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Uncertain future reverberates in Norris Hall
Some want to reclaim the hall; others want it razed and replaced with a
memorial.
By Tim Thornton
381-1669
Photo by Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times
A memorial was created at the base of a tree in front of Norris Hall, where 30
people were killed Monday.
Related
Complete coverage: Stories, photos and multimedia
For the past 47 years, Norris Hall fit in with all the other Hokie stone
buildings around Virginia Tech's campus. But now Norris, named for former
engineering dean Earl Norris, is set off by yellow and black crime scene tape
and guarded by Virginia state troopers.
On Monday, Seung-Hui Cho walked into Norris, chained two sets of doors behind
him and began shooting. He killed 30 people, and 28 more were injured or wounded
there before Cho committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
What was a building filled with classrooms, laboratories and professors' offices
had become the scene of the worst campus shooting rampage in the nation's
history.
And two Tech departments -- engineering, and foreign languages and literatures
-- are now dealing with multiple issues surrounding the building: the loss of
teaching experience there, the loss of students there; how to handle classes
now; and the long-term future of the Norris building itself.
No one will deliver lectures or conduct experiments in Norris for the rest of
this academic year, but what will become of the building after that remains
uncertain.
"I think I'd be speaking out of turn in terms of Norris long term," said Lynn
Nystrom, spokeswoman for the College of Engineering.
Nystrom had an office on the third floor of Norris. She was among the people
evacuated Monday when the shooting stopped one floor below. The way out was
blocked by a set of chained doors, she said, so the group she was with had to
detour through an auditorium.
She and others who needed to retrieve things from Norris were allowed back into
the building Wednesday and again Thursday.
"Going in last night was emotionally extremely difficult," Nystrom said Thursday
afternoon. "Today it was a little easier."
Counselors accompanied people into the building, she said. State troopers helped
carry boxes and bags out of offices and labs.
"The next time we're able to get in, I'm not sure."
She's not sure about what will become of the building, either.
"What ultimately happens -- I think there's a range of options that are being
considered," Nystrom said. "We've got a range of opinions. Yes, there would be
people who would be willing to work out of Norris, but at this point that is not
an option."
Some people want to have the building cleaned and repaired and reclaimed as soon
as possible. Others want to raze Norris and put up a memorial in its place.
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The petition went online about noon Thursday.
In 27 hours, the petition had more than 2,700 signatures.
More than the fate of the building hangs in the balance, of course. The injured
students and the friends and family of the dead and wounded need support. And
there are academic departments that must recover and rebuild.
Richard Shryock is chairman of the department of foreign languages and
literatures, a department that was hit especially hard. Two professors and 15
students were killed. He said on Wednesday that he had no clue, "not one
scintilla of information, on injuries."
Shryock said there are three categories of classes he's trying to plan for. "You
have a Spanish or Russian class, where students may have known some of the
students killed, but are not directly affected any more than, say, someone in
accounting. That's one group. The university is trying to deal in general with
those.
"My particular challenge is with the two other categories of classes." Those are
the French classes taught by Jocelyne Couture-Nowak and the German classes
taught by Jamie Bishop.
There are three classes in which none of the students was injured, but they have
lost their instructors, Shryock said.
Then there are the classes the two professors were teaching Monday where they
and so many of their students died.
"In the case of classrooms where there was death, we actually don't yet know the
extent of the situation -- how many students are around to have a class,
particularly in the case of the French class" where the 11 students died with
their instructor. "I fear very few."
The college of engineering lost nine students and three professors. In addition
to Librescu, professors G.V. Loganathan and Kevin Granata died Monday. Granata
was a rising star. Loganathan was an established star.
"He won award after award after award," Nystrom said. "His first love was his
students. His first love was the classroom and teaching."
But there are many outstanding professors in the college, she said, and many are
volunteering to pick up for their fallen colleagues.
Engineering administrators who had their offices in Norris a week ago are
sharing telephones and computers at a conference table in Durham Hall now.
Friday afternoon, it was still unclear where classes scheduled for Norris will
meet Monday. Such things must be addressed, of course, but they are not at the
front of most people's minds.
"Beyond the grief," engineering professor Krishnan Ramu said last week, "there's
no thought beyond that now."
Staff writer Cody Lowe contributed to this report.
Librescu petition online: www.petitiononline.com/04172007/petition.html
As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the
Holocaust, a 76-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in
Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 33 dead and over two dozen
wounded.
Professor Liviu Librescu z"l
Photo: Virginia Tech website
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Several of
Librescu's
other students sent e-mails to his wife,
Marlena,
telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said
Librescu's son, Joe.
"My father blocked the doorway with his
body and asked the students to flee," Joe
Librescu
said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv.
"Students started opening windows and jumping out."
Librescu was respected in his field, his son said.
"His work was his life, in a sense," said Joe. "That was a good place for him to
practice his research."
Investigators search Norris Hall for clues to the shooting at Virginia Tech in
Blacksburg, Va.
Photo: AP , AP
The couple immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978. They then moved to
Virginia in 1986 for his sabbatical and had stayed since then, Joe told Army
Radio.
The gunman was later identified on Tuesday afternoon as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a
South Korean citizen who was studying legally in the United States as an English
major at Virginia Tech.
Earlier, Virginia Tech's president said the gunman in the second of two campus
attacks was a student at the university. He also defended the school's delay in
warning students about what became the deadliest shooting rampage in US history.
Though university president Charles Steger did not explicitly say the student,
who he identified as an Asian male, was also the gunman in the first shooting,
he said he did not believe there was another shooter. The gunman struck down two
people at a dormitory Monday before killing 30 more people in a campus building
and finally killing himself with a shot to his head.
"We do know that he was an Asian male - this is the second incident - an Asian
man who was a resident in one of our dormitories," said Steger in an interview
with CNN, confirming for the first time that the killer was a student.
Some students said their first warning came more than two hours after the first
shooting, in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m. By then the second shooting had begun.
"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action
after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor
of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory where the shooting began and
two people died.
Steger said the university was trying to notify students who were already
on-campus, not those who were commuting in.
"We warned the students that we thought were immediately impacted," he told CNN.
"We felt that confining them to the classroom was how to keep them safest."
He said investigators did not know there was a shooter loose on campus in the
interval between the two shootings because the first could have been a
murder-suicide.
Two students told NBC television's "Today" show they were unaware of the dorm
shooting when they reported to a German class where the gunman later opened
fire.
Derek O'Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired
away in "eerily silence" with "no specific target - just taking out anybody he
could."
After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people
down the hall. O'Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the
shooter couldn't get back in - though he later tried.
"After he couldn't get the door open he tried shooting it open... but the
gunshots were blunted by the door," O'Dell said.
President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush were planning to attend a 2
p.m. (1800 GMT) convocation Tuesday, and people sought comfort Monday night at a
church servide.
"For Ryan and Emily and for those whose names we do not know," one woman pleaded
in a church service Monday night.
Another mourner added: "For parents near and far who wonder at a time like this,
'Is my child safe?"'
That question promises to haunt Blacksburg long after Monday's attacks.
Investigators offered no motive, and the gunman's name was not immediately
released.
The shooting began about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of the dorm.
Police were still investigating around 9:15 a.m., when a gunman wielding two
handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition stormed Norris Hall, a
classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus.
At least 15 people were hurt in the second attack, some seriously. Many found
themselves trapped after someone, apparently the shooter, chained and locked
Norris Hall doors from the inside.
Students jumped from windows, and students and faculty carried away some of the
wounded without waiting for ambulances to arrive.
Police commandos swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera
to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.
Inside Norris, the attack began with a thunderous sound from Room 206 - "what
sounded like an enormous hammer," said Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior who
was in a solid mechanics lecture in a classroom next door.
Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students
realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks
to make hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor
classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he
said.
"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the
last," said Calhoun. He landed in a bush and ran.
Calhoun said that the two students
behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed
out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at his professor, who had stayed
behind, apparently to prevent the gunman from opening the door.
“My dad just told them to open the windows and jump. It was on the second floor but there was a bush under the windows. He went to hold the door,” he said.
“We don’t know if (Librescu was shot) through the door or if at the end the person was able to push open the door and just shoot him,” the son said.
Arieh described his father as “dedicated to the scientific world, very honest and righteous. “In August he would have been 77,” he said.
They are the witnesses who were in the line of fire on Monday when Seung-Hui Cho
went on the deadliest shooting spree in American history. Here, in excerpts from
PEOPLE's cover story, those who saw the horror firsthand recall the chaos of
those terrifying moments – and one professor's stunning bravery.
At 9:30 campus housekeeper Pam Tickle, 50, was beginning her rounds in Norris
Hall when a student reported something odd: One of the building's exits had been
chained shut.
TICKLE: I was dust-mopping the hall, and when I got to the end, a student was
trying to get out the door, but it had a chain around it with a lock. That was
weird. I've never seen that. The student said, "What's going on?" I said, "I
don't know, but I'm going to call my boss."
At about that time, sophomore Trey Perkins, 20, was in his German class on
Norris's second floor.
PERKINS: I saw this guy come in and start shooting. I turned over two desks just
to get some kind of barricade. People around me were hit. After he left, he
tried to come back in, but I and two other classmates, a guy and a girl,
barricaded the door with our feet and arms. He shot through the door about five
times. We saw bullets splinter the wood. But we kept him out. He never said a
word the whole time. After he left, I tried to find anyone who was conscious.
There was so little we could do. I gave my jacket to a guy who was shot in the
thigh. Another girl was shot in the mouth. I gave my stocking knit cap to her to
try to stop the bleeding.
On the first floor, Gene Cole, 52, a Virginia Tech custodian, was talking to his
supervisor Johnny Long.
COLE: This guy came up and said, "There's shooting going on." Then I saw people
come running out of the lab and say, "Somebody got shot in there." I went
upstairs to the second floor to get my coworker Pam Tickle. I got off the
elevator, and I saw blood all over the hallways. I went around the corner toward
her [utility] closet, and I saw something laying in the hallway.
As he drew closer, Cole realized it was a body.
COLE: That's when this guy jumped out of a classroom and started shooting at me.
He fired five times from about 40 feet away. I thought I was gone. I felt the
bullets behind my ears when they were floating by.
Nearby, Richard Mallalieu, 23, and fellow students in Prof. Liviu Librescu's
engineering class in Norris 204 heard a commotion outside their classroom.
MALLALIEU: About halfway through class, I heard something coming from the room
directly behind us. I thought it was gunshots. I tried to convince myself it
wasn't. But it was.
Also in class was Andrey Andreyev, 19.
ANDREYEV: Once we heard the screams, there were no longer any questions about
what was happening.
MALLALIEU: At first everybody got down on the ground. Somebody went to the door
to see if we could get out. But there were gunshots in the hall. We weren't
going to be able to get out that way.
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Prof. Liviu Librescu
As the gunman moved from classroom to classroom, Gene Cole managed to escape by
dashing for the building's rear stairwell. Housekeeper Pam Tickle was safe as
well. She and coworkers locked themselves in a student lounge and waited out the
gunfire. Meanwhile, in Norris 204, Professor Librescu continued to barricade the
doorway as his students escaped.
MALLALIEU: I think 12 or 15 students went out the windows. Four students and our
professor were in the room when the gunman got in. I think all four are going to
be okay. But our professor died.
ANDREYEV:
He saved everyone in the classroom. He saved our lives. As I got ready to jump
out the window, I turned back to look at the professor. He just stood there,
holding the door. The last I saw him, he was blocking the door.
If you have information you would like to share about those who died in the
tragedy, PEOPLE would like to hear about it.
See PEOPLE's complete coverage of the tragedy.
Finally, Dr. Liviu Librescu, an accomplished scientist and engineering
professor, died in April saving his students from the gunman who had gone on a
killing rampage at Virgina Tech. Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who was interned
at a labor camp as a boy and deported to a Romanian ghetto, told his students to
jump from the windows of the second-floor classroom, while he barricaded the
door with his body. He was shot and
killed through the door. Our members voted Dr. Librescu their number one
choice.
In an interview with Beliefnet, Librescu's widow, Marilena said, "I was not
surprised. I know Liviu very well, and I understand his last decisions. He
cannot jump first and leave the young students there in the classroom."
1st_version
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One of Librescu's students, Andrey Andreyev, tried to get him to flee with the
rest of the class, but the 76-year-old professor refused. As Andreyev made his
way out of the window, he turned and saw Librescu still blocking the door.
In a recent interview with Beliefnet, Andreyev, 20, says he plans to follow in
his research advisor's footsteps by becoming a professor himself. "What he did
was an unbelievable thing," said Andreyev. "But, what he did, to me, has always
been just a final proof of what he was like as a person. He would always do
anything for his students."
This year, Beliefnet has chosen Liviu Librescu is the Most Inspiring Person of
2007 for his heroic actions and the sacrifice he made to protect his students.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Revisiting Virginia Tech: The Conclusion
Three students, fighting for their lives, had kept Seung Hui Cho out of
German class where he had come to finish them off. (http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2007/08/revisiting-virginia-tech-massacre-part.html)
Cho pumped five or six shots into the door in frustration. Then he turned and
walked across the hall to Room 204/ Solid Mechanics class. He was in for a
surprise.
The class had been in high alert from the moment
Prof.
Liviu
Librescu
saw Cho,
gun in hand, leaving the room next door, Room 206, about three minutes
earlier. Librescu told his students to get to the back of the room while he kept
watch by the door. Two male students had bolted for safety, only to wind up
right in front of Cho, who shot one of them twice.
Back in Room 204, the students were doing what they could.
"Everybody just got down on the ground," said Richard Mallalieu, 23. "We used
desks to shield ourselves. One of my friends (Alex Calhoun - ed.) called 911."
"Somebody went up to the door to see if we could get out."
That was Matt Webster, 23. He said he put his head out to see what was going on.
"I heard a girl scream and what sounded like gunshots."
"One student tried going out the front door but as soon as he opened it, it
sounded as if the gunshots started coming towards us. Dr. Librescu shut the door
and stood guard after the student ran back into the classroom. " recalled Josh
Wargo.
The scream most likely came from Room 207, German class, and may have been Erin
Sheehan, who said later she screamed when Cho killed her teacher in front of the
class.
Webster ran to the back of the room, leaped onto the windowsill and began
kicking out the screens. Three windows were swung open but the gunshots got
louder, he said.
"It sounded like he was going out into the hallway," Mallalieu said.
Students began jumping. It was almost 20 feet to the ground outside.
Jesse Wells was the first one out. "At
this point I opened the window and removed the screen and shouted out that there
was a bush to jump on...I made it safely to the ground."
Jeff
Twigg
landed hard and broke his leg is two places (the tibia and fibia).
Caroline Merry, 22, tossed her
knapsack and windbreaker out the window and climbed out: " I hung from the
window from my fingertips and I just closed my eyes and said to myself, "Here we
go." She landed on her back and lay there stunned.
"I knocked the wind out of myself for like 30-45 seconds. I'm sitting there
thinking I made it out of the classroom, but what's gonna stop him from looking
out the window since I can't even move...I'm still in trouble, but two of my
classmates came back for me at least."
She landed next to Kelly
Swinson
who twisted her ankle when she jumped.
Richard
Mallalieu hung from the window
ledge, then let go.
"For me, it wasn't a choice [to jump out the window]. It was kind of a grassy
area, so it wasn't like falling on stairs or concrete. I just kind of fell and
rolled, so I wasn't hurt at all."
Andrey Andreyev tried to pull Prof. Livescu to the back of the class, but his
teacher pushed him away. He encouraged his students to get out as fast as
possible.
"As I got ready to jump out the window,"
said Andreyev,
"I turned back to look at the professor. He just stood there, holding the door.
The last I saw him, he was blocking the door."
Josh
Wargo
was one of the last to get out.
" When I landed I was in a daze, standing outside of the building. Then I heard
shots going through glass, that's when it hit me that I had to get out of
there."
Jake
Grohs
was hanging from the window when Cho came into the room. He dropped,
hearing people being shot.
Cho
pushed his way into Room 204 past the 76-year-old professor who was blocking the
door with his own body. Prof.
Livescu was shot in the face at
point blank range. Student Minal
Panchal,
standing beside him and possibly helping him hold the door shut, was shot next.
Alex Calhoun, 20, was at the windows but held back to the last minute.
"Before I jumped I turned around and looked at the professor, who stayed behind
to block the door. He had been killed. I could see the people jump in front of
me, and a couple of people broke ankles, legs.
So I aimed for a bush and I hit the bush first, so I ended up OK."
But time had run out for the last two
students waiting to jump.
Matt Webster dropped to his knees and curled up in a ball "tornado-drill style."
He was shot from three feet away. A bullet grazed his forehead and ricocheted
into his right bicep.
Justin Klein was shot three times
-- twice in his right leg and once in his left elbow. He stayed down and
pretended he was dead.
Jew_shot_5 times
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By this time the police were swarming the area at last.
Back in Room 211/French, the Virginia Tech Police Lt. Debbi Morgan was still
talking to Emily Haas.
According to the account of the call in Washington Post:
Morgan: "Stay under the desk." "Keep talking to me. We're hurrying. They'll be
there in a minute."
Haas: "Thank you."
Silence.
Morgan: "Are you there?"
Hass: (whispering) "Yeah, I'm here."
"We need an ambulance."
Was the door locked? Morgan asked.
It doesn't lock, Haas replied.
The police arrived three minutes after the Haas 911 call began, the chief of
police said later.
The Washington Post says Blacksburg Police Sgt. Anthony Wilson and four other
officers ran to the front double door of Norris Hall. They found that the thick
wooden doors chained shut from the inside. They could hear shots---and people
screaming.
They ran to another door, where they with SWAT team officers. That door was also
chained shut.
"Shoot the chain," they yelled in unison, recounted the Washington Post. Twice
an officer fired a shotgun at the chains but couldn't break them. Cho had run
out of schoolrooms. He began zigzagging along the hallway, retracing his steps.
According to an early story in the New York Daily News, Cho went back to German
class, Room 207, a third time. (OUT OF THE HORROR EMERGES A HERO, ANDREA PEYSER,
April 17, 2007)
"He could hear us talking," said Derek O'Dell.
But this time, he could not get the door open at all. So he shot another round
or two into the door and left. No one was hit.
Back across the hall he went, to Hydrology class, Room 206 again.
He sprayed the room with bullets, shooting dead and wounded alike.
Nathaniel Krause had miraculously been spared during Cho's first attack on the
class. Cho had come to finish everyone off, but once again his incredible luck
saved him, but at the expense of a fellow classmate's life.
As Cho went along the front row shooting into bodies he was approaching Krause
when Waleed Shaalan, 32, in the the second row, stood up to attract his
attention. Cho shot and killed Shaalan, who fell over Krause, shielding him.
Cho poured shots in the direction of Gil Colman, who felt two or three strike
the body of Partahi Lumbantoruan as it lay across Colman.
Lee Hixon, cowering in the back of the room, said Cho fired four times in his
direction, without hitting him.
Outside, Blacksburg Police Chief Kim Crannis and Virginia Tech Police Chief
Wendell Flinchum were waiting at the entrance to Norris Hall for bolt cutters to
break through the chains holding the doors closed.
Janitor Gene Cole had come up to the second floor to find his co-worker, Pam
Tickles, and get her out of the building. As he looked down the hallway he saw
someone on the ground, writhing and trying to get up. It was Prof. Kevin Granata,
although Cole didn't know it at the time.
He was about to go to help the injured person, when
Cho
stepped out of Room 206 and spotted Cole. "I was looking at somebody else
who was already shot," Cole said. "I was shot at five times."
Cole took the back stairs two at a time as the bullets whizzed by his head so
close he could hear them.
Room 211, Emily Haas could hear the gunshots again, getting louder. So could Lt.
Morgan over the 911 line.
Haas: (whispering) "He's in here."
It was 9:48.
Cho had returned to Room 211.
Pop. Pop.
Morgan heard Haas scream. A blood-curdling, hysterical scream.
Haas: "I just got hit." Cho was walking through the room, determined to kill
anyone left alive
Hillary Strollo told her brother "... he fired approximately 5- to 6- clips
around 3 bullets into each person in the classroom."
Strollo was shot in the left side of her stomach and buttocks and a bullet
grazed her head. One bullet lodged near her spine. "Blood was running down her
face, so she thinks he thought she was dead and he didn't come back again."
Clay Violand said he continued to play dead. "He began unloading what it seemed
like a second round into everyone again - it had to be the same people. There
were way more gunshots than there were people in that room. I think I heard him
reload maybe three times."
Heidi Miller was shot three times in her left side, in her knee, buttocks and
thigh. She had already been shot in the lower abdomen. Doctors had to put screws
in her shattered knee and a titanium rod in her femur (thigh bone).
Haas was grazed in the head by two bullets. (The wounds were minor and she left
the hospital the day of the shooting.)
The terror of the moment is heard on the 911 call to police:
Over the phone, Morgan heard another loud gunshot. And another. She heard Emily
Haas' breathing quicken.
Haas: "He's reloading."
Morgan: "Okay, there's units there. Stay calm. Try to stay calm. Ease your
breathing."
Morgan: "What's your name?"
Haas: "I can't talk."
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Morgan: (to a dispatcher) "Still shooting in Norris."
Haas screamed.
Outside, student Jamal Albarghouti noticed policemen running by with their guns
out.
"I thought there was just another bomb threat. Then I started hearing some
gunshots far away... And then all the cops were trying to get into Norris
Hall..."
He started shooting the action with his cellphone video.
"... and they used like a bomb or something to open one of the doors. Probably
they dropped a bomb in the building. There was a person on the second floor of
Norris trying to tell the cops that he's in there. And probably trying to guide
him in."
Lt. Curtis Cook, leader of the Virginia Tech SWAT team, was at the back of the
building with some of his men. They saw a wooden door next to the one chained
shut was locked with a deadbolt. One officer blasted the lock with a shotgun and
the police went into Norris Hall.
They split up. Some, including (Sgt. Anthony) Wilson, the Blacksburg SWAT team
leader, started up a staircase. Cook and his group moved down the first-floor
hall, checking classrooms in an "emergency clearing" tactic, and headed up
another staircase, at the other end of the hall, so they would have both sides
of the second floor covered. (Washington Post, June 26, 2007)
Colin Goddard watched as Cho "made multiple passes around the room and shot
multiple people multiple times. He had been shooting very rapidly in succession
and reloading quickly. He reloaded in our room a few times. He kept dropping
clips and changing them out."
Goddard tried to play head, but that didn't matter to Cho anymore. He came so
close his boot nearly brushed Goddard's leg--and he shot Goddard two more times.
One bullet entered his right armpit and went out his shoulder. The other went
into his right buttock.
Goddard tried to keep still. He heard one shot. Then another.
At 9:51, as Lt. Cook and Sgt. Wilson
moved up opposite stairwells, they heard the last gunshot.
In Room 211 the silence was overwhelming.
Goddard turned to his friend Kristina Heeger, who had been shot in the back, and
asked,"Is he here?"
Allison Cook, 19, opened her eyes. Emily Haas, her sorority sister, was near
her, still on the cell phone.
Clay Violand was across from Cook who lay wounded with gunshot wounds to her
side, shoulder and lower back.
One bullet entered her ribs, collapsing a lung.
"You're going to be OK," Violand told her.
Lt. Morgan was still talking to Emily Haas.
Morgan: "Stay calm."
"The officers are inside, so just stay calm. Stay with me. Stay calm."
A few minutes later, police were banging at the door shouting and trying to push
their way in. But the door was blocked.
Morgan asked Haas to open the door and let the police in. Haas went to the door
and found the bodies of Prof. Jocelyn Couture-Nowak and a classmate. She tried
to open the door, but didn't have the strength. Police pushed their way in.
Goddard said he heard one of them shout, "The shooter is down! The shooter is
'black'!"
posted by The Black Rod | 2:
Josh Wargo recounts his experience to ABC
Written by The_Zimbio_Team on Apr-16-07 2:54pm
ABC news reports the following from engineering student Josh Wargo, a junior at
Virginia Tech:
He was sitting in class when students began to hear "loud banging noises"
followed by screaming. He said many students panicked. Some began to jump out of
a window two stories above ground level.
"We heard almost 40 or 50 shots," Wargo told ABC News. "They were going on from
the time we heard them and jumped out the window until almost two minutes
later."
"When I landed, I was in a daze, standing outside of the building," Wargo said.
"Then I heard shots going through glass — that's when it hit me that I had to
get out of there.
"One of my friends called me to make sure that everyone is OK, I'm told that
they're in stable condition, but some of them got shot," Wargo said.
"They told me my
prof
was shot in the face and didn't make it but we're not sure," he added.
ABC news has additional coverage here .
Josh Wargo, who was attending Librescu’s solid mechanics class, wrote that when the gunshots outside grew nearer, "Dr. Librescu shut the door and stood guard" as students began jumping out of a window.
"If your husband was not at the door, I don’t know what would have happened to me or the other students," Wargo wrote. "I wish that I had acted differently or helped Dr. Librescu with the door. Maybe together we could have stopped the shooter from entering and harming anybody. I am so sorry."
Christina Krohn wrote: "I’m so thankful for him. He saved
my life."
Marlena Librescu, herself a Holocaust survivor, recalled
those messages before her husband’s funeral.
"I can’t begin to imagine what he went through in those last moments," she said. "How he stayed there alone, facing that madman."
"That was him," she added.
"I’m not surprised."
On Monday, millions of Israelis and Jews around the world remembered the Holocaust, the worst crime against humanity in the twentieth century. What an irony that a Holocaust survivor would become a hero during the worst shooting in the history of the United States on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Seventy five year old Virginia Tech professor and Holocaust survivor Liviu Librescu blocked the door into his classroom and allowed many of his students to escape from the deadly rampage. He sacrificed his life so they could live.
According to several reports here in the Israeli media, Librescu was a hero:
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"... All the
students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an
Israeli - told Army Radio."
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The Jerusalem Post
quoted Librescu's son Joe: "My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee. Students started opening windows and jumping out."Librescu threw himself in front of the assailant in Virginia Tech College, blocking the entrance to his classroom and saving the students inside.
Gunman Showed Signs of Anger
Though the level of anger was clear to those who knew Mr. Cho, there is little that points to a precise motive for Monday’s events. Or, as a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity put it: "What was this kid thinking about? There are no indications."
Updates on the Virginia Tech Story
More news from around the Web on the gunman, the victims and the reaction to America’s worst shooting.
At age 76,[9] Librescu was among the thirty-two people who were murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007. He was killed by a Virginia Tech student (Seung-hui Cho) during a class in Room 204 of the Norris Hall Engineering Building. Librescu held the door of his classroom shut while Cho was attempting to enter it; although he was shot through the door, he was able to prevent the gunman from entering the classroom until most of his students had escaped through the windows.[11][12][13] He was struck by five bullets.[14] A number of Librescu's students have called him a hero because of his actions, with one student, Asael Arad, saying that all the professor's students "lived because of him".[15] Another student, Caroline Merrey, said she and about 20 other students scrambled through the windows as Librescu shouted for them to hurry; she said she felt sure his actions helped save lives.[14] Librescu's son, Joe, said he had received e-mails from several students who said he had saved their lives and regarded him as a hero[9] whilst many newspapers also reported him as the hero of the massacre. He was killed on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), a holiday observed in Israel and in other countries around the world. On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 18, Librescu received an American funeral service at an Orthodox funeral home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, where his body was flown from Virginia, escorted by his wife .[14] On April 20, he was interred in Israel, where his son Arieh lives, in accordance with his family's wishes.[16] At the university, his picture was placed on a table and a candle was lit. People laid flowers nearby.[5]
On April 18, 2007 U.S. President George Bush honored Librescu at a memorial service held at the US Holocaust Museum to a crowd that included many Holocaust survivors: "That day we saw horror, but we also saw quiet acts of courage. We saw this courage in a teacher named Liviu Librescu. With the gunman set to enter his class, this brave professor blocked the door with his body while his students fled to safety. On the Day of Remembrance, this Holocaust survivor gave his own life so that others may live. And this morning we honor his memory and we take strength from his example."[17]
Profile: Liviu Librescu, a professor of engineering and a Holocaust survivor, is being called a hero after students reported that the 76-year-old man barricaded the door to his classroom long enough for them to jump to safety from the upper-story windows of Norris Hall.
Librescu was killed by the gunman, who eventually forced his way into the classroom, according to his son, Joe Librescu, who was interviewed by CNN and the Associated Press. Joe Librescu said his father's students have e-mailed him their accounts of his last minutes.
A Romanian who survived the Holocaust, Librescu became an opponent of communism and moved to Israel. He later immigrated to the United States. Librescu taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and had an international reputation for his work in aeronautical engineering.
"His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials and more robust aerospace structures," Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department, told the AP.
Colleagues said they will miss him.
"He was a very pleasant, jolly fellow who enjoyed joking around a little with the staff," said Wayne Neu, an ocean engineering professor. "An everyone's-friend sort of guy."
Neu said Librescu "was always one with a smile."
He was a joyful man, according to his son. "He had passions for music, for sports, for hiking, for travel. He was a passionate person."
He was killed one day after Holocaust Remembrance Day was observed in the United States and on the day it was observed in Israel.
"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu told the AP in a telephone interview from his home outside Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out." -- Kirstin Downey, The Washington Post
"We don't know if (Librescu was shot)
through the door or if at the end the person was able to push open the door and
just shoot him," the son said. Arieh described his father as "dedicated
to the scientific world, very honest and righteous. "In August he would have
been 77," he said.
'He saved my life'
Josh Wargo, who was attending Librescu's solid mechanics class, wrote that when
the gunshots outside grew nearer, "Dr. Librescu shut the door and stood guard"
as students began jumping out of a window.
"If your husband was not at the door, I don't know what would have happened to
me or the other students," Wargo wrote. "I wish that I had acted differently or
helped Dr. Librescu with the door. Maybe together we could have stopped the
shooter from entering and harming anybody. I am so sorry."
Christina Krohn wrote: "I'm so thankful for him. He saved my life."
Written by The_Zimbio_Team on Apr-16-07 2:54pm/16/2007 18:54 GMT
ABC news reports the following from engineering student Josh Wargo, a junior at Virginia Tech:
He was sitting in class when students began to hear "loud banging noises" followed by screaming. He said many students panicked. Some began to jump out of a window two stories above ground level.
"We heard almost 40 or 50 shots," Wargo told ABC News. "They were going on from the time we heard them and jumped out the window until almost two minutes later."
"When I landed, I was in a daze, standing outside of the building," Wargo said. "Then I heard shots going through glass — that's when it hit me that I had to get out of there.
"One of my friends called me to make sure that everyone is OK, I'm told that they're in stable condition, but some of them got shot," Wargo said. "They told me my prof was shot in the face and didn't make it but we're not sure," he added.
ABC news has additional coverage here .
Engineering student Josh Wargo, a junior at Virginia Tech, said he was sitting in class when students began to hear "loud banging noises" followed by screaming. He said many students began to jump out of a window two stories above ground level.
"We heard almost 40 or 50 shots," Wargo told ABC News. "They were going on from the time we heard them and [people] jumped out the window until almost two minutes later."
"When I landed, I was in a daze, standing outside of the building," Wargo said. "Then I heard shots going through glass — that's when it hit me that I had to get out of there."
Little Time to React as Rampage Unfolded
By The Los Angeles Times
Article Launched: 04/17/2007 01:00:00 AM MDT
BLACKSBURG, Va. — By the time the gunman entered the classroom and started shooting, Josh Wargo was halfway out the window. He never looked back. Leaping from the second story of Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, he landed safely, helped some classmates up off the ground and ran away.
Wargo, a junior engineering student, was in a mechanics class at Norris when he first heard the shots. "At first it didn't really register," he said Monday. "There was a lot of construction going on outside. But then I heard some screams through the wall behind us. That's when it really hit us we were in danger. We had to do something."
One student went out in the hallway, then ran back in as the shots "were raining down."
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But he said three or four other students were shot in the room, along with their professor.
Out in the hallway, custodian Gene Cole was slowly rounding a corner. He had taken the elevator from the first floor, seeking a fellow employee because of an e-mail about a shooting
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at a dormitory at the southwestern Virginia university two hours earlier.
"People were running out of the labs," he said. He saw a body on the floor, "still jerking."
Cole then came upon the gunman. He said the young man fired at him but missed. He recalled the shooter as a "foreigner with a black automatic handgun," wearing a hat and blue jeans.
Cole fled, racing back down the stairs. "There was blood all over the floor," he said.
Ruiqi Zhang, a junior studying engineering, was in another classroom in Norris when he heard what he took to be "someone banging on a wall with a hammer."
"About 10 or 20 seconds later, a teaching assistant and a student went out to the hall to see what happened," Zhang said. "They ran back in and said 'Everybody get down.' "
He said everyone hit the floor, and a couple of the male students threw a table up against the door, making what Zhang called "a flimsy barricade." Several students tried to hold it secure as the gunman came up and tried to "shoulder his way in."
"He put two bullets in the door," Zhang said. "One didn't hit anyone. The other went out a window. Then he went off to other classrooms."
A floor above, Scott Hendricks, an associate professor of engineering science and mechanics, had taken a phone call from his wife. She told him about the earlier shooting in the dorm, asking him to be careful.
Hendricks checked the school Web site. He saw no mention of the first shooting. He asked some colleagues on the third floor. They knew nothing either.
"Then the shots started erupting right below me," Hendricks said. "I saw people crawling away from the building, some who had jumped out of the second-floor windows."
He remembered the gunfire as very slow, very deliberate, as a "'bang ... bang ... bang ... bang ... ," he said. He locked his office door and "hunkered down" for an hour, until police battered the door open and directed him safely outside.
Puchie Darcy, a junior studying computer science, decided to stay put after being awakened by police sirens at West Ambler Johnston. "I was definitely not leaving my room," he said.
But most ventured out.
Jamal Azim Albarghouti, another student, aimed his camera-cell phone at the police as they rushed toward Norris. He recorded the sounds of 27 bullets, both from police on the run and the man inside.
"I saw many police, many, many," he said. "In the few yards there were more than 20 police around there and they were trying to get in. They were the police. I assumed they knew what they were doing."
He added: "They dropped a gas bomb, a tear gas bomb or something at the building, and I think they were shooting at him too."
The windswept campus was largely quiet Monday evening. Police and state troopers kept the curious from Norris Hall, but several stunned students stared at the building from across Drill Field at the heart of campus.
Outside West Ambler Johnston Hall, three students embraced before going inside. Male students posted themselves at the entrances of the building to let in those going to small-group counseling sessions inside.
Logan Willard, 18, a freshman from Kernersville, Md., stood with a fiend outside one of the doors. He said he knew one of the fatally wounded victims.
"It's kind of unreal to think something like this could happen," he said. "This is the last place I'd expect this to happen."
Virginia Tech Journalism instructor Roland Lazenby, who advises the student publication www.planetblacksburg.com, sat with his daughter, who also works for the university, and student reporters at Sharkeys bar in downtown Blacksburg on Monday night.
"Virginia Tech as we know it ceases today," he said. "Tomorrow we find out what's happened to our friends and family. I don't think this community realizes. The bomb hasn't exploded yet."
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Serrano reported from Washington, Hennessey-Fiske from Blacksburg. Times staff writer Adam Schreck in Blacksburg also contributed to this report.
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"When the shootings started [nearby], everyone in the room just seemed to be dumbstruck by what was going on. One student tried going out the front door but as soon as he opened it, it sounded as if the gunshots started coming towards us. Dr. Librescu shut the door and stood guard after the student ran back into the classroom. Almost immediately students started jumping out of the window in sheer fear of what might happen."
"I was huddled in the back of the room when I saw people going out the window and, almost instinctually, I followed them. I feel guilty to say that I was one of the last ones out before the shooter entered the room. If your husband was not at the door, I don't know what would have happened to me or the other students…. I wish that I had acted differently or helped Dr. Librescu with the door. Maybe together we could have stopped the shooter from entering or harming anybody. I am so sorry. I will always remember him and will be praying for him for a very long time. My heart goes out to you."—Josh Wargo
"I cannot even begin to tell you how sorry I am for what happened yesterday. I know that he died trying to block the door so we can all jump out the window. We tried to get him to the back of the classroom with us, but he insisted on staying by the door. That is all I know about his last minutes. He was a great and caring man, and I feel honored to have known him for this past year."—Andrey Andreyev (russian jew)
"At approximately 9:45 AM we heard the first gunshots coming from the neighboring classroom. Quickly afterwards, Dr. Librescu shut the door to our class. Most of the students immediately got out of their seats and paced around the front of the classroom."
"I was sitting near a window in the back of the class. We heard people screaming after many quick, intermittent gunshots. At this point I opened the window and removed the screen and shouted out that there was a bush to jump on. I was the first person out of the second story window. … I made it safely to the ground. Once I saw several other students coming out the window, myself and about 6-8 of the students sprinted to a neighboring building...."I kept replaying the events in my head and I wish so badly that we did something so that the entire class could be safe. I feel horrible because there was little chance Dr. Librescu would jump out the window....I will greatly miss him and remember him forever."—Jesse Wells
"I'm grateful for knowing your husband. I've always admired his huge heart that he had for everyone. . . . He was more of a friend, always asking me how I am doing and so on. He would take time after class just for a short nice talk about how I am with life in general."
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"I'm so thankful for him, he saved my life."—Christina Krohn
(jewess)
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