Monday, April 23, 2007

Article #13: Grieving Students Return to Virginia Tech


Virginia Tech is allowing students to drop classes without penalty or to accept their current grades if they want to spend the rest of the year at their parents' homes grieving last week's campus massacre. But whatever decisions they make academically, many students say they will do their mourning on campus -- and that they can't imagine staying away now. Classes were to resume Monday, one week after gunman Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people before turning a gun on himself. Students and faculty were expected to gather at 7:15 a.m. Monday near the dormitory where the first victims, Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher, were killed. At 9:45 -- the time of the second shooting -- the university planned a moment of silence, with a single bell tolling from the tower of the main administration building. A minute later, the bell will toll 32 times -- once for each victim -- as 32 white balloons are released from the field below. University officials were not sure how many students planned to be back Monday. Students began returning as more details about the rampage emerged. Dr. William Massello, the assistant state medical examiner in Roanoke, said Cho died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head after firing enough shots to wound his 32 victims more than 100 times.

No comments: