Terror at Virginia Tech
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," April 16, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our nation is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech today.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: It seems really senseless, and it's really hard to just think about it.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: It's just utter shock how anybody could do this to anybody else.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: The thought of going to class tomorrow is making me a little bit uneasy.
CHARLES STEGER, VIRGINIA TECH PRESIDENT: I want to extend my deepest and most sincere and profound sympathies to the families of these victims, which include our students.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: That was the scene earlier today at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia. Thirty-three people are dead tonight, including the gunman. In total, more than 50 people shot. It was not only the worst shooting and massacre in American history, but the worst shooting in our nation's history.
It began at 7:15 a.m., when shots were fired at West Ambler Johnston Hall. We can now confirm two people were killed in that dormitory. Two long hours later, 9:15, another shooting was reported, this time at Norris Hall — the university's engineering building. At 10:00 a.m. the students and staff were instructed by school officials to stay indoors and away from the windows. By 10:20, all classes were canceled, and law enforcement was continuing to swarm the campus.
Just two hours later, the unthinkable. Police say the death toll is greater than 20 and that the gunman is dead. And hours later, we would learn the number of dead was really 33, including the gunman, who police say turned the gun on himself.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now, it's just after 9:00 Eastern time, and there's not much more we know. In fact, more questions are emerging like, why was there a two-hour lapse in between shootings? Why weren't students notified earlier of the danger? And who was the shooter? Was he a student?
Authorities now say they've tentatively identified the gunman, but police are giving no other information. We have complete coverage tonight. Mark Fuhrman will join in just a few minutes, as will the lieutenant governor of Virginia, and Megyn Kelly, and Shepard Smith, who are reporting from the scene.
Also on the scene tonight, our own Geraldo Rivera, who's standing by with some Virginia Tech students — Geraldo?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS HOST: Alan, this catastrophe will live in grim history for many, many years, maybe forever, an unprecedented act of violence here, the worst single massacre in modern U.S. history.
Three students, all of whom touched in different ways by this event. Your name, your age, and tell me when you first knew that something awful was going on.
MIKE O'BRIEN, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: My name is Mike O'Brien. I'm 20. I live in a dormitory that's actually across the drill field from Norris Hall. And, when I was leaving to go to class, it was just a dead standstill on the sidewalk and the drill field. And it just seemed unusual, and I didn't really make anything of it. I just kind of kept on going to class.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}And as I get halfway across the drill field, I hear a gunshot. And not soon after, I see a bunch of students just rushing out of Norris Hall, out of other academic buildings. And it just hits me that something's wrong and something's not right, and it must be related to the first e-mail that everyone received this morning about a gunshot in one of the dorms.
RIVERA: Let me just stop you there. What time did you receive the first e-mail?
O'BRIEN: It was around 9:26. That's what my time stamp on my e-mail says that I got it.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}RIVERA: So you got in your mind that there's been a shooting on campus. Now this is two hours later. You hear shots. Pick up with the narrative.
O'BRIEN: So people are saying — that are coming from the other side of the drill field, there's been gunshots, that they're telling to us get back. So we go back towards the dorm that I'm in. The police push a lot of people off the streets. They kind of want everybody to get inside. There's even announcements being made on loud speakers that students should get in and find shelter.
RIVERA: How long did the gunshots last?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}O'BRIEN: I could only hear one that I could — I mean, there was only one that I could hear. I don't know exactly how long it lasted.
RIVERA: I have had, Alan, reports from other students that the fuselage lasted from a minute or so. This is from one of the kids that actually jumped out the window. His professor heroically barred the door to their classroom.
He also told me that the shooter had gone first to Randolph [Hall], which I guess is right across from Norris, and was — there was a lot of tumult in the hallways there, trying...shouting died down, only then to pick up a couple of minutes later with this salvo of small-arms fire.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now, what's your involvement? Tell me how you got involved. First, your name, your age.
LEA BURDEN, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: I'm Lea Burden. I'm a sophomore. I'm 19. I was at my sorority house. I live at Oak Lane, which is not that close to campus. I was on my way out to go to class. And my friends that goes to school in West Virginia that I went to high school with sent me an IM and was like, "Lea, are you OK? I heard that there were shootings on Virginia Tech's campus" And I didn't know what she was talking about. And I checked my e-mail, because when the Morva case was there, they e-mailed everyone.
RIVERA: That's the escaped convict who, on the first day of classes here, took refuge on the Virginia Tech campus, and they...
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...but it was ironic that, at a campus where there had not been very much campus violence, had two of these incidents visited on them in the same school year, the second one obviously being of magnitude that is almost unspeakable.
But, OK, what did you do then?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BURDEN: I turned on the news. And at that point, one person had been killed. Seven had been injured.
RIVERA: Anybody that you know?
BURDEN (ph): I did know one person who was injured. She's fine now. I got word that she is stabilized.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}RIVERA: And your little sister?
BRITNEY TRIMMER, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: Yes, my name is Britney Trimmer. I'm also 19 and a sophomore here at Virginia Tech. I was actually in my classroom. I had class at 9:05 this morning.
And a girl in my class was checking her e-mail and saw on the home page for Virginia Tech that there had been a shooting in West Ambler Johnston, which is where my little sister lives. And I...
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...to call my little sister. There was a shooting in her building. I want to make sure that she's OK. And somebody is dead. So immediately...
RIVERA: How is your little sister?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}TRIMMER: She's fine. She slept through the whole thing. So I mean, that's good, thank God. But it's scary to think that even — that students can sleep through something like that that's just a floor below them.
RIVERA: OK.
All right, Alan, the stories here, you know, so many people touched by this. It will be, as I said at the top of this report, generations before they forget this or if they ever do.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The ironic nature of this whole thing is, this is a beautiful campus set in the tranquil Blue Ridge Mountains. And now this campus has run red with blood.
I mean, an unbelievable tally of casualties, 33 dead, including the shooter. At least 15 injured. We don't know the extent or severity of those injuries. We don't know if any others will pass on. But, really, it takes your breath away, the extent, the depth of this tragedy — Alan?
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Hey, Geraldo, it's Sean, and it does take your breath away in a million different ways here. The emerging question that is going on at this hour, Geraldo, is, after the first shooting occurred, it was two hours, a two-hour interval, and the shooter literally walked a half a mile across campus. And there are a lot of questions being raised tonight about the security issue.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Are you getting any information since you've been down on the ground about why they didn't even have a lockdown or why wasn't more done to alert people?
RIVERA: Well, just speaking to the half-dozen or so students that I've had a chance speak to with, Sean, since I've been here, they have a variety of reactions. Some of them are, "Well, it's an open campus, and what do you expect? We don't have any experience with these kinds of, you know, violent, savage acts."
Others say, however, that, after the first shooting, there should have been an immediate code red given, that the word should have gone out in a much more emergency fashion, much shriller, if you will, to get people motivated, look for anything suspicious.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}They should have blocked off the roads; they should have sounded the air raid sirens that they have for tornadoes and other kind of weather emergencies; they should have done the P.A. system. They have a public address system they could have used. So there are a lot of questions.
You know, I think that the recriminations from this have just begun, Sean. I think that it's the subtext, aside from the identity of the shooter — we're having one unconfirmed report it's a 23-year-old exchange student from China. That's not been confirmed, though I hasten to add, Sean, but here on a student visa.
But there are 2,000 international students here. It's an enormous campus, 26,000 students, 10,000 faculty and employees. Perhaps, you know, the campus police, simply overwhelmed, could not act in the way a trained SWAT team could in an emergency of this nature, but this is really a small town, I mean, a small city.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}They didn't shut it down. Two hours went by. How that guy man managed to bring his armada, you know, his bandoleers and his two handguns, at least, across campus, a full kilometer away, is a question that administrators and others will be seeking to answer, along with the concrete identity of the shooter and whether or not it is only one shooter from the morning incident to the massacre. You would expect so, but that's...
COLMES: We're going to pick it up right there in just a moment with Geraldo and other guests. If you have any video or pictures from this tragedy that you want to share with us and to get it on the air, log onto FOXNews.com. Go to the “Hannity & Colmes” page. Click on "uReport" and upload your images or your video.
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