Continuing Coverage by:

Police Identify Shooter

April 17, 2007

Joe Mackena, Media General News Service

SuspectBLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech officials disclosed this morning that the gunman believed responsible for killing 31 people yesterday in the worst shooting rampage in U.S. history was one of their own - a student.

At a 9:25 a.m. news conference, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum identified the killer as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old South Korean resident alien who had a Centerville address. He was a senior and an English major.

His motives were not addressed during the news conference.

The identities of the victims are still largely unknown to the public as university police continue to contact their families.

Students for the most part remained in their dorms today. Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger, in this morning's news conference, said the school was canceling all classes for the rest of the week. Administrative operations will resume tomorrow for staff members who feel capable of working, he said.

"We will close Norris Hall for the remainder of the semester," Steger said Details are still being worked out for where functions usually held at Norris will be conducted. Norris was the site of 31 of yesterday's 33 shooting deaths.

Flinchum said police recovered two handguns from Norris Hall: a .22-caliber and a 9mm.

Col. W. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said victims were found in at least four classrooms as well as a classroom at Norris Hall.

"We know that there were a number of heroic events," Flaherty said.

One of the weapons used in Norris Hall was also used in the earlier shooting deaths of two people in the Ambler Johnston West dormitory.

"It's certainly reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both places," Flaherty said, adding that authorities nonetheless had not yet developed concrete evidence that he was also responsible for the two deaths in the dorm.

Cho was among those found in Norris; authorities said he took his own life.

At the news conference this morning, Dr. Marcella Fiero, the state's chief medical examiner from Richmond, said identifying the dead will take several days.

"This is a process that cannot take place in haste," she said.

John Marshall, Virginia's secretary of public safety, sounded a similar theme about the criminal investigation, saying it will take time and that rushing to conclusions will serve no one.

"It's important that we get this done, but it's more important that we get this done right," Marshall said.

Tech is holding a convocation at Cassell Coliseum at 2 p.m., an event that both Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and President George Bush plan to attend. The school also plans to hold a vigil on the campus drillfield at 8 p.m.

Joe Macenka is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.