Virginia Tech marks 10 years after fatal shooting
BLACKSBURG, Va. — Ten years after a student fatally shot 32 people at Virginia Tech, survivors and families of the slain returned to campus to honor the lives lost that day.
Virginia Tech on Sunday marked the anniversary of the shooting on April 16, 2007. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine were among the 10,000 to 20,000 people expected for the solemn occasion.
Mr. Kaine, who was governor at the time of the shooting, said he vividly remembers the horrors of that day and has grown close to many of the survivors and the victims’ families.
The shooting was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history. It forced schools across the country to rethink campus security and reignited the debate over gun control.
Mr. McAuliffe and his daughter participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at 9:43 a.m. — the time when Seung-Hui Cho’s rampage began. The pair — along with former Virginia Tech president Charles Steger and current president Timothy Sands and his wife — walked around the memorial, stopping at every one of the 32 stones arranged in a semi-circle, each engraved with a victim’s name.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families, survivors and the entire Virginia Tech community who have shown incredible strength and resilience while facing unimaginable grief,” Mr. McAuliffe said.