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Thank you for your concern. It means a lot to me. Thankfully I go to UVa and not VT--but I know people there. My boyfriend's brother is actually an engineering student there, but he's alright. Everyone else I know is alright. I indirectly know people who injured themselves--mostly by jumping out of windows.
I first heard about this at lunch, around 11:30, and the death toll was 1... the injured around 10 or so. I wasn't that surprised, as this isn't the first incident of shooting at Tech. I got back from classes at 2, checked my email, and my stomach sort of dropped. It was 21 people then. Now it's 33, including the shooter. What a tumultuous parallel to the blustery, cold weather.
I recently watched the press conference--which was decidedly useless. If anything, it only made me angrier. It was a media attack on the university president and chief of the police force: "you should've done this, this and this," or, "why didn't you put the school on lock down," or "why assume such things and not do this, this and this?" Before the conference, a man who owns a company to train SWAT teams kept reiterating the failure of the police team to "hit the threat at its source," returning again and again to what should have been done. This situation doesn't need a witch hunt, that only destroys community: it needs unification. This situation doesn't need retrospective analysis, not now; what it needs is resolution and lots of hugs. I hate to sound like Bush after 9/11, but love and community really must follow any kind of tragedy.
I'll keep you guys posted on anything I hear. I'm lucky enough to be involved in a residential community with plenty of networking. Fingers crossed that you guys don't know anyone at Tech, and that those I do know continue to be safe.
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