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Don Petersen / AP
Virginia Tech police officers console one another as they move toward the scene where a fellow police officer was killed in a parking lot on the campus of Virginia Tech, Dec. 8, in Blacksburg, Va. A man killed a police officer and another person after a traffic stop Thursday at Virginia Tech, sending a shudder through campus as students and faculty were told to stay inside and police searched for the gunman, school officials said.
NBC News and msnbc.com staff report:
The officer was shot during a traffic stop, Virginia Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski told NBC News.
"Witnesses reported to police the shooter fled on foot heading toward the Cage, a parking lot near Duck Pond Drive. At that parking lot, a second person was found. That person is also deceased, Owczarski said.
A Virginia Tech alert described the suspected shooter as a white male wearing gray sweat pants, a gray hat with a neon green brim and a maroon hoodie, and carrying a backpack.
Read the full story here.
Don Petersen / AP
Local S.W.A.T. team members congregate near a parking lot on the campus of Virginia Tech to look for an armed man who is suspected of killing two people, Dec. 8, in Blacksburg, Va. The school said a police officer pulled someone over for a traffic stop and was shot and killed. The shooter ran toward a nearby parking lot, where a second person was found dead. It was the first gunfire on campus since 33 people were killed in 2007 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The deaths came on the same day university officials were in Washington appealing a fine that federal officials gave them over the school's response five years ago.
Don Petersen / AP
Police officials examine the body of a police officer shot to death in a parking lot on the campus of Virginia Tech, Dec. 8, in Blacksburg, Va. The school said a police officer pulled someone over for a traffic stop and was shot and killed. The shooter ran toward a nearby parking lot, where a second person was found dead. It was the first gunfire on campus since 33 people were killed in 2007 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The deaths came on the same day university officials were in Washington appealing a fine that federal officials gave them over the school's response five years ago.
Katherine Davison / Reuters
Armed police officers search the Virginia Tech campus near the Squires Student Center for a gunman after a police officer and another person were shot and killed on the campus in Blacksburg, Va., Dec. 8.
Leave a Comment:
The argument that anyone who wants to kill will use a rock, stick or knife ignores the reality that none of those means can kill so many so quickly as an automatic weapon. If you want to find the source of this specious argument, follow the money. The sale of automatic weapons means big money. The bigger the money-motivated-argument, the harder it is to defeat with even the most rational of arguments.
Yes, do follow the money. Guns, drugs. . . .
How do you get an automatic weapon??
What the hell!!! Do we ever learn?
Bet you the shooter is an outsider, probably influenced by the 2007 shooting. Such things only damage the reputation of VT.
And they don't have the shooter.
Here's a thought : we have a lot of veterans who came home to find they no longer had a job. Maybe they stayed in 6-10 years. If they enlisted at 18 and did 20, they are now only 38 yrs old.
Put them to work on campuses! Every needs security. If Wall St. --which is full of criminals-- can get a bail-out, we can protect our campuses and take care of our veterans.
Or does this make too much sense?
criminals comment crimes... hence that is why the guy killed the cops because he didn't want to be caught.
Don't blame the gun for commiting the crime....
I do blame the guns & the gun makers,the gun sellers and the gun owners. Not everyone can clean their hands of this problem so easily with such a blanket statement. It is sooo much more complex than that.It's just an excuse for gun lovers to fall back on, so please dont' trivialize something that kills & is so easily gotten because there is big money in selling guns legally & illegally. If we use you theory we should legalize marijuana.Pot doesn't make you high the user has to smoke it for that to happen !
This is a ridiulous sentiment. Gun ownership is at an all time high, and the violent crime rate is at is lowest level in many years. In the early '90s, there were approximately 28,000 murders per year. That number is currently down approximately 50%. Perhaps there is a correlation....Do not let yourself be fooled by the media, madam.
And that would be a fact according to--who? And maybe gun ownership being at an all time high is why we read so much about kids finding guns & shooting themselves & loved ones or worse unsuspecting victims. Too many gunowners are irresponsible or not trained well about gun ownership. We cannot solve all the problems that come with legal guns but to say that" people kill not guns " is way too simplistic for my liking that's my opinion which is worth just as much as everyone elses. Okay with all of you ? Thanks.
That is a fact according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Statistics.
I doubt they'd fudge the numbers in favor of gun owners with this administration.
I come from a country where guns are not allowed. So just criminals have them of course. The only thing I can say is that criminals are afraid of decent people carrying guns. People don't know the value of something until they lose that something.
@mamma bear
When i was 16 i was assaulted by a 56 year old child molester and i stabbed him and he died. do you think that knives should be taken away too? I have since, in the last 20 years had many guns some of them illegal and some of them assault rifles and ive never shot anyone. take from this what you will but the neighborhood i grew up in more people died from beatings than from guns. just a thought but maybe it is the people who are to blame and not the weapons they use.
@mamma bear
When i was 16 i was assaulted by a 56 year old child molester and i stabbed him and he died. do you think that knives should be taken away too? I have since, in the last 20 years had many guns some of them illegal and some of them assault rifles and ive never shot anyone. take from this what you will but the neighborhood i grew up in more people died from beatings than from guns. just a thought but maybe it is the people who are to blame and not the weapons they use.
Banning guns does not stop crimes with guns. DC use to have one of the strictest gun laws but at the same time had the highest murder rate in the country. If criminals want guns they are going to get them. If they go to Mexico the ATF will give them one.
Here some food for thought to all you that blame the gun and the gun makers.. In a small town in Oklahoma the made a law that every person on their 18th birthday had to own a gun. Now for the first 5 years crime was pretty bad rose 500% but at the end of that 5 years violent crimes dropped to less then 1%. Think about it would you walk into a bank to rob it with every person in there carring a gun?? I dont think so. So my point is people kill people not guns kill people. Once you clear out all the idiots that are willing to try to rob a store or bank then you have less of a chance of that kind of crime.
I am curious to find out how many of these murders are committed by "legal gun owners " Just a thought. Oh yes, this one is now dead but how many are behind him?
People always cry for gun control, but look at Vermont. Completely unlicensed concealed and open carry, but they have one of the lowest crime rates in the country. The gun control argument is absolute rubbish. We need felon control!
Bill,
I couldn't have said it better myself. Gun control is for the benefit of criminals who could care less about laws anyway.
The first thing that people have to understand about a gun. It is used to provide food or provide yourself with protection. Remember freedom only prevails through our military men and women who serve our country. Cops issue traffic tickets Swat ,Snipers and the FBI Shoot to kill. THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS AMEN
ACU and multicam???? seriously???? I bet it took more time to don the gear than to respond to the incident.
It is illegal to own a gun in Mexico. It must be impossible to get shot there. lol. Nobody would dare mess around on your property in Texas. Know why? They'd have their a**es handed to them and the bill for the bullet mailed to the perps family. Outlaw the guns and ONLY the outlaws will have them.
excuse me craze but you must not read or watch the news much because the farmers in southern Texas & other border states ( they own guns probably legal) are scared sh-tless because the mexican cartels are using their farms to use as routes for their illegal drugs to get into the USA.( they can hide their activities in the higher growing crops ) They are very worried for their employees ,their families and themselves as many have been shot at when they happen to come across the cartel mules( who also have guns probably & most likely illegal ) on their land. Is all this info lost on all of you or do you still think guns being so prolific has nothing to do with anything ? Where does everyone think these criminals get these guns? Hint: not in their cereal boxes. Someone somewhere who is probably a legal dealer sold them to someone illegally for alot of money & that person continued to sell for MONEY to another criminal ( where do you think most of the guns in Mexico come from ? YUP the USA ) So it sure sounds like someone DOES mess around with the property owners doesn't it? Again--nothing simple about guns !
If guns Kill people,pencils make people miss spell words,Then spoons made Rosie O'donell fat.
Now that sh*t is funny. I love it.
NEVER let idiots take your guns. Here in the US our nation was built on rugged individualism, the 1st and 2nd Ammendments of the Constitution....and Christianity. By the way, and i'm sure i'll get an ignorant response from some, do we agree that as we have slowly eroded away our Faith and awe in God in this nation, that He will also stay His Hand from protecting us because of our wickedness and forsaking of His laws? Absolutely. The Church needs to pray. The Church needs to awaken. Violent crime is always an outcropping of a nation dependent upon itself as it declares that it does not need Almighty God. And look what we have.
Its not the guns its the overwhelming do good in people who just cannot bear to deal with criminals in a way they should be instead of anaylzing what happened to them when they were young and what mom or dad may have not hugged them enough we need to stream line the sentencing and trials they go through and when found guilty do what has to be done,keep career criminals in jail,mental subjects prone to be predators off the streets as well and quit having so much conscious as to what happens to them.
How funny that all your speculation amounted to zip. It has been confirmed the shooter was not even involved in the traffic stop. Thus that would indicate a personal reason for this shooting. Also it has been reported the shooter is in fact the second body found on cmapus and was not shot by any officers, thus either A) self inflicted or B) some anynomous citizen legaly bearing arms. Either way a lot to do about nothing as it will most likely turn out to be a love triangle gone bad.