Worst U.S. shooting ever kills 33 on Va. campus

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Silent gunman strikes without warning
As the first warning was just going out, a bloody scene was unfolding inside the engineering building. Police could not monitor what was going on because the building is not equipped with surveillance cameras, Flinchum said.

Trey Perkins, a sophomore, told MSNBC-TV’s Chris Jansing in a telephone interview that the gunman never said a word.

“He didn’t say, ‘Get down.’ He didn’t say anything. He just started shooting,” Perkins said.

The gunman left that classroom and then tried to return, but students kept him out by bracing the door closed with their feet. “He started to try to come in again and started shooting through the door,” Perkins said, but hit no one.

“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,” Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.”

Derek O’Dell, a sophomore biology major, told MSNBC-TV’s Alison Stewart that it was “very surreal.”

“At first, I thought it was joke,” said O’Dell, who was shot in an arm. “You don’t really think of a gunman coming on campus and shooting people.”

Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The deadliest previous campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police.

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All entrances to the campus were closed Monday, and Tuesday’s classes were canceled. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children at the Inn at Virginia Tech. It also made counselors available and planned a convocation for Tuesday at the Cassell Coliseum basketball arena, which White House officials said President Bush was considering attending.

Bush said in a brief televised statement: “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech.”

CONTINUED : Campus, community left stunned

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