page_title: Virginia Tech shooting
section_title: Continuing response
hierarchical_section_title: Virginia Tech shooting / Responses to the incidents / Continuing response
caption_attribution_description: English: Bench in honor of the Virginia Tech massacre survivors. It is slightly south of the main memorial. Français&#160;: Banc en l'honneur des survivants de la Fusillade de l'université Virginia Tech. Légèrement au sud du mémorial principal.
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: A Northern Virginia chapter of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization, founded in November 2008 by Aaron Adler and Ethan Blonder, took on the name Liviu Librescu AZA, in honor of the Holocaust survivor who used his body to barricade Cho from entering his room.
  On September 4, 2009, the Marching Virginians, one of Virginia Tech's marching bands, took a 140-mile (230 km) side trip on their way to the season opening football game against the University of Alabama at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The 350-member band, 20 cheerleaders, and members of the Corps of Cadets color guard performed at Lakeside High School, alma mater of Ryan Clark, along with the Lakeside Marching Band and visiting Evans High's band. The event was organized by the Central Savannah River Area Virginia Tech alumni chapter to honor Clark's memory and as a fundraiser for a scholarship in his name.
  Following the 2007 shootings, Virginia Tech began employing an alert system on their website and text messages to warn students of danger. The alert system was first activated in 2008 when an exploded cartridge from a nail gun produced sounds similar to gunfire near a campus dormitory. It was again activated on August 4, 2011, when children attending a summer class reported a man carrying a handgun; police were unable to find anyone matching the children's description. Later in 2011, on December 8, the system was activated again after a police officer was shot and killed on campus. This turned out to be a random act by a part-time Radford University student. He had carjacked a Mercedes SUV earlier in the day in nearby Radford and had parked it in the general area of a Virginia Tech parking lot where the victim officer was conducting a routine traffic stop on a third party. The shooter turned the gun on himself a half-hour later.
caption: Bench in honor of the survivors of the shooting. It is slightly south of the main memorial.
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