Blacksburg, Va. - The man who killed a Virginia Tech police officer Thursday and subsequently took his own life, has been identified as Ross Truett Ashley, 22, a Radford University student.
On Friday, police announced that Ashley was the gunman who triggered a campus-wide lock down after stealing a white 2011 Mercedes Benz SUV on Wednesday from a Radford real estate office – about 15 miles from Virginia Tech, according to The Huffington Post. He walked into the office, brandishing a handgun, demanding keys to an employee vehicle.
According to the report, the university student entered the Virginia Tech campus on Dec. 8, 2011, and shot the school officer, Deriek W. Crouse, 39, as he sat in his unmarked cruiser. Ashley then went to the campus greenhouse area and threw away his cap, sweatshirt and backpack. After heading to a nearby parking lot, he was spotted by a deputy. Ashley then killed himself.
At a news conference Friday, police spokesperson Corrine Geller said that authorities are attempting to determine why Ashley shot Crouse – who he did not know – at a school he never attended, and why he decided to kill himself.
Crouse was trained in crisis intervention and was an instructor in firearms and defense. He had been on the force for four years.
According to the Post, the shooting took place “on the same day Virginia Tech officials were in Washington, fighting a federal fine over their handling of the 2007 massacre...”
That horrific event took place on the campus on April 16, 2007, when student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before he took his own life. Cho had been diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder and had previously been declared mentally ill.
The school alert system was activated due to Thursday's shooting and school spokesperson, Larry Hincker, said it worked as planned.
“It's fair to say that life is very different at college campuses today. The telecommunications technology and protocols that we have available to us, that we now have in place, didn't exist years ago,” said Hincker. “We believe the system worked very well.”
An official vigil took place Friday night to honor the Virginia Tech fallen.
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