Breaking: Shots Fired On VA Tech Campus...

Ugh. I hope it's resolved as well as it can be, quickly.

2 dead, including the policeman, according to a Roanoke TV station. Blacksburg, where VA Tech is, is essentially shut down. Drivers report encountering dozens of police cars from neighboring counties racing towards the campus.
They seem to have a very good description of the suspect.

Serial killers and shooters are almost always white males, aren't they?

I am watching a tv station in Roanoke. Reporters very cautious. Anecdotal reports from motorists of police clustering at rest-stops on I-81 north. They may be looking for a green Mitsibushi (however that is spelled).

Word is that the 2nd victim may have been the shooter. Police won't confirm that but the campus shutdown seems to have been lifted.

My daughter and I saw that on the news here, John of Virginia. I think we may be in for a surprise.

why?

Well Mame, like John of Virginia observed, the cop may be the culprit.

We-e-e-ll. . . there was that serial shooting spree in D.C. just a couple of years ago, wasn't there?

Huh?

yeah

huh?

Just teasing John of Virginia, yawl. Glad it didn't amount to more killings as in the last one so long ago.

I didn't get that. Are you suggesting the cop started the shooting?

According to at least one witness, the VA Tech policeman was shot and killed while he was still in his car; not while doing a routine traffic stop where the officer approaches the vehicle.
Odd.
The shooter, it is now being reported, killed himself in a nearby parking lot.

A motorist reports that he/she was pulled over by the VA Tech officer and that the shooter fired into the cop car before the policeman got out of his vehicle.
That doesn't make a lot of sense.

It seems that the person pulled over was not the shooter and that the shooter in the parking lot specifically targeted that VA Tech officer.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/virginia-tech-shooting-2.html

http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE7B71XL20111209

Excerpt:

The man was not a Virginia Tech student and had no known connection to Officer Deriek W. Crouse, 39, officials said. Police said they were still confirming the man's identity and investigating the motive for the shooting.

Ballistics testing confirmed the same weapon was used in both shootings, police said.

Shortly after noon on Thursday, Crouse had a vehicle stopped in a campus parking lot when he was approached a man and fatally shot while still in his car, police said. The man then fled.

About 30 minutes later, a Montgomery County sheriff's deputy saw a man acting suspiciously in a parking lot about a half a mile/0.8 km away from the first shooting. After briefly losing sight of the man, the deputy found him dead on the ground with a handgun nearby, police said.

Police later recovered a discarded backpack on campus with clothing inside that was similar to that worn by the man seen in video taken by Crouse's patrol car.

The man apparently changed clothes on the way to the second parking lot, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said at a media briefing held on Virginia Tech's campus. Police are investigating writing found on a wall near the backpack, she said.

Officials did not lift the lockdown on campus until later on Thursday afternoon because they could not immediately identify the man as the shooter and were still investigating tips from the public, Geller said. The body did not have identification on it, but police found an ID in the backpack.

Officials are still trying to determine the man's whereabouts before the shooting, Geller said. It's likely he is connected to a vehicle that was stolen in nearby Radford, Virginia, but police haven't confirmed that, she said.

The shooter has been identified as Ross Truett Ashley (age 22). He had addresses in a nearby county as well as in the also nearby town of Radford, where he was a part time student at Radford University.
He reportedly stole a Mercedes SUV at gunpoint from an employee at a real estate office in Radford on Wednesday. Police recovered the car at or near the VA Tech campus Thursday morning, hours the before the shooting.
Police at this point are not publicly speculating about a motive.
For what it is worth, I am hearing that it may involve a romantic relationship gone bad. But that is total rumor.