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The gunman who killed 32 people and himself on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute Monday was identified today as a student who lived in a dormitory on campus but kept to himself.
Law enforcement authorities said the gunman was Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a South Korean who was a resident alien in the United States and in his senior year as an English major.
Today, a police affidavit said that a bomb threat note was found near his body and that the police believe two previous bomb threats in the past three weeks could be connected to him. It added that the suspect recently purchased a handgun at a gun shop in Roanoke, Va.
Questions have been raised about whether university officials had responded adequately to the shootings, and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said in a news conference today that an independent panel would review the events and the official response to the attack.
Mr. Cho was described by fellow students in television interviews broadcast today as being “thorough” as he moved through the classrooms opening fire. He wore an outfit that resembled a boy scout uniform and tried to push through doors that were barricaded by students.
In a German class in Norris Hall Mr. Cho entered the room and opened fire on the professor before turning a gun on the students.
Trey Perkins, a 20-year old mechanical engineering student, was among the students who got down on the floor and tried to shield themselves with desks when Mr. Cho opened fire.
“There were a couple of screams but for the most part it was eerily silent other than the gunfire,” he said. “He never said a word the whole time. I’ve never seen a straighter face.”
In a photograph distributed by the police after Mr. Cho’s identity was released, he is wearing eyeglasses and has closely cropped hair, and is staring directly into the camera with little expression.
In a news conference today, authorities said ballistic tests showed that one of two weapons found in Norris Hall had also been used in the other location, West Ambler Johnston Hall, a 900-student freshman dormitory. Mr. Cho moved to the United States with his family as a grade school student in 1992, government officials in South Korea said.
While he had a residence established in Centreville, Va., Mr. Cho was living on campus in Harper Residence Hall. He was described as a “loner” by the university’s associate vice president, Harry Hincker.
It was the deadliest shooting rampage in American history and came nearly eight years to the day after 13 people died at Columbine High School in Colorado at the hands of two disaffected students who then killed themselves.
Officials had believed the first attack, in West Ambler Johnston dormitory, where two people were killed, was a self-contained event related to a “domestic” dispute, and they did not send out an alert for a little more than two hours.
Col. W. Steve Flaherty, the state police superintendent, said in a news conference this afternoon that Mr. Cho was the shooter at Norris Hall, but investigators were still following multiples leads and reviewing a great deal of evidence.
“We don’t know, we can’t prove at this point, whether he did or did not have any accomplice,” said Col. Flaherty. “There is no evidence that he did, but we are following through to make sure that that’s not the case.”
In the second attack, the gunman walked through the halls of Norris Hall, across campus from the first attack, shooting at professors and students in classrooms and hallways, firing dozens of rounds and killing 30. Officials said he then shot himself so badly in the face that he could not be identified.
The police and witnesses said some victims were executed while other students were hurt jumping from upper-story windows of Norris.
Responding to criticism and suggestions that there was a delay between the first shooting and the first e-mail notifying students that something had happened, the Virginia Tech president, Charles W. Steger, said earlier that the first dormitory was immediately closed down after the first incident and surrounded by security guards. Streets were cordoned off and students in the building notified about what was going on, he said.
Investigators were trying to sift through what Colonel Flaherty described earlier in the day as a “horrific crime scene” at Norris Hall, where the shooting had caused tremendous chaos and panic. A 9-millimeter Glock handgun and 22-caliber Walther handgun were recovered from the building.
Personal belongings were strewn about on the second floor. Victims were found in four classrooms and a stairwell.
“We know that there were a number of heroic events took place,” he said.
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