Grin of a silent killer
STUNNED students caught up in the bloodbath at Blacksburg told last night of the grin on the face of the cold-eyed killer as he gunned down his victims at random.
One witness said: “He had a smile on his face but there was no emotion in his eyes.”
The moving accounts of dozens of teenage students painted a scene of unprecedented horror at a place where their parents could reasonably have expected them to be safe.
They described how the silent killer strode from one classroom to another at the Virginia Tech University spraying bullets from two 9mm semi-automatic pistols.
Student Derek O’Dell was blasted in the arm as the young Asian gunman burst into his classroom and opened fire. He said: “It was just random shooting. He didn’t say anything. At first, I thought it was a joke.
“Then it became surreal very quickly. There was no warning before the killer calmly walked into our room and started shooting. I was probably one of 10 or 15 people hit.
“He just shot and left. A lot of my classmates were hit and possibly my professor too. The people who were less seriously injured, like myself, were able to hold the door shut because he tried to get back inside our room.
“He tried shooting through the door at us. Then the police came into our hall and cleared it and we all managed to get out where ambulances were waiting for us.”
Matt Maroney said students had thrown desks at a door and a teacher was shot in the arm. He added: “The gunman had an ungodly amount of ammo on him. He was just dressed in a vest filled with clips and started firing away at classrooms.” Blake Harrison said he was on his way to class near the engineering hall when he witnessed the chaos.
He added: “A teacher came flying out of the building. He was bleeding from his arm. All the students were streaming out to take shelter. They were completely freaked out.
“The shooter was wearing a vest covered in clips and was just unloading on the door, going from classroom to classroom.
“The students told me that it never seemed like it was going to stop and there was blood all over the place.”
The killer, in a maroon hat and black leather jacket, struck first at a dormitory where one person was killed and another injured. University officials ordered a security “lock-down” to prevent anyone moving around. But two hours later it was lifted, a fateful decision which will be central to the official inquiry into the tragedy.
The response of the authorities to the intial shooting was the source of growing unease last night as the country tried to come to terms with the tragedy.
Student Jason Piatt said: “What happened today was ridiculous. I’m outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at about 7.0 in the morning and there is no mention of locking down campus, no mention of cancelling classes.
They just mention in an email two hours later that they’re investigating a shooting. That was about 9:22.
Jason added: “Meanwhile, while they’re sending out that email, more people are getting killed.”
The gunman was left free to roam to the other end of the huge campus where he killed most of his victims at the engineering building. Students said squads of armed officers had eventually flooded onto the campus. Matt Amberlake said: “There are cops everywhere. Everyone is carrying an assault rifle or gun of some kind. It’s like a war zone.”
Another student said: “I heard that the gunman walked into a classroom and none of the students in there came out alive.”
Student Grace Powell said: “A friend told me there were multiple shots being fired which sounded like a jack hammer, there were so many shots going off.”
Student Amanda Johnson was walking close to the engineering hall when she heard six rapid shots from the killer’s guns.
She looked on in horror as one of her classmates leapt out of a window to escape the killer. He was helped to safety.
Fellow student Brittany Sammon said: “There were police driving through the neighbourhood with loudspeakers saying ‘This is an emergency, everyone stay inside. There was no one outside, no traffic, everyone was doing what they were told.”
Matteo del Ninno,19, told how he escaped the carnage after oversleeping. He said: “I was rushing to class when my girlfriend text-messaged me to see if I was OK.
“I hadn’t heard anything about the shootings but there were ambulances all around. I got to the campus and turned around. Back home there were messages from my friends and family asking if I was OK.
“I still don’t know what happened to my friends.They are engineering students who always meet before class in the hall.”
Additional reporting by Allister Hagger
