A gunman was on the loose on Thursday at Virginia Tech after he shot a police officer and possibly a second person, said the university, scene of a 2007 massacre in which 32 people died.
"Suspect remains at large. A police officer has been shot. A potential second victim is reported at the Cage lot. Stay indoors. Secure in place," it told students and staff on its website (www.vt.edu [1]).
Collegiate Times, a student newspaper, said on its Twitter account that one person had been killed. It also tweeted a photograph of a parking lot with what appeared to be a shrouded body on the ground, surrounded by police tape.
Minutes earlier, Virginia Tech declared 'an active campus alert... Everyone should seek shelter or stay where you are. Blacksburg Transit service is suspended until the alert is lifted'.
The gunman was described as a white male wearing a maroon hooded sweatshirt and gray sweatpants.
The alert came more than four years after 32 people were gunned down and more than 20 others wounded on the Blacksburg, Virginia campus in a horrific shooting spree by a South Korea-born student, who killed himself at the end of the April 2007 attack.
Links:
[1] http://www.vt.edu