The officer’s name was Deriek W. Crouse, a 39-year-old Army veteran and married father of 5
BLACKSBURG, Va. – A gunman killed a Virginia Tech police officer Thursday at a campus parking lot and then apparently shot himself to death nearby in a baffling attack that shook up the school nearly five years after it was the scene of the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
The shooting took place on the same day Virginia Tech officials were in Washington. Before it became clear that the gunman in Thursday’s attack was dead, the school applied the lessons learned during the last tragedy, locking down the campus and using a high-tech alert system to warn students and faculty members to stay indoors
“In light of the turmoil and trauma and the tragedy suffered by this campus by guns, I can only say words don’t describe our feelings and they’re elusive at this point in time,” university president Charles Steger said. “Our hearts are broken again for the family of our police officer