family, go to motownsports for more info on that.

[fathom]

I thought I heard this from his former roommates on CNN, but they said he was gay or was deeply disturbed by same sex desires (not that this means anything).

[DonkeyKongerko]

What a horrible tragedy..so many lives lost. Including one from the Tigers family, go to motownsports for more info on that.

 

Found some more info here.

http://detroittigertales.blogspot.com/2007...-community.html

[whitesoxfan101]

Apparently, the one person that was in critical condition has died, so the total would be 34 if you include the gunman. Hopefully this isn't true, but facebook has been spot on so far so I'd assume it is.

[LosMediasBlancas]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...7071vtech1.html

 

How did this kid get into College? He wrote like an eight year old.

[StrangeSox]

How did this kid get into College? He wrote like an eight year old.

 

You'd be surprised at how many English majors can't write worth a damn. I'm an engineer who hasn't taken an English class in over 4 years and I still make less grammatical mistakes than some senior English majors.

[southsider2k5]

In a nice gesture the Washington Nationals wore VT hats last night during their game as a tribute.

[Balta1701]

Link.

The gunman blamed for the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history had previously been accused of stalking two female students and had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005 after his parents worried he might be suicidal, police said Wednesday.

 

Cho Seung-Hui had concerned one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in 2005 that police were called in, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.

 

He said the woman declined to press charges and Cho was referred to the university disciplinary system. During one of those incidents, both in late 2005, the department received a call from Cho's parents who were concerned that he might be suicidal, and he was taken to a mental health facility, he said.

 

Flinchum said he knew of no other police incidents involving Cho until the deadly shootings Monday, first at a girl's dorm room and then a classroom building across campus. Neither of the stalking victims was among the victims Monday.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/i...l?s_cid=rss_age

 

All at once, the world went searching for the meaning of "Ismail Ax".

 

Those two words, written in red ink on one arm of Cho Seung Hui, the 23-year-old Virginia Tech student suspected of the campus shooting spree, set off a massive internet hunt by the public for clues to what might have motivated the nation's worst mass killings.

 

Almost as soon as the Chicago Tribune's website reported that detail, which was then picked up by news organisations around the world, the blogosphere filled with theories about the possible meaning of "Ismail Ax." Hundreds of bloggers speculated on a link to Islam or to literature; thousands offered their opinions and millions read the commentaries, according to Technorati.com.

 

The rapid search and response of that term offered another snapshot of how quickly the web disseminates information and connects people.

 

On Monday, compelling mobile phone videos of the scene at Virginia Tech raced across the web. The next day, the internet provided reflection and a search for answers.

 

At Facebook.com, a social networking site popular with college and high school students, hundreds of impromptu memorials to the victims were posted, many adorned with a black ribbon circling the school's logo.

 

Yahoo reported that "Virginia Tech shooting" was the most searched term on its site. Traffic at news organisation sites also surged. At ChicagoTribune.com, the report about Ismail Ax and other details set off the busiest hour in the site's history, with 524,000 page views during the early afternoon.

 

Internet users seemed particularly curious about what Cho might have meant by the phrase.

 

Technorati.com, a web site that tracks the blogosphere, said that by late afternoon Tuesday, there were nearly 300 blog posts regarding Ismail Ax.

 

The phrase was the 10th most popular search counted by Technorati. With two other terms related to the Virginia Tech killing in its top 10, that meant that millions of people got online and did a search of those or very similar words, said Derek Gordon, Technorati's marketing director.

 

"To raise into the top 10, there are initially tens of thousands of searches, then hundreds of thousands, then millions," Gordon said.

 

There were other reactions. A TV repair shop owner in Corpus Christi, Texas, registered the domain name http://www.ismailax.com the morning after the shootings.

 

"I guess I'm a professional domainer," said Raymond Patterson, who registered the site five minutes after he heard the phrase "Ismail Ax" mentioned on a Fox News broadcast. "When I hear a name, I register it. I have about 200 names right now."

 

Patterson said he had no intention of making "blood money" from the site.

 

As for the term's meaning, one popular theory spreading across the web comes from a story in the Koran, the holy book of Islam, about Ibrahim and his son, Ismail. This theory picked up speed because many bloggers wondered if the actions at Virginia Tech could be related to terrorism.

 

In Islam, Ibrahim is known as the father of the prophets and, upset that people in his hometown still worshiped idols and not Allah, he smashed all but one statue in a local temple with an ax. Ibrahim's son is Ismail, who also became a prophet. Ibrahim is Arabic for Abraham, who plays a significant role in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

 

Two theories come from literature, where Ismail is spelled Ishmael.

 

In one, tied to James Fenimore Cooper's novel "The Prairie," Ishmael Bush is known as an outcast and outlawed warrior, according to an essay written in 1969 by William H. Goetzmann, a University of Texas History professor. In Cooper's book, "Bush carries the prime symbol of evil - the spoiler's axe," the professor wrote.

 

Also, the narrator from Moby Dick, Ishmael, is considered an enigma who is well educated yet considers his time on a whaling ship worthy of time at Yale or Harvard, according to education site Sparknotes.com.

 

Cho was an English major at Virginia Tech.

 

Other theories speculate that Ismail Ax could be a reference to Cho's nickname on a video gaming site or that it is a misspelling of Turkish hip-hop artist Ismail YK.

 

Gordon of Technorati said the rapid rise on the internet of a term like Ismail Ax is not unusual. But it typically happens around terms in pop culture "like iPhone in January and, in March, Sanjaya and American Idol.

 

"It's nice to see that people also pay attention to the stuff that really matters," he said.

[Texsox]

You'd be surprised at how many English majors can't write worth a damn. I'm an engineer who hasn't taken an English class in over 4 years and I still make less grammatical mistakes than some senior English majors.

 

In researching changing my major from Psychology to English I was pleasantly surprised, and slight mortified, to learn that grammar is not a required course.

[WilliamTell]

One of my Scouting lists reported that one of the wounded was an Eagle Scout and applied emergency first aid to himself and probably saved his own life.

 

That's great news for him. Learning some survival tactics, most think they'll never have to use them, and they're probably right, but knowing how to use it when the time is right is great knowledge to have.

[BigSqwert]

From CNN.com:

 

Developing Story - Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui is believed to have sent a package of images and writings received by NBC news organization that police say may be critical to their investigation.

[thedoctor]

From CNN.com:

 

Developing Story - Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui is believed to have sent a package of images and writings received by NBC news organization that police say may be critical to their investigation.

 

supposedly he sent this between the first and second shootings.

[BigSqwert]

In an interview with MSNBC.com, Capus said Cho talks to the camera in the videos. In one instance, he makes a vague reference to the massacre, Capus said. "This didn't have to happen.""The statement is hard to follow, kind of rambling. He speaks about hatred," Capus said, adding that it was "disturbing, very angry, profanity laced."Police said the development might be "a very new, critical component of this investigation.""We're in the process right now of attempting to analyze and evaluate its worth," said Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of Virginia State Police.