Witness survives by pretending to be dead*

POSTED: 0403 GMT (1203 HKT), April 17, 2007

Story Highlights
• NEW: Witness describes gunman coming back to classroom
• University officials say 33 dead, including a gunman
• Attacks mark deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- A gunman who killed at least 30 people in
one of two shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech Monday was dressed
"almost like a Boy Scout," said a student who survived by pretending to
lie dead on a classroom floor.

"He just stepped within five feet of the door and just started firing,"
said Erin Sheehan who was in one of the Norris Hall classrooms where the
second shooting incident took place.

Sheehan described the gunman -- who later shot and killed himself
according to police -- as a young man wearing a short-sleeved tan shirt
and black ammunition vest.

"He seemed very thorough about it -- getting almost everyone down -- I
pretended to be dead," she said. (Student survives by playing dead Video)

"He was very silent," said Sheehan, one of only four students in her
25-student German class who were not shot.

The gunman left but returned in about 30 seconds. "I guess he heard us
still talking," said Sheehan.

"We forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again,
because the door would not lock."

The man tried three more times to force his way in and then began firing
through the door, she said.

Student Tiffany Otey was taking a test inside Norris Hall when the
shooting began. She and about 20 other people took refuge behind a
locked door in a teacher's office.

Police officers with bulletproof vests and machine guns were in the area.

"They were telling us to put our hands above our head and if we didn't
cooperate and put our hands above our heads they would shoot," Otey
said. "I guess they were afraid, like us -- like the shooter was going
to be among one of us."

Some students leaped from windows to escape said Matt Waldron.

"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 just lying on the ground."

Madison Van Duyne said she and her classmates in a media writing class
were on "lockdown" in their classroom where they where writing about the
shootings and posting online.

Shooter chained doors shut

University President Charles Steger told reporters Monday night that
police found the front doors of Norris chained shut and that by the time
they got to the second floor, the gunfire stopped. (Watch gunfire on the
campus Video)

The shooter attacked more than one classroom at Norris Hall, according
to police. The death total there -- 31 including the gunman -- makes it
the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.

A law enforcement source close to the investigation told CNN a
22-caliber handgun and a 9 mm handgun were recovered at the scene.

University police Chief Wendell Flinchum said at a Monday night news
conference that they had a preliminary identification of the shooter at
Norris Hall but were not releasing it.

Dormitory shooting two hours earlier

Two people were killed in a separate incident at a dormitory on the
campus about two hours before the Norris Hall incident, at around 7:15 a.m.

The dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, houses 895 students and is
located near the drill field and stadium. (Campus map)

Flinchum said police were still investigating whether the two incidents
are related.

At a news conference Monday afternoon, Flinchum did not rule out a
separate shooter for the dormitory incident. (Watch the police chief
explain where bodies were found Video)

At the time of the later shootings at Norris Hall, police were
investigating a "person of interest" in the dormitory shootings,
Flinchum said. But the man -- a non-student who knew one of the victims
-- had not been arrested, and it is unclear if he has any link to the
other gunman, he said.

One dormitory victim identified

Courtney Dalton, an 18-year-old student who worked at West End Dining
Hall, said her friend Ryan Clark was one of the two dormitory victims.

She said Clark, a resident assistant at West Johnston Ambler Hall, had
once worked at the cafeteria serving pizza.

"He was a happy person; this is really sad," she said, sobbing.

"All I can do is pray for his family now," she told CNN.com.

Officials thought first incident was isolated

Asked why the campus, which has more than 26,000 students, was not shut
down after the first shooting, Flinchum responded that police determined
"it was an isolated event to that building and the decision was made not
to cancel classes at that time." (Officials thought shooter had fled)

The university has scheduled a convocation for 2 p.m. ET Tuesday.
Classes also have been canceled Tuesday. In Washington, the House and
Senate observed moments of silence for the victims and President Bush
said the nation was "shocked and saddened" by news of the tragedy.

Last August, the first day of class was cut short at Virginia Tech by a
manhunt for an escaped prisoner accused of killing a Blacksburg hospital
security guard and a sheriff's deputy.

Before Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States occurred
in 1991, when George Hennard drove a pickup truck into a Killeen, Texas,
cafeteria and fatally shot 23 people, before shooting and killing himself.

CNN's Ashley Fantz and Jeanne Meserve contributed to this report.