A gunman is dead after opening fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing at least 31 people and wounding at least 29 others in the deadliest campus shooting spree in U.S. history.Students in Blacksburg, Virginia, described a chaotic scene as word of the shootings spread by e-mail, word-of-mouth and the school's emergency loudspeakers:
Tiffany Otey, Virginia Tech student: "At first we really weren't sure what was going on. It sounded like construction. There's a lot of construction going on always during our classes at that time. Then it was like a continuous gunfire going off like every second or so there would be another shot. There was approximately probably 50 shots total. ... At one point we did hear screaming because people were running out of the building and at this point, we were all kind of frightened as to wonder, what happens to us? We're like sitting there, too, like, who knows if the shooter was going to come up the next floor.
Maybe 10 minutes later we were in the room. The police came up. They all had bulletproof vests on, machine guns. They were telling us to put our hands above our head and if we didn't cooperate and put our hands above our heads they would shoot. I guess they were afraid, like us, like the shooter was going to be among one of us. So we were told to keep our hands above our head and run out of the building. At one point, somebody didn't have their hands above their head and one of the cops stated, you know, put your hands above your head, like we're going to have to shoot."
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