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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Campus Massacre at Virginia Tech
Aired April 16, 2007 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Today, the worst shooting rampage in American history. We'll have complete coverage straight ahead here tonight.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT, news, debate and opinion for Monday, April 16th.
Live from New York, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening, everybody.
A gunman today killed 32 people in a shooting rampage on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. The gunman was also killed. Police say he committed suicide.
At least 29 other people wounded. Virginia Tech president Charles Steger said the shootings are a tragedy, as he put it, of monumental proportions.
Brianna Keilar tonight reports from the scene of those shootings in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Ed Henry reports from the White House, where the president today said he was shocked and saddened by this tragedy.
Kitty Pilgrim here in New York with a special report on what has become a long history of school violence in the United States.
We begin tonight with Brianna Keilar in Blacksburg, Virginia -- Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Lou. Yes, the latest official death toll here, 33, including the gunman. Two killed at the dorm this morning earlier in the 7:00 hour. Thirty-one dead -- that includes the gunman -- at Norris Hall, that engineering hall in the 9:00 hour. We understand as well, as you said, at least, 29 wounded.
Now, at this point, we're still waiting to learn more information about the gunman. Police say they believe he acted alone. But that's pretty much all they know about him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES STEGER, VIRGINIA TECH PRESIDENT: We have not confirmed the identity of the gunman because he carried no identification on his person. And we are in the process of attempting that identification. Norris Hall is a tragic and an awful crime scene, and we are in the process of identifying victims and in the process of notifying next of kin. This may take some time. We will not release any names until we are positive of this notification.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Virginia Tech president Charles Steger said at the news conference today that they anticipate a list of the victims to be released sometime tomorrow.
Now, the question, Lou, being voiced here is, why after that will dorm shooting in the 7:00 hour was the alert not broadened? Why was the campus not shut down? And then in the end, 31 more students were killed.
Well, speaking at the news conference, we heard President Steger and the police chief for Virginia Tech say they went on the information they had from that initial shooting. They believed it was a domestic -- a domestic violence issue, or it was a shooting that was domestic in nature. They thought it was an isolated incident, and they also had reason to believe that the gunman in that case had fled the campus. And so they made the decision not to broaden that alert -- Lou.
DOBBS: A tragic decision on the part of the authorities there at Virginia Tech.
Brianna, I understand and I'm sure the audience does that there are far more questions that we'll be able to answer tonight. But among them, why almost just about 10 hours after these -- these horrible events, that we have no sign from the authorities of the identity of the shooter?
KEILAR: That's right. They don't know, and they say the reason they don't know, and that they're still going through the process of identifying him, is because he didn't carry any identification on him -- Lou.
DOBBS: Brianna Keilar, thank you very much.
Brianna will be joining us for our continuing coverage here through the broadcast.
Twenty-six thousand students attend Virginia Tech. Not all of them were on campus this morning, of course. Some students who were there described what they saw after the gunman opened fire and they tell us how police responded to those shootings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT WALDRON, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: I was walking towards class with my iPod on, and these police cars starting streaming down the sidewalk and kids were peeling off. And I guess there was gunshots that was right behind the building that I was in. And so they peeled us all inside the building, and we had to stay inside there for like 15 minutes. And these two kids I guess had panicked and jumped out of the top story window, and the one kid broke his ankle, and the other girl was not in good shape laying on the ground.
And it was just mayhem. And they told us to get out of there, so we ran across the Drill Field as quick as we could, and there were cops yelling. And it was just a mess, so kind of scary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MADISON VAN DUYNE, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: We were all in lockdown. Most of the students are sitting on the floor away from all the windows. And we're just trying to be as safe as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
We were actually all just in the middle of the class, and we heard, you know, numerous sirens going by. So that's when we kind of started moving over to the side. But since that time period, I have not heard more sirens. I think that they have all moved on to the side of campus most of this going on to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX SEMONITE, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: Well, I was over in the Schiffert Health Center. I came out around 9:30, saw all the cop cars outside of West Ambler Johnston, heard somebody say that there was a shot fired, you know. So I immediately tried to get out of that area.
So all the cops spread away from that area towards Burruss, which is near Norris. And so I started walking towards my dorm, which is near Burruss, too.
Along the way, when I was on the other side of the drill field, I heard shots fired and I saw everyone running across the drill field. So I then immediately started running towards my dorm so that I could get into a safe environment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Today's deadly shooting rampage at Virginia Tech is the worst in this country's history. The massacre is only the most recent incident of deadly violence at our schools and college campuses.
Before this morning, the worst campus shooting in the United States occurred more than 40 years ago. In 1966, Charles Whitman, a student at the University of Texas, killed 15 people, while wounding 31 others. The deadliest high school shooting was in the 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before they committed suicide. This week marks the eighth anniversary of Columbine.
In March, 2005, a 16-year-old student in Red Lake, Minnesota, shot and killed eight people, including four fellow students and his grandfather. The gunman later killed himself.
And in October of last year, another shocking school shooting. Five girls were killed, six others wounded by a gunman who storm the Georgetown Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.
We'll have continuing coverage, unfortunately, of violence in our high schools and college campuses here later in the broadcast. And this, of course, not the first incident of violence in the Virginia Tech area.
In August of last year, the first day of classes was cut short at Virginia Tech. The campus was shut down by a manhunt for an escaped prisoner. The inmate killed a deputy sheriff on a nearby hiking trail, and he killed a security guard at a hospital.
Virginia Tech received a series of bomb threats over the past two weeks, as well. The school closed down three halls and canceled classes Friday after those bomb threats. It's not known whether today's shooting rampage is related to those bomb threats.
Joining me now is Jason Piatt. He's a mechanical engineering student at Virginia Tech, and he saw some of what occurred today, some of the police activity after those shootings.
Jason, thank you for being here. I know this is a horrible day for you and your fellow students and everyone in the Virginia Tech family.
Tell us, if you will, what you witnessed.
JASON PIATT, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: Well, I got out of class at 9:55 a.m., and we were trying to leave. I was in McBride Hall. So we went up the stairs and realized that we couldn't get out of the building, and we saw a lot of police outside.
So a guy that was in the class, he had a PDA on him. He checked his e-mail at that point and he saw that there was a message from the university about 9:25 or so saying that there was a shooting incident on campus and they were investigating it.
So, you know, then we thought, well, that's kind of odd. But it didn't seem quite as bad as it was.
So we just stood at the door there and watched the whole scene unfold. And everybody -- the police just kept showing, more and more of them, guns and cars and everything. And then eventually, an Explorer came -- like, came balling across the parking lot right over the median and went in the lot in front of -- or right behind Norris there, and a guy jumped out in a bulletproof vest right around, and he grabbed a guy out of a building who was bleeding from his arm.
They threw him in the car and they drove off. And that was when it was like, all right, maybe there's some serious stuff going on right now. And then from there, everybody was just on their phones, and we got it as you got it, just as it came out on the news.
DOBBS: There was no alert from the university at that point?
PIATT: There was an alert. Like I said, they sent something out at 9:25 that was really vague. It said something about a shooting..
And then pretty quickly after that, of course, the guy with the phone, I don't know where he went, but we stopped getting e-mails. And once I got home and checked my e-mail, I realized they had sent out like two or three in pretty rapid succession after that as it developed. But by the time we got out of class at 9:55, none of us had any idea that there was anything wrong.
DOBBS: At 9:55. We've heard reports from other students, Jason, telling us that they -- they simply were unaware of any public address announcements, any other kind of warning on the campus before the second shooting incidents, which, of course, claimed most of the lives taken today.
Was -- is that true?
PIATT: I don't know. If they say it, I'd say it's true. Speaking from personal experience, like I said, none of us had any idea.
DOBBS: Jason, what was -- what is the mood there tonight on the campus, your fellow students, this experience that you've all gone through?
PIATT: It's really -- I think it's really somber. I think it's still sinking in.
I mean, something like this doesn't happen. It's the first time it's ever happened in the country, apparently something this bad. And it's just really -- it's overwhelming.
You know, I'm still trying to process it. And for the next days and weeks and however long, I'm sure it's going to continue to really hit for what it is. But everybody's -- everybody's really sad.
DOBBS: As are we all across the country, Jason. The idea that this could happen, of course, is repulsive. It leaves us all wondering what in the world was happening.
As you -- as you have gone through this horrific day, have all your friends been safe, students that you have personally come in contact with, in touch with throughout the day in your classrooms? Are they all safe?
PIATT: I don't know of anyone personally that was in that building except for one guy, a system dynamics teacher of mine. I hope he's OK. I e-mailed him and he hasn't gotten back to me.
And if you're out there, I hope you're doing fine.
But everybody else, as far as I know, I don't know of anyone that was in that building personally.
DOBBS: Jason, we thank you for being here on what, as I said, we all understand to be a terrifically sad day for everyone there. A horrific day. And we appreciate you taking the time.
Jason Piatt.
PIATT: Thank you.
DOBBS: Still ahead here, we're going to have much more on the shootings at Virginia Tech. We'll have, of course, live reports from the campus, reaction to these shootings from the president, the Congress. One of the world's leading authorities on handling crises in schools will be among our guests.
And the number of our troops being killed in Iraq also rising sharply. We'll have that report. Five of our troops were killed today.
We'll have that report and much more from Blacksburg, Virginia.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Our coverage of today's campus shootings at Virginia Tech will continue in just a moment. But first, the war in Iraq.
Insurgents have killed 11 more of our troops over the past four days. Five of those troops killed today. Another soldier has died of noncombat-related causes.
Sixty-three of our troops have been killed so far this month, compared with 81 in the entirety of last month. 3,310 of our troops killed since the beginning of this war. 24,645 of our troops wounded, 11,030 of them seriously.
Returning to our coverage of the rampage at Virginia Tech, President Bush said he was shocked and saddened by these shootings. The White House said the federal government would give state and local authorities whatever help they need to deal with this tragedy.
Ed Henry reports now from the White House -- Ed.
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Lou, the president also said the entire nation grieves right now. Obviously, one of the roles a commander in chief can play at a time like this, a time of deep national sorrow, is to try to bring the country together as President Reagan did after the space shuttle disaster, as President Clinton did after the Columbine massacre.
That's what Mr. Bush tried to do, tried to strike the same tone, brief remarks in the diplomatic reception room. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our nation is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech today. The exact toll has not yet been confirmed, but it appears that more than 30 people were killed and many more were wounded.
I've spoken with Governor Tim Kaine and Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. I told them that Laura and I and many across our nation are praying for the victims and their families and all the members of the university community who have been devastated by this terrible tragedy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, both Mr. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales each called the president of Virginia Tech, offering as much assistance as is needed. Obviously, local and state officials are taking the lead in this investigation, the aftermath. But FBI agents already on the scene, as well as agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, trying to help local and state officials deal with this terrible tragedy -- Lou.
DOBBS: Ed, thank you very much.
Ed Henry from the White House.
The House and the Senate today held moments of silence for the victims of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech. Congressional leaders said their prayers are with everyone at Virginia Tech -- students, faculty members, and staff and their families.
Dana Bash reports from Capitol Hill -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, as soon as the Senate came into session this afternoon, the leaders in the Democratic and Republican party both went to the Senate floor, made statements expressing their disbelief and their grief. And they immediately held a prayer and a moment of silence, and then shortly thereafter in the House, the speaker followed suit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: It is with great sadness that I rise to acknowledge that today our country has been struck by a terrible, terrible tragedy. The death toll at Virginia Tech now is over 30. This is -- reported to be over 30. This is the worst campus shooting in the history of our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, because of this deadly incident in Virginia, a much- anticipated event here on Capitol Hill has been postponed. The attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, was supposed to testify tomorrow about his role in the fired federal prosecutors controversy. That is not going to happen. It is now going to happen on Thursday. The Senate Judiciary chairman who was holding that hearing tomorrow went to the Senate floor saying that it was a bipartisan decision, that the nation is going to continue, of course, to be grieving tomorrow. The attorney general, through his spokesman, Lou, said that he is anxious to come and testify before Congress, but in terms of this particular incident, he understands that it is a time to talk about the tragedy and to lend condolences to the families of those who were killed in this incident -- Lou.
DOBBS: Any suggestion today in either the Senate or the House that congressional leaders would be going to Blacksburg?
BASH: Yes. In fact, I spoke with a couple members of the Virginia delegation, members of Congress from Virginia, and they said they're actually going to organize a group event to go down to Blacksburg probably tomorrow to be at the memorial service or the convocation that is expected to take place there tomorrow.
And they are already talking about going down and seeing not just about expressing their condolences, Lou, but also seeing what exactly -- if they can get more facts about what happened, they can take here back to Congress to talk about how they can try to talk about what laws, what they could maybe do to try to prevent something like this from happening in the future -- Lou.
DOBBS: Thank you very much.
Dana Bash from Capitol Hill.
Up next, we'll have much more on the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.
Also, just how dangerous are our schools, our grade schools, our junior high schools, public high schools, and colleges and universities? And is school violence only an American issue?
We'll have special reports tonight on those subjects coming up here later.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The death toll from today's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech now stands at 33, including the gunman who killed himself. Today's massacre at Virginia Tech the deadliest shooting in this country's history. And while school shootings have become more common in the United States, they are also far more common than anywhere else in the world.
Christine Romans reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Dawson College, Montreal -- last fall, a 25-year-old man kills one, wounds 19 before police shot him dead.
School Number One, Beslan, Russia, 333 dead.
In Japan, 2001, eight first and second graders stabbed to death by a 37-year-old man.
1996, Dunblane, Scotland, a 43-year-old killed a teacher and 16 small children.
Horrific school attacks around the world committed by adults.
In the United States, the attacker is more likely to be a student or a young person.
MAURY NATION, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: These are people acting out often emotional difficulties. That is, problems with relationships as a result of bullying.
ROMANS: Avenging their perceived problems at school.
WILLIAM LASSITER, CENTER FOR PREVENTION OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE: Often, the perpetrators of these crimes send out a message that, I'm going to do this. And if they're not taken seriously, they have to prove they're going to do it.
ROMANS: A 2002 Secret Service report examined 41 attackers in the country and found "The demographic, personality, school history and social characteristics of the attackers varied substantially." The only common threads, they were "... most likely male, acting alone, during the school day... a gun was their primary weapon, almost half had more than one weapon."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: Experts say each case is unique and it makes it very difficult to figure out which students or campuses are at risk -- Lou.
DOBBS: That's among the most disturbing aspects of this, is after all of the study by law enforcement, by sociologists, psychologists, that there really is no profile.
ROMANS: The Secret Service says there's absolutely no profile. Each of these children is different. You can't look whether his parents are married, whether they're divorced, whether he has siblings, whether he gets As, Bs, or Cs. Each case is different.
DOBBS: And the distinction between the United States and the rest of the world in terms of the identity of the shooter, the murderer, young people and students here, adults around the world, that's a remarkable distinction.
ROMANS: And confounding the sociologists and the people who look at these sort of things to try to figure out why is it so -- and there are a lot of theories, of course, but why is it so much different here in the United States than the rest of the world? You just don't see children shooting children in the rest of the world. Of course, in this case today, we don't know anything about this perpetrator really. But we're talking about the general concept when we see violence in our schools.
DOBBS: And as we -- as we -- I'll get --- specifically in television here -- struggle to understand an incident like this and to make it understandable, we do go to the general when we cannot define the individual or the specific.
Thank you very much.
Christine Romans.
Up next here, more on the school shooting rampage. We'll have a special report on the long and the tragic history of school shootings in this country. And among our guests tonight, one of the world's leading authorities on the causes of school violence and how to respond.
And a huge storm killed at least four people in the Northeast. That storm leaving a trail of destruction across the region and record rainfall.
We'll have that story.
We continue in one moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Our coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting rampage continues in just a minute. Thirty-two people killed by a gunman today, who then killed himself.
We want to turn to what was a deadly disaster over this weekend in the Northeast. Taking a look now, New Jersey one of the hardest- hit states in the Northeast. Acting governor Richard Codey has declared a state of emergency in New Jersey because of the heavy flooding and storm damage.
And a state of emergency has also been declared in West Virginia. Rising floodwaters there forcing hundreds of people from their homes. State investigators are now assessing the damage in several regions of the state.
The death toll from today's shootings at Virginia Tech, as I said, stands at 33, including the gunman who police now say killed himself. At least 29 others were wounded.
Here's how some of the students on campus described what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PIATT: We saw a guy, an older guy, it looked like maybe a professor, come out of one of the halls with blood running down his arm. Somebody put him in a Ford Explorer and drove off with him. We didn't hear anything immediately. The first thing we knew was this guy had a PDA in his hand and he got this e-mail. And then we were standing there at the steps, and that's when all the cops started showing up with all the guns, and then they started making -- started making -- or calls over the megaphone.
OTEY: I was currently taking a test around, like, 9:30 or so. We didn't really have much time left. And we were all trying to finish up. And we heard gunshots or something coming from downstairs, but none of us were really sure what was going on.
So we were all kind of sitting there like had no idea what was going on. I was about to turn in my test when a girl that I know from my classroom came into the room and was freaking out. She was like something is going on downstairs. People were running out of the building. There's gunshots going off.
SPAVENTA: Like, when I got out of the building finally, it was really hard to see the number of cop cars and ambulances and the cops with their vests on and the dogs and the guns. It was just very, very hard to see all of that after hearing everything.
And now that I'm finally in front of a TV and I'm seeing footage that students have taken, it's just really upsetting and really unnerving. And right now, like I really just don't want to be here. I just really want to be with my family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: School shootings in this country are becoming an all too frequent occurrence. Most shootings, however, don't take place on college campuses but rather in our grade schools, middle schools and high schools. As Kitty Pilgrim now reports, our youngest students are at risk.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The death toll unprecedented, the magnitude of the violence the highest ever. But this country has a litany of school violence for decades, one rampage more horrible than the next.
The first captured as black and white.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A sniper on a university tower.
PILGRIM: August 1, 1966, when Charles Joseph Whitman, an ex- Marine turned tower shooter, killed 15, wounded 31 at the University of Texas.
April 20, 1999, the carnage of Columbine, until now the deadliest school shooting ever as the 17-year-old Dylan Klebold and 18-year-old Eric Harris stalked students. The nation watched it live and listened to the terror.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the principal at Columbine High School. We have a student in our building with a gun.
PILGRIM: Twelve students killed and one teacher. Then, the gunmen killed themselves.
That matched last year by the horror of watching an idyllic community assaulted. October 2, 2006, the Amish school shootings. Ten girls hostage, five lay dead before the siege was over.
September 27, 2006, Platte Canyon High School, Colorado, a gunman holds six girls hostage, sexually assaulting them in turn before killing one girl and then himself.
As the evidence has collected, campus security professionals try to find common threads.
STEVEN HEALY, PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: The typical situation is someone who is related to the campus in some way. And many times, it relates to someone who is upset or disturbed by grades they've received or by some type of relationship that they've had inside the university community.
PILGRIM: But patterns elude detection. Douglas County, Colorado, has hired armed guards to patrol day and night. They routinely practice response drills with local police.
LARRY BORLAND, DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM: Good strong relationships with local law enforcement and public safety. That is just critical. If you invite somebody on -- if you invite a law enforcement agency onto your campus during a crisis, you're too late.
PILGRIM: Too late can be deadly. A slow response is a deadly one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Colleges with open campuses are hard to secure, but history shows K through 12 schools have seen the highest number of violent incidents. So we've seen grade schools, middle schools, high schools struggling with security procedures, entry controls. Schools are putting in armed patrols and in-school security guards -- Lou.
DOBBS: Kitty, thank you very much. Kitty Pilgrim.
There's been considerable debate in this country over whether school security guards should be armed at all.
In Douglas County, Colorado, armed security guards patrol schools 24 hours a day. That county is looking to hire more armed guards to provide additional security, their officers working with local police.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORLAND: In each one of our high schools and middle schools, we have a number of unarmed security officers who are employees of the school district. Then supplementing all of that, we have a patrol division, a smaller patrol division. And those officers are also employees of the school district, but they are armed, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Borland also said they conduct regular training in what they call active shooter drills to determine how they handle an active shooter, should one occur.
And Virginia Tech will remain closed tomorrow, but a special gathering for students will be held on the campus. Counselors are now on hand at the university to provide assistance tonight for the 26,000 students who attend Virginia Tech.
One of those students captured the dramatic moments on video when the gunman opened fire, this video recorded on his cell phone.
Jamal Albarghouti joins us now from Virginia Tech.
Jamal, thank you for being with us.
JAMAL ALBARGHOUTI, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: My pleasure.
DOBBS: At what point did you realize that something -- something horrible was happening?
ALBARGHOUTI: Well, at the beginning, people were screaming and shouting telling me to leave the ground. And I didn't know that it was a serious thing. I should have.
But while I was walking back towards my car, I saw some policemen running, and one of them drew his gun. He took his gun. And when he held his gun, I knew that there is something really serious going on on campus.
I frankly thought it's just another bomb threat. We had two last week, and they closed the campus just to make sure there are no bombs around. But when cops started running and they were all armed, I knew that you something serious is going on.
DOBBS: And where were you located as you were taking that video on your cell phone?
ALBARGHOUTI: There's a square on campus, it's between -- I really don't know what it's called. It's between Burruss Hall, the architecture building, Norris Hall and Hancock. I was in that area.
DOBBS: Right.
ALBARGHOUTI: Right behind me was Johnston student center.
DOBBS: And as you saw the police officer pull his weapon, you think to pick up your cell phone to record it on video and to expose yourself to what could have been great danger. What was going through your mind?
ALBARGHOUTI: Let the world see what's going on. That's what I wanted to do. DOBBS: Well, a wonderful journalistic response. I'm not sure that it is in that situation one that many people would have -- would have experienced. And I compliment you for doing that.
What is your reaction? I know you've been focused on this video and the experience of the day. But what is going through your mind and heart tonight after at least the dimensions of the tragedy are now clear?
ALBARGHOUTI: Well, me and all Blacksburg and, I guess, all Virginia are really sad for the casualties of this incident. And we are so sad for the 30 students who are dead.
And I've been talking to some of my friends. They do not know where their friends or relatives are. My heart is really out for everyone in this case, and this is what's going on in my mind. What else can go in my mind?
DOBBS: Jamal Albarghouti, we thank you very much for sharing your video and your horrific experiences of the day. And like you, our hearts go out to all at Virginia Tech, the families of these victims. And to all of you who have to go through this horrible experience. Jamal, thank you very much.
ALBARGHOUTI: My pleasure.
DOBBS: Coming up next, more on the Virginia Tech shooting rampage. We'll be talking with a panel of experts about what is driving in our culture and our society some people to take such deadly action. And what is next for all of us affected by this tragedy.
Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: What drives certain individuals to take such extreme and deadly, tragic action? And what is the next step for a community touched by such senseless violence and tragedy as Virginia Tech?
Joining me now is Peter Sheras. He's clinical psychologist, professor at the University of Virginia and associate director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project.
Also joining us here in New York, Richard Arum. He's professor of sociology and education at New York University; and Maury Nation, associate professor in human and organizational development at Vanderbilt University.
Welcome to you all. Thanks for being here.
I'm going to turn, if I may, to Peter Sheras. There is very little known about the individual who apparently killed himself after these senseless murders. Give us your best assessment as to what is driving most individuals in such a circumstance.
PETER SHERAS, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Well, Lou, you're absolutely right in saying that each case is individual, and we're dealing with a specific individual here. So there's obviously a lot of information we still don't know.
But in many cases, these extreme acts of violence are committed by people who either have some psychological disorder to begin with.
But more often they're committed by people we talk about as having been the victims themselves of violence or humiliation, and they can no longer kind of control the anger that they have and it comes out. And sometimes it comes out in a very dramatic way, as we saw, I think, in this case.
DOBBS: Professor Nation, your thoughts?
MAURY NATION, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Well, I think, again, it's difficult to characterize. But I think what we've seen in the past, acts of violence here in the last year or so, that there's more than one type. And I think it's dangerous for us to kind of narrow in and say it's always bullying, for example.
Bullying is certainly part of it. But if you look at the example in Pennsylvania, you have someone who was just what I call a bad person looking for a target. And schools, college campuses and schools in general have traditionally been soft targets.
DOBBS: Professor, I know that as Professor Sheras said in particular, it's very difficult to try to figure out in general what is happening here.
But there are certain impulses in this society and culture that has -- that must be driving this. We've had just about 200 murders on our campuses, our all sorts of public schools in this country, over the last 80 years. But they're accelerating.
Is there something happening in our culture, our society that you think could be driving it?
RICHARD ARUM, PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: I think that's exactly the point. That's the troubling aspect of this, that it's -- although these shootings go way back to 1966 and again, there was an incidence in the '70s, they were extraordinarily rare. And in the '80s and '90s and in this decade, they have occurred almost monthly. This is a terrible manifestation of one, but they've become all too common.
DOBBS: Professor Sheras, do you -- I'm told that we've just lost contact with -- with him.
Professor Nation, do you -- do you believe there is any specific identifiable cultural or social impulse that is driving this kind of violence?
NATION: Well, I think there are a variety of factors, and we, as a culture, know many of them. Certainly the level of violence that our children observe, the access to guns. I mean it's true that, to some degree, that there's always been issues of aggression among be school-age children. But when you mix that with also the access to guns. And there's certainly the increased likelihood that you're going to have deadly violence, as we've seen in the last few years.
DOBBS: Professor Arum, the idea that this culture is creating -- is creating the forces, or is at least playing a major role in driving these people to violence, where does it begin? And what, if anything, can be done about it?
ARUM: I think dismissing as -- around the availability of guns is a mistake, because there were guns available in our society in the '50s and '60s and even the '70s and you did not see these incidents occurring repeatedly in this way. Something changed in the '70s where today, we see these incidents repeatedly.
DOBBS: What changed?
ARUM: Well, I would argue that authority relationships in schools changed. And led to a widespread problem of failed socialization of youth, particularly boys, and also widespread problems of school disorder and violence.
DOBBS: Now, if you will, put that in language that I can understand. Authority, boys, what happened? What changed? Are we talking about discipline in the schools?
ARUM: We are talking -- we are talking about discipline, but notice that these incidents that have increasingly happened in the '80s and '90s are almost always done by men who feel their masculinity threatened and resort to these cultural scripts with the use of guns to act out.
But again, why in the '80s and '90s and today and not earlier? And again, I would argue that discipline in our schools earlier is not working. And young men, in particular, are not internalizing the norms and values of our society. And periodically, you get acute manifestations of this, as in these rampage school shootings.
DOBBS: We have had trouble maintaining our contact which satellite with the Professor Sheras.
Professor, we've got you back just in time for a concluding thought, if you would on this.
SHERAS: Well, it's important to realize that how we manage anger, how we teach people to do that, is very much the issue. There are so many models for people to see now that involve acting out anger in these very public ways, these very open ways and these very catastrophic ways.
And even the fact that you have to remember schools are still not the most violent places where people -- where people exist. As bad as this shooting is, there has been a decrease in violence since the middle '90s schools as a rule and, especially as it relates school shootings. And then we have a big explosion like this.
But there are lots of murders, unfortunately, that occur in a lot of settings. We need to be vigilant in schools, but we have to not overreact and just deal with the big issues but, as we said before, the underlying issues about the atmosphere of school, the attachment at school and whether people seek help.
Just about everyone who commits an act like this has made a threat. And if we paid attention to those threats, I think we'd be better off.
DOBBS: Professor Peter Sheras, we thank you very much.
Professor Richard Arum, we thank you here at New York.
And Maury Nation, Professor, we thank you for joining us from Vanderbilt University.
Up next, we'll have a live report for you from one of the who hospitals treating the victims in today's shooting rampage of Virginia Tech. And we will have a discussion, as well, with one of the eyewitnesses to today's tragedy.
We continue our coverage. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Students wounded in today's shootings at Virginia Tech were taken to be Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg, Virginia. John Zarrella is now there and joins us with his report -- John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, in fact, this is where the majority of those that were injured and wounded in the melee and the madness over at Virginia Tech were taken. There were 17 in all that were brought here.
The latest report just has been released by a hospital spokeswoman who came out and told us that there are still nine here. Six of them are in stable condition; three are critical. Five were discharged. Three others were transported to other hospitals because of the severity of their wounds.
One of the 17, we know, is a faculty member, but again, no indication now, no names being released of any of those, nor the kinds or natures -- nature of their wounds or injuries -- Lou.
DOBBS: John, the number of people there, do we have any idea, the report has been 29 people wounded by the gunman today. Do we have a more accurate total number at this point? I know it's still a very difficult situation because of the madness of this day. But do we have any new numbers?
ZARRELLA: Nothing new, and in fact, it is kind of scattered the numbers because we know there are 17 here. We know that initially, two other hospitals were involved, where eight or nine or ten were brought, too. But now with some being transferred and moved from here to another -- to other hospitals, it's hard to say the exact number.
I can tell you, Lou, throughout the afternoon, students and friends and family members, we've seen them coming in and out of the hospital. We have not been allowed to get too close or talk to too many of them.
One student who was going in with a basket for a trend. We asked him how his friend was. He said he's doing OK. That's about the most that we have been able to get from family and friends here -- Lou.
DOBBS: And those family and friends, everyone in that hospital to hear the expression OK, that would -- they would give anything to hear that one.
All right, John, thank you very much. We appreciate it. John Zarrella reporting from Blacksburg.
Coming up at the top of the hour, as our coverage here on CNN continues, "THE SITUATION ROOM" and Wolf Blitzer -- Wolf.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Lou.
We're expecting a news conference in which we're going to be learning, presumably, more about today's massacre at Virginia Tech, the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. You'll see it live right here in "THE SITUATION ROOM".
Also tonight, so many of the unanswered questions about this strategy -- tragedy, including one key point: why wasn't the campus locked down immediately after that first shooting?
And I'll talk to an eyewitness who captured some of the most dramatic sound and images of the chaos and the confusion on his cell phone camera. His description of the massacre is chilling.
All that, Lou, coming up as we continue our special coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre -- Lou.
DOBBS: Absolutely, Wolf, thank you very much.
CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta joins me now from the CNN center for an update on -- on this horrible tragedy.
Sanjay, let me ask you. We've just heard from John Zarrella at the Montgomery hospital there in Blacksburg. As he described the victims there, 17 brought there, five of them have been discharged, three in critical condition, six in stable.
Give us -- give everybody a sense of what that means, the difference between stable and critical, so that they can assess the condition of those patients.
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, usually it has to do, obviously, with the initial severity of injuries to sort of place someone in a criminal condition versus stable. Stable typically is meaning that their vital signs, the things that you measure, typically, of their heart rate and blood pressure and breathing typically are on their own.
When they first do the triage, you can see there on the screen, that sometimes can be gruesome. They have to do this at the time, to determine if someone is actually deceased whether they're critical at the time, seriously injured, as well, or just minor injuries.
And Lou, the reason they do this triage on the scene, is that they subsequently are calling all these various hospitals around the area trying to determine what they can take.
Are they able to take care of some of the more critically injured or not? This is on going throughout the entire time, Lou.
DOBBS: It's impressive that Montgomery, the hospital there in Blacksburg, was able to take so many of those trauma victims, shooting victims. What are they likely to be facing in that situation?
Gunshot wounds are, of course, devastating. Is there -- and these are for the most part and we presume most are students. Is that an inherent advantage to the ability to survive such wounds, their age?
GUPTA: I think so. I think for certain, you know, being young and otherwise healthy makes them a lot more resilient towards being able to survive and recover well from these sorts of injuries.
But you're absolutely right. That's a lot of patients, no matter how big your trauma structure is, 17 patients to come all at once. You know, this is a town that I don't imagine they see a lot of penetrating sort of gunshot trauma, not like a big urban center. So this has got to be new on them on so many different levels.
DOBBS: And doing their best as are the wonderful people in trauma centers all over the country.
Sanjay, thank you as always, dr. Sanjay Gupta.
GUPTA: Thank you, sir.
DOBBS: Coming up next, we'll have the remarkable story of a woman who played dead to survive today's rampage at Virginia Tech when the gunman opened fire. We'll have her story here next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: We're going back now to Blacksburg, Virginia, to the campus of Virginia Tech University, the tragic scene of today's shooting rampage. Earlier Jeanne Meserve talked with a woman who was in the room when the gunman was first shooting. She played dead to survive.
Jeanne, tell us what happened to this young lady. JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, she survived. Her name is Erin Sheehan. She's a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering. Here's a part of the story she had to tell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERIN SHEEHAN, VIRGINIA TECH FRESHMAN: I was in my German class, my 9 a.m. German class today when the shooter came in and shot almost the whole class.
MESERVE: Describe him.
SHEEHAN: He was, I would say, about a little bit under six feet tall, young looking, Asian, dressed sort of strangely, almost like a Boy Scout, with very short-sleeved light, tan shirt and some sort of ammo vest. It had black all over it.
MESERVE: What kind of weapon did he have?
SHEEHAN: I'd say a handgun. It was not a large rifle at all. It was black and it was plastic. I don't know much about guns, though.
MESERVE: Describe how he came into the classroom.
SHEEHAN: He peeked in twice earlier in the class, which is sort of sketchy. But then he came in eventually later, and he just stepped in five feet of the door and just started firing. He seemed very thorough about it, getting almost everyone down. I tried to be dead on the ground.
And then he left for about 30 seconds, came back in, did almost exactly the same thing. So I guess he heard us still talking. And then we forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again, because the door would not lock. And so he -- he came and tried to force himself in one or two times and started shooting through the door.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE: Erin Sheehan says there were 25 students in her German class. Only four of them walked out.
Lou, back to you.
DOBBS: Jeanne, thank you very much. Jeanne Meserve on the campus of Virginia Tech. It's the university, the scene of this country's worst shooting rampage in history.
We thank you for being with us tonight. For all of us here, thanks for watching. Good night from New York.
"THE SITUATION ROOM begins now with Wolf Blitzer -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Thanks, Lou.
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