Sharing the horror

Jason Piatt, a Virginia Tech student, to CBC News:

"One of my classmates had a PDA, checked his e-mail, and he had an e-mail from the university saying there was a shooting incident, and they were investigating. That was the first thing we knew about it. It was already locked-down.

"We saw one guy run out of the building with blood all over his arm, like he'd been shot, and there was just police everywhere, guns everywhere, cars, dogs.

"At one point, probably about eleven-fifteen, eleven-twenty, three officers came over to us with assault rifles and they said, 'You guys gotta get away from this door. Get to the middle of the building. There's been a bomb threat.' … That was the last thing they said to us.

"The first I realized that anything was wrong was when we tried to get out of the building after class got out, and there was just a big blockage of people standing there on the steps.

"I think the question on everybody's mind is: who was this guy and why did he do this? There's really a lot of anger."

Jason Piatt, to CNN:

"I'm pretty outraged and I'll say on the record I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at seven o'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it, no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes — they just mention that they're investigating a shooting two hours later at nine-twenty-two.

Kim Snider, who runs a restaurant near the Virginia Tech campus, in an interview with CBC News:

"Shortly after ten, there just a sudden barrage of emergency vehicles, all with their sirens on, which is very strange. Normally, you'd only see one or two. So, that was the heads-up. And then all of a sudden, a flood of students were running through the parking lot, trying to get away from campus.

"I hate to say this, but it felt a little bit like nine-eleven. It started out, and it seemed like something relatively small and isolated, and then when we got the news locally that there was at least 20 dead, none of us could … 'Did she say "casualties"? Did she actually say "fatalities"?'"

Derek O'Dell, a student wounded in the shooting, speaking from hospital to MSNBC:

"He came inside the room and started shooting. He let off a full round inside the room. I was one of ten or twelve people who were shot.

"He didn't say anything. He just shot and then left. Some of those hit were a lot more critical than me. The people like myself, we were able to hold the door shut because he tried to get back in. He even tried shooting through the door.

"At first I thought it was a joke. I mean, you don't really think about gunmen just coming onto campus. But it became very serious, very quickly."

Trey Perkins, student, was in a German class in Norris Hall when the gunman came in:

"He left after shooting people then tried to get back in. We managed to hold the door shut but he kept firing through the door, four, five, maybe six times. Fortunately, no one was hit. Then he went away. We could hear the shots from down the hall. I just tried to help the people who'd been hit, using my sweatshirt.…."

Robert Bowman, an editor at the student newspaper, describing the scene during the shootings at Norris Hall:

"Students were literally jumping out of second-storey windows to get away from the classroom. It appears that was the classroom where most of the shootings took place, at that second site."

Student Aimee Kanode, who spent hours locked inside her dorm room, like many students at the dormitory where the first shootings took place:

"They had us under lockdown. They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again.… We're all locked in our dorms surfing the internet trying to figure out what's going on."

Charles Steger, president of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg:

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions. The university is shocked and indeed horrified."

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino, on President George W. Bush's reaction to the shootings:

"He was horrified and his immediate reaction was one of deep concern for the families of the victims, the victims themselves, the students, the professors and all the people of Virginia who have dealt with this shocking incident. His thoughts and prayers are with them.…

"The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. Certainly, bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting … is against the law and something someone should be held accountable for."

Student Jamal Albarghouti, who took video footage on his cellphone as the tragedy unfolded:

"Whoa!" (heard on his own cellphone video after a particularly loud and apparently close gunshot)

"Blacksburg is a very small town, everybody almost knows everybody. It's going to be very bad and very sad in here."

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko:

"All avenues will be explored."