Thursday, November 13, 2008
Police search for two men in Virginia Tech scare
Photos by Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times
Students and members of the Virginia Tech community stand behind police tape outside thePritchard Hall dormitory on campus.
Virginia Tech officials now say cartridges from powder-actuated nailers used on construction sites are to blame for a suspicious sound reported as gunshots about 1 p.m. at Pritchard Hall.
Police theorize that someone mechanically exploded the construction shells possibly by slamming the lid of a trash bin near the residence hall, according to university officials.
Police have found no evidence of gunfire from within or outside the building, university officials say. Pritchard Hall was reopened about 2:50 p.m.
Virginia Tech has released the description of two men witnesses reported seeing near dumpsters when an explosion from a nail gun led to reports of gun shots at the university.
One man is described as white, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and the other man is black with a bushy or braided hairstyle. Virginia Tech police ask anyone with information contact them at 231-6411.
Freshman Patrick Nowaczyk, who lives on the sixth floor of Pritchard Hall, said he is glad police and university officials took the incident seriously.
"I was just chilling in my room, and around 1:15 or 1:20, an RA knocked on my door and asked if I had heard any suspcious sounds," Nowaczyk said.
He said he had heard nothing suspicious, but left his room as a precaution.
The university sent out an emergency alert about the incident about 1:40 p.m. Nowaczyk said he had yet to receive his alert as of about 2:20 p.m., even though he signed up with the system.
Classes and other activities on campus are not being interrupted.
The all-male Pritchard Hall was built in 1969 and is home to about 1,000 residents. The university's Web site calls it the largest all-male residence hall on the East Coast.
Prichard Hall is in the same area of campus as West Ambler Johnson Hall, where on April 16, 2007, student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed two people. Two hours later, Cho killed 30 others in Norris Hall, then took his own life.
