Virginia Tech Criticized for Inaction

(NEWSER) - Police have a preliminary ID on the man who gunned down 30 people at Virginia Tech, but they aren't ready to release it, CNN reports. They won’t even confirm that the same gunman pulled the trigger at two the sites across campus, two hours apart, in the largest mass killing in American history. More»

(NEWSER) - At least 32 students are dead after a gunman opened fire on a Virginia Tech dormitory and classroom building this morning. The shooter is dead; two dozen other students were wounded in the attack. “This place is in a state of panic,” one student told CNN; others report watching classmates jump from dormitory windows to escape the attack. More»

Playwriting class submissions cast their writer as "school shooter" type

(NEWSER) - Ian MacFarlane, a former classmate of Seung Cho, blogs on AOL about two plays written by the Virginia Tech killer for a writing class. The short pieces, along with other compositions, writes MacFarlane, were "like something out of a nightmare," imagining bizarre murders and exuding an obsession with revenge. More»

School waited too long to send out warnings, says jury

(NEWSER) - Virginia Tech was found legally negligent by a jury today in a lawsuit stemming from the 2007 school shooting that killed 33 people. The issue at stake was whether the university improperly delayed sending out warnings after the first two murders were discovered in a dorm, reports AP . Campus police waited two and a half hours before sending out an all-school warning that a "shooting incident" had occurred," notes the Richmond Times-Dispatch . More»

More details emerge on campus shootings

(NEWSER) - Deriek W. Crouse, the police officer killed yesterday during a traffic stop on the Virginia Tech campus, was a 39-year-old Army veteran and father of five. He and the suspected shooter, who was apparently found dead nearby, were shot with the same handgun, police confirmed today. The suspect is believed to have committed suicide as police closed in, the Washington Post reports. "We have recovered clothing items that would lead us to believe that" the second body found is that of the shooter, an investigator tells the New York Times . More»