A shooting at Virginia Tech University has left two people dead, including a police officer, and prompted the entire school to be placed on lockdown today. A Virginia Tech police officer was fatally shot on the campus by an as-yet-unidentified gunman, for whom a sweeping search was conducted for four hours. Here’s the local press conference detailing the events of this afternoon: Virginia Tech Shooting Press Conference Around 4:30 p.m. EST, the Blacksburg, Va., school announced on its Twitter feed that “law enforcement agencies have determined there is no longer an active threat or a need to secure in place. Resume normal activities.” Police said that the shooting occurred shortly after noon, after the police officer made a routine traffic stop in the Coliseum parking lot near McComas Hall. During that stop, a person who wasn’t involved in the traffic stop approached and shot the officer, then fled toward a nearby parking lot, officials said. When another investigating officer circled back to approach the person – described as a white male – that person was dead of a gunshot wound. A Virginia state police spokesman said that police didn’t shoot the second person, and he wouldn’t say whether the person was the suspect. It’s unclear if the search is ongoing, but he said investigators feel “confident we located the person,” and “you can kind of read between the lines.” The incident comes after a shooting spree in which a Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung-Hui, shot dead 32 people before killing himself in April 2007. More details to follow as the story develops …
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Virginia Tech Shooting Leaves Police Officer Dead; Officials Believe Suspect Also Killed