Bush attends service after 'worst' US massacre

The US President ordered flags flown at half mast today in honour of those killed in America’s deadliest shooting spree.

“Our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech,” George Bush said, before attending a service on the campus where 32 people were gunned down in two separate attacks yesterday.

“We lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering,” he went on.

The service was in a sombre basketball arena, packed with students and others, many of whom wore short-sleeved orange T-shirts in Virginia Tech’s colours. When a colour guard entered the stadium with flags, the entire building remained stone silent.

Before the service, Mr Bush received a briefing on the shootings and the investigation from Virginia Tech president Charles Steger.

The President directed flags to remain in the lowered position until sunset on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has sent 12 agents to Virginia Tech and the FBI has contributed some 15 agents as well for the investigation. The federal help, including input from the US Attorney’s office in the Western District of Virginia, is being coordinated at a command centre set up on the campus.

In addition to helping with the crime scene, the Department of Justice is making counsellors available to victims and their families through a special office and the Education Department is offering assistance as well.

Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine, just back from Japan to deal with the tragedy, was travelling with Bush on Air Force One to the convocation.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino deflected any questions about Mr Bush’s view of needed changes to gun control policy, saying the time for that discussion is not now.

“We understand that there’s going to be and there has been an ongoing national discussion, conversation and debate about gun control policy. Of course we are going to be participants in that conversation,” she said.

“Today, however, is a day that is time to focus on the families, the school, the community.”

Ms Perino added: “Everyone’s been shaken to the core by this event and so I think what we need to do is focus on support of the victims and their families and then also allow the facts of the case to unfold before we talk any more about policies.”

The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people, including himself, dead was named today as a student from South Korea whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school’s counselling service.

Police and university officials offered no clues to 23-year-old Cho Seung-hui’s motive in the massacre, the worst shooting rampage in modern US history.

News reports said Cho may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic and that he left a note in his dormitory in which he railed against “rich kids,” “debauchery” and “deceitful charlatans” on campus.

“He was a loner, and we’re having difficulty finding information about him,” school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

Cho, a fourth-year student majoring in English literature, arrived in the United States as a boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington DC, officials said. He was living on campus in a different dormitory from the one where yesterday’s shootings began.

The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported on its website that Cho left a note in his dorm room that included a rambling list of grievances. Citing unidentified sources, the Tribune said he had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women.

US broadcaster ABC, citing law enforcement sources, reported that the note, several pages long, explains Cho’s actions and says: “You caused me to do this.”

Investigators believe Cho at some point had been taking medication for depression, the newspaper reported.

Classmates said that on the first day of a literature class last year, the students went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho’s turn, he did not speak.

The professor looked at the sign-in sheet and, where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark.

“Is your name, ’Question mark?”’ classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. “He never talked,” Poole said.

“We just really knew him as the question mark kid,” Poole said.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department’s director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as “troubled".

She said Cho was referred to the counselling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.

“There was some concern about him,” Rude said.

“Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it’s creative or if they’re describing things, if they’re imagining things or just how real it might be. But we’re all alert to not ignore things like this.”

The rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart – first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died after being locked inside, Virginia State Police said. Cho committed suicide; two guns were found in the classroom building.

One law enforcement official said Cho’s backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho was a legal, permanent resident, federal officials said. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a crime.

Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But ballistics tests show one gun was used in both, Virginia State Police said.

And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho’s fingerprints were found on the two guns used in the rampage. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

A spokesman with the Virginia state police said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the gunman in both attacks but that the link was not yet definitive.

“There’s no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we’re exploring the possibility,” he said.

Officials said Cho graduated from a public high school in Virginia in 2003. His family lived in a Washington, DC suburb.

“He was very quiet, always by himself,” neighbour Abdul Shash said. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.

South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun offered his condolences, and South Korea’s foreign ministry said South Korea hoped that the tragedy would not “stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.”

“We are in shock beyond description,” said Cho Byung-je, a ministry official handling North American affairs. “We convey deep condolences to victims, families and the American people.”

Classes were cancelled for the rest of the week.

Many students were leaving town quickly, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks.

Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, headed for her car with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m still kind of shaky,” she said. “I had to pump myself up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out, but it took a little bit of ’OK, it’s going to be all right. There’s lots of cops around.”’

The first deadly attack was at the dormitory around 7:15am, but some students said they did not get their first warning about a danger on campus until two hours later, in an e-mail at 9:26am. By then the second attack had begun.

Two students told NBC’s Today show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they walked into Norris Hall for a German class where the gunman later opened fire.

The victims in Norris Hall were found in four different classrooms and a stairwell, Flaherty said. Cho was found dead in one of those classrooms, he said.

Derek O’Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a gunman who fired away in “eerily silence” with “no specific target – just taking out anybody he could.”

After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people down the corridor. Mr O’Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the shooter could not get back in – though he later tried.

“After he couldn’t get the door open he tried shooting it open ... but the gunshots were blunted by the door,” Mr O’Dell said.

University president Charles Steger emphasised that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack. He said that before the email was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.

“We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it,” Steger said.

Until yesterday, the deadliest shooting in modern US history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard ploughed his truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in US history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

In times of tragedy, Americans turn to the President to be the nation’s consoler and comforter.

Bush rallied the nation after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. One of the most enduring images of his presidency is Bush standing atop a pile of rubble in New York with a bullhorn in his hand. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Bush made repeated trips to the region but was criticised for the government’s sluggish response to the storm.