2 Victims Shot & Killed on the Campus of V. Tech

Police are searching for a gunman after a campus police officer and another person were shot and killed after a traffic stop at Virginia Tech Thursday.

Just after noon, a campus police officer made a routine traffic stop in the Cassell Coliseum parking lot, where the officer was shot and killed, according to Virginia Tech.

The gunman fled toward a parking lot near Duck Pond Drive known as the Cage, witnesses told police. A second person was found shot and killed at the Cage, according to Virginia Tech.

The shooter was described as a white man wearing gray sweatpants, a gray hat with a neon green brim and a maroon hooded sweatshirt and carrying a backpack.

At 2:20 p.m. the school posted on its website several reports of shots heard and suspicious activity were investigated and are unfounded.

The school has told the campus community to shelter in place and asked visitors to stay away from campus.

Blacksburg Transit bus service is suspended.

Several law enforcement agencies responded. Heavily armed officers on foot, SWAT vehicles and other police vehicles are patrolling the campus.

Virginia State Police will take the lead in the investigation.

The alert on the Virginia Tech web page reads:

There is an active campus alert in Blacksburg. Everyone should seek shelter or stay where you are. Blacksburg Transit service is suspended until the alert is lifted.

On the school's web page, an alert marked 12:47 p.m. reads:

"Reports of Shots Fired- Initial Description:

Suspect described as white male, gray sweat pants, gray hat w/neon brim, maroon hoodie and backpack.  On foot towards McComas.  Call 911."

An alert issued at 1:11 p.m. reads:

" A police officer has been shot.  A potential second victim is reported at the Cage lot.  Stay indoors.  Secure in place."

"It's crazy that someone would go and do something like that with all the stuff that happened in 2007," said Corey Smith, a 19-year-old sophomore from Mechanicsville, Va., who was headed to a dining hall near the site of one of the shootings.

He told The Associated Press that he stayed inside after seeing the alerts from the school.

"It's just weird to think about why someone would do something like this when the school's had so many problems," he said.

Harry White, 20, a junior physics major, said he was in line for a sandwich at a restaurant in a campus building when he received the text message alert.

White said he didn't panic, thinking instead about a false alarm about a possible gunman that locked down the campus Aug. 4. White used an indoor walkway to go to a computer lab in an adjacent building, where he checked news reports.

"I decided to just check to see how serious it was. I saw it's actually someone shooting someone, not something false, something that looks like a gun," White said.

Campus was quieter than usual because classes ended Wednesday and students were preparing for exams.

Virginita Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum and Virginia Tech President Charles Steger were in D.C. Thursday for a hearing at the U.S. Department of Education to appeal a $55,000 fine levied on the school after the fatal 2007 campus shootings. Thirty-three died in that massacre, including gunman Seung-Hui Cho. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The Education Department said the school violated the law by waiting more than two hours after two students were shot and killed in a dorm before sending an email warning to the campus community. By that time, Cho was chaining the doors to a classroom building where he killed 30 more people and himself. The department also said the email was too vague because it mentioned only a "shooting incident" but did not say anyone had died.

Check back for more updates as they become available. 

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