The first three reports on a breaking news story are always wrong (The John Batchelor rule)
Mull this over – the suspect in today’s shooting at Virginia Tech is described as wearing a backpack. Do you drive your car wearing a backpack? If you just killed a policeman and are with your car, why would run away on foot?
Why is there no description of the vehicle? Or mention of the police car? Campus police often use bicycles to patrol, not cars.
The description of the suspect seems to have not gone out for 10 minutes and may have been just a “suspicious” person running through the campus.
Two dead, a cop and a student, that had their car stolen. All county schools have been locked down. The SWAT teams are patrolling campus. The ‘tactical’ vehicles are on the prowl.
Right now the suspect is on the loose and the area is on high alert. They have road blocks set up. Exams have been postponed tomorrow. Helicopters are flying around now searching as well.
press conference at 4:30pm today. I went and picked up my wife from campus, its quiet except for the police everywhere.
Parrott
That’s verbatim copy/paste of the AP wire story that is one of the “first 3 wrong” versions
correction, second dead person may be the guy that shot the cop and not a student, according to police press conference. But whoever it is the police denied that they had shot the second person. strange? No guns are allowed on campus, don’t know how this would happen?
But CSI has cleaned everything up
Version #2 that will be wrong
Maybe he was pissed because he got rousted from an OWS cesspool someplace….
My suspicion based on absolutely no facts is this was drug related. It was in a parking lot on the edge of campus where students “hang out”
My guess is the campus police stumbled on a drug deal, the shooter shot the police and his customer, thinking he had been set up. The shooter will not be a student and not be the person they are looking for.
Let’s see if my guess turns out to be right.
It turns out the second dead person was the shooter, who shot himself (Wrong report #3)
He wasn’t involved with the traffic stop. The shooter shot the campus police officer when they were involved with the traffic stop. (and where is that person who was stopped?)
http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/virginia/press-conference-held-on-vt-shooting
Police: Read between the lines.
Well, that’s reassuring.
I wonder if a third party who just happened to be there with a Concealed weapon shot the shooter, but shouldnt’ have had a gun on campus. Just reading between the lines, ya know… it doesn’t make a lot of sense that he would flee and then immediately shoot himself in the parking lot.
Or the police officer was not supposed to be carrying a weapon, but returned fire before he/she died.
It’s a “he”
http://www.wtvr.com/news/wtvr-slain-virginia-tech-officer-identified-20111208,0,7227481.story
39 year old Army veteran with 5 children
This report adds the details that the police officer was shot in the head, and the shooter committed suicide 45 minutes later (after only having gone 1/4 mile?)
http://www.odmp.org/officer/21038-police-officer-i-deriek-w-crouse
Roanoke TV reports the camera in the police car shows the shooting and the shooter. The shooter is the person found dead.
http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj7-officers-onboard-camera-captures-shooting-20111208,0,4227690.story
The investigation is expected to take weeks
Shooter was not a student. Police are still hiding his identity from the public.
Reporters seem to know he stole a rental car in Blacksburg (about 15 miles away), but police cannot confirm that, but have recovered the car.
The police officer was shot inside his car. The car he stopped was being driven by a VT student who is cooperating.
Police are trying to figure out writing on the wall next to where the backpack was found. [written with what? Spray paint?]
Police are still hiding his identity from the public.
And the MSM has not given any description other than ‘the shooter’.
That typically indicates the perp is non-white… not always, but usually.
I agree with you Art; it sounds like a ‘recreational’ drug deal gone bad.
By the time they do release the details, nobody will remember this. They’ll be back to worrying about some hollywood actress who has a big butt.
Yes, that is how the PR and damage control will be handled.
Notice the rash of problems ‘on campus’ in recent weeks?
Watch for another TV Special Report from Couric, etal:
“Sex, Abuse, and Violence on Campus; are Students Safe?”
The descriptions are morphing…
Now he tried to steal a rental car but failed. He then took a shuttle bus to the University.
The Roanoke paper says it had been an attempted hijacking of a car.
Ofificials say he “had no connection to the University”, but yet he seems to have known about the shuttle bus and where it went and how to use it.
Finally the facts.
The shooter’s name was Ross Truett Ashley. He had stolen a Mercedes SUV at gunpoint from a real estate office. He was 22 years old and attending Radford, about 15 miles away.
The stolen SUV was found at the scene.
The VT police office who was shot was in an unmarked car. [drug investigation?]
He was a dean’s role student majoring in business.
My theory is morphing toward this being a romantic issue (presumably a female involved)… Either she is a student at VT, or he had a GF at Radford who had broken up with him. Stealing a car at gunpoint to drive 15 miles to another University sounds pretty irrational.
If I pretend to be Alex Jones, my theory is the globalist bankers used mind control to activate him to kill a policeman to get the 2nd amendment repealed.
My bet is Nancy Pelosi and/or Chris Matthews will say the killer was influenced by the tea party.
Well, the Daily Beast et al are already trying to make the case that this proves the ban on guns on campus worked. Figure that one out.
The important details start showing up. The stolen SUV wasn’t from just some random business – the real estate company managed the apartment complex he rented his apartment from. A neighbor overheard him cursing into his cell phone in the hallway.
Eviction?
He apparently recently shaved his head, which probably slowed the identification of his body.
He visited a gun range with a friend! OMG…
The more important clue is his friend says they stopped going because the VT shooter couldn’t afford to buy the bullets.
It’s finals week for colleges on the Semester system. Ross Ashley was living in an off campus apartment, 22 years old and only attending part time. He had a job working in a restaurant at some point. He broke up with his girl friend over the summer.
I’m pretty sure the “motive” lies within the real estate office. The woman there initially thought he was kidding when he pulled a gun. Given he couldn’t afford bullets for the gun, it’s a logical inference being shortly after the first of the month that he was evicted from his apartment. No car, no money, no girl friend… The “Dean’s list” remark was from 2008 when he was attending a different college.
A month ago, Ross Ashley got a speeding ticket for going 38 in a 25 mph zone. The dead officer was running a traffic patrol in an unmarked police car on the Virginia Tech campus and had just pulled over someone.
I’m starting to see a coherent explanation. The only question not asked yet is “Has he attended any Occupy rallies?”
Not to put too fine of an edge on it – but a country with several million unemployed, angry, unattached young men is a powder keg just waiting for a match.
Virginia tech police knew 3 hours before the shooting that the stolen SUV was in the parking lot
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/special_section/2011/dec/13/police-knew-suv-was-tech-ar-1542187/
The gun was purchased legally
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/state-police-virginia-tech-gunman-purchased-handgun-legally-months-before-killing-officer/2011/12/13/gIQAEfETsO_story.html