Questions swirl over slow response

BLACKSBURG, Va. — On a university campus of 2,600 acres, with more than 25,000 students, ironclad security is not a practical goal. Even so, tough questions swiftly surfaced as to how effectively Virginia Tech authorities responded to Monday's horrific massacre.

Why were campus police so sure the threat was a "domestic dispute" contained in one dormitory, when most of the killings occurred two hours later in a classroom building?

Why were they interviewing a "person of interest" off campus in regard to the first shootings at the very time the classroom killings were unfolding?

Why was there a lag of more than two hours after the first shootings before an alarm was e-mailed campuswide — around the time the second, more deadly burst of carnage occurred? And more generally, some security experts wondered, was the school's crisis planning and emergency communications system up to the task?

Clearly, something went terribly wrong.

Bombarded with security questions at afternoon and evening news conferences, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed the shooting at the West Ambler Johnston dorm, first reported about 7:15 a.m., was a domestic dispute and thought the gunman had fled the campus after killing two people.

"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.

The dormitory was locked down immediately after the shooting, Steger said, and a phone bank was activated to alert the resident advisers there so they could go door-to-door warning the 900 students in the dorm. Security guards surrounded the dorm, he said, and others began a sweep across campus.

Asked why he didn't order a lockdown of the entire campus, Steger noted that thousands of nonresident students were arriving for 8 a.m. classes, fanning out across the sprawling campus from their parking spots.

"Where do you lock them down?" Steger asked.

He said security on campus will be tightened now, but offered no details.

"We obviously can't have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year," he said.

Overall, Steger defended the university's response, saying: "You can only make a decision based on the information you know at that moment in time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said there were no surveillance cameras in place that recorded the gunman entering Norris Hall, the classroom building where 33 people were killed. Among the dead was the gunman, who killed himself before police could break through a chained door and reach the room where the massacre occurred.