Mystery massacre

I had expected the strange stories coming out of Virginia to have coalesced into something like a coherent narrative right now. But at this writing, this story still doesn't add up.

Why was the campus open for normal business after the first shooting?

On Headline News, not many minutes ago, a police expert opined that something happened during the first shooting, at West Ambler Johnston Hall, which made the local cops believe that the incident had been resolved. He made the interesting suggestion that surveillance footage might have shown the shooter leaving the campus.

Why, then, was there no manhunt throughout the town? Would there not have been a bulletin describing the assailant? Eyewitnesses describe the Norris Hall shooter as an Asian in his 20s wearing a military-style uniform, a heavy black vest, and an "ungodly" amount of ammunition.

Erin Sheehan was one of the few unwounded survivors in her German class:

"It seemed so strange," Sheehan said. "Because he peaked in twice, earlier in the lesson, like he was looking for someone, somebody, before he started shooting. But then we all heard something like drilling in the walls, and someone thought they sounded like bullets. That's when we blockaded the door to stop anyone from coming in."

"He was just a normal looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout type outfit. He wore a tan button up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."

"I saw bullets hit people's body," Sheehan said. "There was blood everywhere. People in the class were passed out, I don't know maybe from shock from the pain. But I was one of only four that made it out of that classroom. The rest were dead or injured." She described.

Another survivor, Dereck O'Dell (spelling may be incorrect) who was wounded, decribes the killer in a video available here. He says that the killer who popped into his classroom wore a maroon hat and and "a black leather jacket."

A local police official who appeared on the air within the hour said that the first shooting was "domestic," and perhaps unrelated to what happened later. As we have already noted (see previous post), the initial report carried by CNN held that only one student had been killed and one was arrested. (Alas, the link for that early story no longer works.)

We are also told that Norris Hall was barricaded with chains from the inside. How could a man who had shot up a dorm two hours earlier leave the campus, then return to the school carrying heavy chains and an "ungodly" amount of ammunition?

I will make so bold as to suggest one theory which, provisionally, makes some sense out of these strange reports: The cops arrested the wrong guy after the first incident. Now, they are loathe to admit that they made a mistake.

Another theory: Two shooters.