Updated on
Summary At least two people were killed in a shootout in Virginia Tech University in United States.
Violence returned Thursday to Virginia Tech, the scene in 2007 of the deadliest school shooting in US history, when two people were shot dead including a campus police officer.Police refused to confirm reports that the second fatality might have been the shooter himself, even as the 31,000-student university lifted an afternoon-long lockdown and declared there was no longer an active threat.But when asked if the gunman was at large, Virginia State Police spokesman Bob Carpentieri cryptically told reporters: Investigators feel confident that they have located the person.The slain police officer, a four-year veteran of Virginia Techs own security force, was shot and killed during a noon-hour routine traffic stop in a parking lot near a sports facility.Witnesses reported to police the shooter fled on foot heading toward the Cage, a parking lot near Duck Pond Drive, the university said in a statement.At that parking lot, a second person was found. That person is also deceased.No names were disclosed, but Carpentieri said a weapon was found close to the second victim, who he described as a white male. He also said the gunman was not the motorist who the slain police officer had pulled over.Virginia Tech was the scene of the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in US history in April 2007 when an English major, Seung-Hui Cho, 23, killed 32 people before taking his own life. Twenty-five others were wounded.The gunman was described as a white male in a maroon hooded sweatshirt and grey sweatpants. Maroon is the official color of Virginia Tech.Police with handguns drawn and assault rifles at the ready swarmed across the campus as students and staff took refuge for four hours in their dormitories, offices and a leisure center.
