US university killer was S Korean

Mala · US university killer was S Korean

[quote]Police have named a student who shot dead at least 30 people at a US university as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old from South Korea.

He was an English student who had been living on the university campus.

Another two people were killed at an earlier shooting at the university. Police said one gun was used in both of the shootings.

A memorial service is to be held at the university, which President Bush and his wife Laura are expected to attend.

The shootings on Monday occurred in two separate locations, two hours apart.

The first took place at 0715 (1215 GMT), at West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory.

Then, at about 0915 (1415 GMT), 30 people were killed in the second shooting, about half a mile (800 metres) from the first, on the same campus.

In an interview with ABC television, university president Charles Steger said the "possibility exists" that more than one gunman was involved.

"It appears that the second shooter was a resident in our dormitory... it appears he was an on-campus resident," he said.

Some students complained angrily that they had received no warning from the university until an e-mail more than two hours after the first incident

Student Billy Bason, 18, said: "I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident."

Mr Steger defended the university's actions after the initial shooting, saying: "We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur.

"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

He described the shootings as "two very tragic events" that "may or may not" be related.

"We just don't know at this point in time," he said.

Police said they had thought the first incident was isolated and "domestic" and that the gunman had left the campus.

They have still not said for sure that the two attacks were linked. They have confirmed that two handguns were recovered.

Erin Sheehan, a witness to the shooting in which 30 died, described the gunman as "a little bit under six-feet tall, young looking, Asian, dressed sort of strangely, almost like a boy scout, very short-sleeved light, tan shirt and some sort of ammo vest with black over it".

WORST US SCHOOLS SHOOTINGS
1 August 1966 - Sniper Charles Whitman kills 14 people and injures dozens at University of Texas
20 April 1999 - Two teenagers at Columbine High School, Colorado, kill 13 before killing themselves
21 March 2005 - A teenager on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, kills nine

Virginia Tech and police said they would not name the victims of the attacks until all had been identified, and their families informed.

However, some of the names of the victims emerged when their families or colleagues volunteered the information.

At least two of the dead were university professors.

One was GV Loganathan, 51, an Indian-born lecturer in civil and environmental engineering, and another was Liviu Librescu, a Romanian-born Israeli expert on aeronautical engineering. [/quote/