'Everyone Started Panicking and Jumping Out the Window' (ABC first person accounts)

[underpants]

Source: ABC News

April 16, 2007— Students called into ABC News Now and gave eyewitness accounts of the campus shootings at Virginia Tech. Below are transcripts of their calls.

Josh Wargo, Engineering Student

We were sitting in class and all of a sudden heard loud banging noises — thought it could be construction. Heard screaming through the walls and everyone started to panic. Heard shots down the hallways, everyone started to panic and jumping out of the window. We heard almost 40 or 50 shots. They were going on from the time we heard them and jumped out the window to almost two minutes later. Window was two or three stories. 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.

As soon as we heard the shots, people in class started calling 911, they were on the scene two minutes later.

I jumped out of the window and ran into Patten Hall, the neighboring building right across from it.





Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3046125&page=1

[jus_the_facts]

1. It is so very difficult for me to understand why the COPS didn't do ANYTHING....

....from what little I've seen on the news they were all just standing around not doin' jack shit for the students FOR OVER AN HOUR...this STINKS to hell and back....I mean these fools have to be the MOST incompetent sonsofbeetches ever to wear a uniform. :wtf:

[Rhiannon12866]

2. There was a two hour time gap from the first shooting to the other,

but this is a 26,000 student campus, not counting teachers and other staff, as large as my small town. My friend in VA is also following this story and said that this person could have just walked across the campus, since there are so many people there, everyday, and his weapons could have been easily concealed, and doesn't blame the police. I think that much more will come out on this, but it is a a real American tragedy.;(

[jus_the_facts]

3. Sure seems like everyone just wimps out at tryin' to take ONE person down too....

....eventhough he was armed to the teeth...there were a whole lot of people just lettin' it all happen...guess nobody wants to be a hero anymore...just can not wrap my head around the senselessness of the whole thing. :banghead:

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Some of the students were heroes.

MSNBC had a phone interview with a sophomore who was in one of the classrooms and was shot through the upper arm. He was lucky, since several of his fellow students and his professor were shot, too. He said that the gunman left, but then tried to come back in, but that he and the less injured students pressed their bodies up against the door, to prevent him from reentering, and he tried to shoot the students through the door. I agree that this is senseless and shouldn't have happened, but I think that much more will come out on this...;(

[Ezlivin]

11. You can't be sure that there is only ONE gunman

When you hear gunshots you can't be certain of the number of gunners. And remember, once people recognize gunfire, there will be general chaos; a lot of people will just try to run. As an untrained, non-professional it's hard to make a good split-second decision in that case.

[LostinVA]

22. Please tell me you are not blaming the murdered for being "wimps"

Ugh.

[raccoon]

23. self delete nt

[heliarc]

20. Singularly American...

We seem to have cornered the market on domestic gun related tragedy.

[TheDonkey]

6. It's easy to say that in retrospect

but at the time I'm sure it was more complicated than just charging around campus with guns drawn. I don't think anyone could have expected such caarnage after a "domestic" type crime occured in a dorm room.

very tragic

[idgiehkt]

12. the problem I have with that

they have an armed male looking for his girlfriend, whom he can't find. He shoots her roomate, and her resident assistant, fatally, and somehow campus officials decide that there probably won't be more violence. Something fishy going on. What they said in the press conference is that they thought he'd left campus at that point. What that tells me is that perhaps she wasn't on campus, and they thought he went to look for her. Either way, they had to have known there would be more violence, at the very least he was looking to kill her. This is such an disaster.

[LiberalFighter]

17. Even if there isn't any more violence on the campus

the University still has a duty to do what it can to maintain safety and provide information to capture the sicko.

[jberryhill]

9. Many Campus Police Are Unarmed

I don't know about VA Tech, but unarmed campus police are the norm.

[AlecBGreen]

10. VA Tech campus police

They ARE armed.

[LostinVA]

13. They are regular police officers -- they have guns

[entanglement]

19. self delete

n/t

[thecrow]

4. Where were the campus cops, I wonder?

Shouldn't they have been the first responders?
And if this took 2-3 hours, don't they have communication that would have warned students?
GEEZ this thing smells... almost like Pet Goats!

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Threedifferentones]

16. I imagine

that the cops reasonably concluded that since the perp of the first two shootings did not go on a rampage then and there that he was not a homicidal maniac and therefore would not shoot at more students.

[ellisonz]

25. The cops did not reasonably conclude, they assumed.

[Threedifferentones]

26. Of all the mass murders I have read about

None were preceded by an apparently "normal" murder of greed or passion.

Of all the apparently "normal" murders I have read about, I cannot recall any where the same perp just hours later went on a rampage.

But hey, cops are in charge of people's lives, they should see the future, I mean what use are precedent and logic, they should be clairvoyant dammnit!

There was a brutal assault in a parking garage at UT Knoxville, where I go to school, last week. We should close down the campus till hes caught, right? I mean someone who viciously beats another human could probably bring himself to kill, and we all know killers MIGHT be homicidal maniacs...how can we know?

The point I keep trying to make is that the first two murders did not suggest the shooter was a maniac bent on killing dozens, so it is unfair to say the cops should have known better. And what would have happened if they'd locked the campus down? The dorm murders would not have been solved in a day, the dude would have stayed in his dorm while SWAT teams ran all over, and would have had ample opportunity to kill later. Someone bent on going apeshit is going to have their way, it is unreasonable to expect cops to treat all violent crimes as being the work of true lunatics, if they did we'd live in a police state.

[ellisonz]

27. Umm...

Are you replying to me?

I'm not criticizing the cops for not stopping him, I'm criticizing them for not setting up an effective cordon to catch their fugitive who most likely left on foot. The reports say that they spent time investigating the first victims boyfriend simply because he was known to own guns, in a gun happy state. They had no reason to suspect the murderer had a car or couldn't possibly be a student. I don't think you can deny that the police department didn't put 2 + 2 together. It will be interesting to see the results of the state investigation into this tragedy.

[Threedifferentones]

28. So...

A "normal," domestic murder+an uncaptured gunmen=likely mass murdering spree hours later? That's what I understand you are saying, that the cops should have foreseen the murdering spree. It will indeed be interesting to see who or what the powers that be decide to blame for this tragedy. But the only reason the cops would have had to do anything other than launch a normal murder investigation would be a suspeicion that the killer wasn't finished yet, and nothing about the first murders suggested that.

Again, do you expect cops to treat all substantial violent incidents as the work of a potential mass murderer that must be caught before normal life can resume? That seems unreasonable.

My posts on this subject have been a bit rude because I don't think people are stopping to think before hurling blame at innocent people. Even though the cops' handling of the situation can be easily defended, I suspect each member of the VTPD is blaming him/herself enough as it is, and people blaming them all over the internet and TV must make them miserable.

[Rambis]

7. Mass confusion!

Having been on a campus that had a shooting in 1993 there is no way you can judge a situation until you know what is going on and that takes time. Our shooter was walking around to different buildings and no one left alive knew what was going on or where he went. The authorities didn't know until they found more bodies in a different building across campus and eventually the shooter dead in a classroom. There may turn out to be mistakes made but think of the people trying to figure out what is happening in real time it isn't easy. Our campus police are not armed and they didn't want to walk into a blood bath without knowing any more than anyone else did.

[RobinA]

21. Thank You

These events always bring out the armchair quarterbacks who have never run a high school bake sale, let been within 10 miles of a mass casuality event. The blame game always gets going. I often wonder why anyone with an once of sense would ever want a position of public responsibility these days. Anything happens, it's always somebody's fault. Like an event like this can ever be controlled or predicted in its specifics.

[LostinVA]

14. I'm not the biggest cop booster on this board, but

most campus cops do a good job. I won't blame the cops until I hear everything. Most enjoy interacting with the students.

A campus as big as Tech is like a good-sized town -- there is NO WAY to effectively communicate with all the "citizens."

I am beyond shocked that this happens -- I know people personally affected by what happened today. However, I'll wait to hear if the cops did indeed fuck up.

:sigh:

[LiberalEsto]

15. At U of Maryland they might have noticed only

if he parked somewhere illegally. Issuing tickets seems to be about all they do there. My kids each went there for a year and quit out of exasperation at not being able to get on-campus housing and the consequent constant stream of costly tickets.

[CreekDog]

18. The gunman's ex-gf should provide some insight into his rampage

I wonder where she is now and if the authorities are talking to her.

They must be, right?

[tomreedtoon]

24. I believe she's dead, the first victim.

So unless you can get Chicago's only listed wizard, Harry Dresden, to summon her spirit, you're out of luck. I'm not sure what you are driving at, anyway. Do you think if she gave him some sex he wouldn't have gone on a rampage?