Virginia Tech Gunman:

Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech killer
IDENTITY OF THE VIRGINIA TECH GUNMAN: EAST ASIAN

FINAL UPDATE - April 17: (10:03 AM EST; 15:03 PM GMT) the killer has now been identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior English major who was born in South Korea but had established US residence in Centerville, Virginia. He left a suicide note which investigators have now seized.

The Virginia Tech gunman has been described by witnesses as a 6 foot tall Asian (in American English this means from China, Japan or other parts of South East Asia) around 19 or 20 years old -- some reports are suggesting he was a student of nearby Radford University and on a rampage to kill his girlfriend who left him. Sources say Seung-Hui left behind a note, which has not been made public.

According to these unconfirmed reports, he first attacked her dorm room, and shot her roommate and a resident assistant. Two hours later, he was still looking for her in the Engineering building where he randomly shot a large number of people before finally turning the gun on himself.

The gunman's identity has become a major issue which explains why the authorities have not yet officially identified him even though they have no doubt had this information for several hours now. Every ethnicity, religious group, nationality and group you can think of is hoping that their group is not represented by this crazy killer, because there will more than likely be a sizeable wrath directed toward them by ignorant bigoted people and their agendas.


UPDATE 1 (8:09 pm EST; 1:09 AM GMT): News outlets have interviewed a student called Erin Sheehan who claims she was in the classroom where most of the students were shot. Sheehan confirms that the gunman was East Asian.

In a second press conference at 745 pm EST, authorities are "declining to release" the "preliminary information" that they obviously have about the identity of the gunman and the weapons involved. What is now clear is that there were two gunmen involved in the two different incidents. What is also clear is that the authorities are actively working on making up as many lies as possible to prevent them from looking like complete incompetents.

EMAIL IS NOT A SUFFICIENT FORM OF EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION

Students at the University were horrified to be notified of the first set of killings only 2 hours later via university email, which, unfortunately for the majority of the victims was exactly the time when the gunman struck again.

The officials in this situation, including the local police, Virginia Tech President Steger, and other individuals who played a huge role not only in failing to identify the larger threat after the first set of shootings in which the killer escaped and was not pursued by authorities, but also in failing to inform the campus until over 2 hours later -- and then only by email -- that shootings had occurred on campus and that a threat could possibly remain. Obviously, many people would have reconsidered going to class if they knew a killer was loose.

I wonder if Virginia Tech has ever heard of loudspeakers -- these simple devices tend to be more effective immediately than hinging peoples' lives on the hope that the entire campus will check its email at least once every two hours.

BOMB THREATS OVER THE LAST WEEK

There were at least 2 bomb threats against the university over the last week. And just over the summer, another gunman had attacked the campus. So the big question on many peoples' minds is, how much could have been done to prevent this violence? At the very least, it seems that the campus could have been much better protected from the second attack this morning.