page_title: Virginia Tech shooting
section_title: Norris Hall shootings
hierarchical_section_title: Virginia Tech shooting / Attacks / Norris Hall shootings
caption_attribution_description: English: Students gather in Holden Hall during the massacre at Virginia Tech. Español: Alumnos de una clase de francés protegiéndose en el Holden Hall el día 16 de abril de 2007, durante la llamada Masacre de Virginia Tech ocurrida en el Instituto Politécnico y Universidad Estatal de Virginia.
context_page_description: The Virginia Tech shooting was a school shooting that occurred on April 16, 2007, at two buildings, West Ambler Johnston Hall and Norris Hall, on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in Blacksburg, Virginia. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university and a U.S. resident of South Korean origin, shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols. Six others were injured jumping out of windows to escape Cho. As police stormed Norris Hall, Cho committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. It is the deadliest school shooting in the history of the United States, and was also the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history until it was surpassed nine years later by the Orlando nightclub shooting.
  The attacks received international media coverage and provoked widespread criticism of U.S. gun culture. It sparked intense debate about gun violence, gun laws, gaps in the U.S. system for treating mental health issues, the perpetrator's state of mind, the responsibility of college administrations, privacy laws, journalism ethics, and other issues.
context_section_description: About two hours after the initial shootings, Cho entered Norris Hall, which housed the Engineering Science and Mechanics program among others. In a backpack, he carried several chains, locks, a hammer, a knife, two handguns with nineteen 10- and 15-round magazines, and nearly 400 rounds of ammunition. With the locks and chains, he chained the three main entrance doors shut. He placed a note on one of the chained doors, claiming that attempting to open the door would cause a bomb to explode. Shortly before the shooting began, a faculty member found the note and took it to the third floor to notify the school's administration.  At about the same time, Cho had begun to shoot students and faculty on the second floor. The bomb threat was never called in.  The first call to 9-1-1 was received at 9:42 a.m.
  According to several students, Cho looked into several classrooms before the shooting began.  Erin Sheehan, an eyewitness and survivor who had been in Room 207, told reporters that the shooter "peeked in twice" earlier in the lesson and that "it was strange that someone at this point in the semester would be lost, looking for a class". At about 9:40 a.m., Cho began shooting. Cho's first attack after entering Norris occurred in an advanced hydrology engineering class taught by Professor G. V. Loganathan (from India) in Room 206. Cho first shot and killed the professor, then continued firing, killing nine of the thirteen students in the room and injuring two others. Next, Cho went across the hall and into Room 207, where instructor Jamie Bishop was teaching Introductory German. Cho shot at a student, then Bishop, and the rest of the students, killing Bishop and four students; six other students were wounded. Cho then moved on to Norris 211 and 204. In both of these classrooms, Cho was initially prevented from entering due to barricades erected by instructors and students. In Room 204, Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor from Romania, forcibly prevented Cho from entering the room. Librescu was able to hold the door closed with his body until most of his students escaped through the windows; he died after being shot multiple times through the door. One graduate student named Minal Panchal (also from Mumbai) was killed in his classroom.  In Room 211 of Intermediate French, Instructor Jocelyne Couture-Nowak and student Henry Lee were killed as they attempted to barricade the door.  When Cho broke through the barricade and entered the room, a student named Matthew Joseph LaPorte a trained Air Force ROTC Cadet, charged the gunman and died after taking heavy fire (sustaining 7 wounds in the process) in an attempt to save lives. LaPorte would be posthumously awarded the Airman's Medal for his actions on April 9, 2015 which was accepted by his family at his gravesite in Blacksburg.  According to the Virginia Tech Review Panel's report, eleven of the sixteen students died in Room 211 and the six students who survived, including spokespeople and activists Kristina Anderson and Colin Goddard, all suffered gunshot wounds.  However, one of the survivors, Clay Violand, stated that he played dead and escaped without injury.
  Cho reloaded and re-entered several of the classrooms. After Cho's first entry to Room 207, several students had barricaded the door and had begun tending to the wounded. When Cho returned minutes later, Katelyn Carney and Derek O'Dell were injured while holding the door closed. Cho also returned to Room 206, Loganathan's room. According to a student eyewitness, the movements of a wounded Waleed Shaalan (from Egypt) distracted Cho from a nearby student after the shooter had returned to the room. Shaalan was shot a second time and died. Also in Room 206, Partahi Lumbantoruan (from Indonesia) may have shielded fellow student Guillermo Colman from more serious injury. Colman's various accounts make it unclear whether this act was intentional or the involuntary result of Lumbantoruan being shot.
  Students barricaded the door of Room 205 with a large table after substitute professor Haiyan Cheng (Chinese: 程海燕; pinyin: 
caption: Elementary French class students take cover in Holden Hall room 212.
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