But there was no official confirmation. Police said the gunman had died after the rampage in a dormitory at Virginia Tech and a separate, much deadlier, fusillade in a building housing engineering classrooms two hours later. "We have a ballpark figure on fatalities. It's at least 22 fatalities," Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum told reporters.
One of the dead was the gunman, but Flinchum had no information as to whether he killed himself or had been killed by others. "At this time we believe it was only one gunman," Flinchum said. "He is deceased. The university in Blacksburg, in western Virginia, was locked down as police combed the campus after shootings in two separate buildings, which went well beyond the toll of 15 dead in a shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.