BLACKSBURG, Va. — State police in Virginia still don't know of any connection between the Virginia Tech police officer who was shot and killed on campus yesterday and the man who shot him before taking his own life.
In an apparent attempt to throw off a police manhunt, the gunman fled to a nearby university greenhouse after shooting the officer, and changed clothes. But a sheriff's deputy spotted him, and the gunman killed himself.
Before they were certain that the gunman was dead, officials locked down the campus for several hours. The campus was the scene of the deadliest gun rampage in modern U.S. history, when 33 people were killed by a student in 2007.
Police say they know the shooter's identity, but they haven't released it. They say he wasn't a student. But they don't know why he targeted the officer, Deriek Crouse.
They also say the shooter was probably the same man who stole a rental car at gunpoint earlier yesterday about 15 miles away.
The officer who was shot had pulled over a car driven by a student, and was stopped in a campus parking lot with that car in front of the cruiser at the time of the shooting.