well you've all heard what happened, some guy went into Virginia tech and killed 32 people, including himself. this is just a little article that i found about it on http://www.canoe.ca/:
BLACKSBURG, Va. (CP) - The killer in the bloodiest-ever gun massacre in the United States has been revealed to a Virginia Tech campus in mourning as an erratic 23-year-old English major, an eerily quiet loner who unnerved classmates with his violent, twisted writing.
Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean who moved to the United States with his family 14 years ago, left a rambling rant in his dorm room before a terrifying rampage that some students said they could see coming - but officials can't yet explain.
Police related chilling details about the undergraduate Tuesday as thousands of weeping students and family members of victims gathered to grieve at a ceremony attended by President George W. Bush.
"You caused me to do this," wrote Cho, railing against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" at the university of some 26,000 students in Blacksburg, a tight-knit southwestern Virginia town dominated by Virginia Tech.
Increasingly troubled in the days before he snapped and killed 32 people, including a Canadian professor, Cho committed suicide before SWAT teams could nab him.
Authorities say they're poring over documents from his dorm room to develop a better picture of the man who was once referred to counselling by school officials and wrote nightmarish plays that included chainsaws and other weapons.
Cho bought a Glock 19 handgun and a box of bullets five weeks ago in a shop in a nearby Richmond shop, setting off renewed debate about the ease of buying weapons in the United States. The undergraduate student, who
also had a 22-calibre gun, left a swath of blood and personal belongings of students scattered through the second floor of Norris Hall, following the shooting of two others at a residence on campus earlier Monday.
Police said it's "certainly reasonable" to assume Cho killed them too, saying they have no evidence there was an accomplice.
The victims include former Nova Scotia resident Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a foreign language professor who taught at Virginia Tech with her husband, a horticulture teacher.
Many on campus are still angry that police and university officials, who say they thought the original violence was an isolated domestic-related matter, took more than two hours to inform the campus by e-mail.
"I feel even a couple of lives could have been saved," said Justin Miller, 20, who's taking landscaping courses. "My parents are pretty upset."
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said he'll set up a commission to review how police and campus officials handled the nightmare that began Monday at about 7:15 a.m.
"Dealing with families is first," said Kaine.
Students by the thousands and families of the victims appeared to take some comfort in the words of Bush and others at a special service.
They filled a campus arena from the floor to the rafters and spilled over into the football field next door, a sea of orange and burgundy Virginia Tech T-shirts.
They sat quietly, numb, many crying softly as sobbing family members were led onto the floor to sit in the first few rows.
"People all over this country are thinking about you," said Bush, who took to a podium draped with black. "People who never met you are praying for you."
One woman sitting directly behind the president couldn't be comforted, even after a few personal words with Bush. When she left the arena, Bush bent over and held his head in his hands.
"We have lost the sense of peace that comes from learning," said Zenobia Hikes, vice-president of student affairs, who acknowledged "we are all reeling in excruciating grief."
"We will eventually recover. But we will never, ever forget."
Even beleaguered Virginia Tech president Charles Steger received a standing ovation before he described the "overwhelming, almost paralyzing" impact of the horrible nightmare.
Meantime, there were more questions Tuesday about why more wasn't done given concerns about Cho
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former c.l.a.s.smate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on a company website.
He and other students once talked "to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."
"His writing, the plays, were really morbid and grotesque," c.l.a.s.smate Stephanie Derry noted.
One, she said, was about a boy who hated his stepfather, involving chain saws and hammer.
"The play ended with the boy violently suffocating the father with a Rice Krispy treat," said Derry.
"I kept having to tell myself there is no way we could have known this was coming. I was just so frustrated that we saw all the signs, but never thought this could happen."
Cho arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where the bloodbath began.
Prof. Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said "there was some concern about him."
"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."
The Chicago Tribune, citing unidentified sources, said he had recently set a fire in a dorm room and stalked some women.
Investigators have linked a gun found in Norris Hall, where Cho kill 30 people and himself, with the deaths of the two others killed earlier.
"The evidence has not led us to where we can say with all certainty the same shooter was involved in both instances," said Col. Steve Flaherty of Virginia state police.
"It's certainly reasonable for us to assume (he was)."
The investigation and efforts to identify all the victims have been complicated by the "tremendous chaos and panic" in Norris Hall, he said.
Victims were found in at least four c.l.a.s.srooms and a stairwell, he told a news conference. Some students escaped the carnage by jumping from windows.
Dr. Marcella Fierro, Virginia's chief medical examiner, said it will take several days to identify all the victims.
c.l.a.s.s.e.s have been cancelled for the week "to allow students the time they need to grieve and seek assistance," said Steger.
Norris Hall will be closed for the rest of the semester and counselling will be available for extended hours.
John Marshall, Virginia's secretary of public safety, insisted officials "made the right decisions based on the best information they had at the time."
"You're not alone," he said. "Our focus needs to remain on the ongoing criminal investigation."
The first shooting began at 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a highrise co-ed dormitory where two people died.
The next one started after 9:45 a.m.
Steger empha.s.i.z.e.d that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word.
With 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to reach them, he said.
i just felt like posting this for those of you people who don't know what happened or wanted to know more about it.
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