Police Release Name of Officer Killed at Virginia Tech

Virginia State Police has released the name of the officer killed in Thursday's shooting at Virginia Tech. Deriek W. Crouse, a 39-year-old husband, father of five children, and four-year veteran of the force was killed Thursday afternoon by a gunman whose name has yet to be released.

The first calls reporting a shooting came in around 12:30 p.m.. Six minutes later Virginia Tech issued the first of six alerts locking down campus. The alerts went out by text message, email, and on the university Web site.

Minutes later, a four-year police veteran was dead and another male was found a quarter mile up the road with a gunshot wound.

The unidentified gunman had walked in to a Virginia Tech parking lot and shot the officer while he had been conducting a traffic stop. The shooter fled on foot.

“Another officer later spotted a second person in that parking lot who was alive at the time but later died. The second person is believed to be the shooter,” the Associated Press reported.

A photo slideshow by the Collegiate Times, the Virginia Tech student newspaper, shows eerie scenes of a vacant campus, police cars blocking roads and doorways.

Police have not released the name of the gunman or identified a motive.