Va Tech Shooter Identified: Ross Truett Ashley

UPDATE: Police have identified the Virginia Tech shooter who killed a police officer before taking his own life as Ross Truett Ashley, a 22-year-old student at nearby Radford University.

According to the Associated Press, Authorities had waited to identify Ashley publicly in order to notify his family first. Police also say that it was indeed Ashley who stole a SUV the night before the shooting, from a Radford real estate office at gunpoint. The car was found later abandoned on Tech’s campus.

Authorities have also offered more details of what occurred in the minutes after Ashley apparently shot university officer Deriek W. Crouse during a traffic stop with another person. They say he ran towards the campus greenhouses and took off a sweatshirt, cap and backpack before being spotted by a deputy. That’s when Ashley took his own life.

But even now that the police have identified Ashley, and said that he didn’t know officer Crouse when he shot the university cop, questions remain: why was he on the university’s campus having never gone there?  

“That’s very much the fundamental part of the investigation right now,” state police spokeswoman Corrine Geller told AP Friday.

Update 11:03 a.m. Dec. 9: A few more details on this: Officials now say that the gunman, who they have not yet identified publicly, is not a student and that they are confident that he acted alone.

The Washington Post reports that investigators have found no prior connection between the shooter and Deriek W. Crouse, the 39-year-old Virginia Tech police officer who was shot and killed.

Friday, Dec. 9: Authorities have not yet identified the gunman, but say they are increasingly certain that he killed himself after shooting and killing a Virginia Tech police officer on Thursday.

They have, however, now IDed the officer who was killed in the line of a duty: Deriek W. Crouse, 39, of Christiansburg, Va. The New York Times reports that Crouse was married with five children and stepchildren. He was also an Army veteran.

The Washington Post has an in-depth account of what happened on campus Thursday here. 

Thursday, Dec. 8: A Virginia Tech police officer was shot and killed on campus Thursday and a second individual was found dead in a nearby parking lot after the suspect fled, university and local law enforcement authorities said at an evening press conference that followed a nervous day on a campus that was the site of a mass shooting only four years ago.

NBC News and the Associated Press, citing unnamed police officials, report that authorities believe the second body was that of the gunman. At an evening press conference, however, authorities would not confirm those reports, saying only that they now feel comfortable that the campus is safe and that the investigation is ongoing.

The first shots were fired shortly after noon on the Blacksburg campus when the police officer made what the university described as a routine traffic stop. During the stop, the gunman, who was not in the car that was pulled over, shot and killed the officer, according to an eye witness. Officials said the gunman's motive was unclear at this time.

From there, the suspect reportedly fled on foot in the direction of a nearby parking lot. Shortly after, police found the body of a second person who was shot and killed there. Officials said that the person was alive when he was first spotted in the lot by a police officer, and that the officer did not shoot him. Police, likewise, would not say whether the body of the second person matched the description of the gunman, but a weapon was recovered nearby and officials went to great pains during the media briefing to avoid confirming or denying suggestions that the shooter likely had turned the gun on himself.

For much of the afternoon, Virginia Tech officials had a campus-wide alert in place urging students and staff to remain indoors as the investigation continued to unfold. University officials kept the campus community updated throughout the day with a new alert system that was put in place in the wake of the 2007 shooting rampage that killed 32 students along with shooter Seung-Hui Cho.