Bells toll for 32 victims of Virginia Tech massacre

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — A sea of people clad in maroon and orange, some with heads tearfully bowed, others with arms interlocked, paid tribute Wednesday to the victims who died a year ago in the nation’s worst mass shooting in modern history.

The accomplishments of each of the 32 people echoed across the drill field, a litany of what they had done and planned to do before a student gunman killed them in classrooms and a dormitory at Virginia Tech.

“The world was cheated — cheated out of the accomplishments that were sure to come from these extraordinary lives,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine told the crowd.

People held back tears as a moment of silence was observed for those killed by Seung-Hui Cho, who took his own life as police closed in. But as music started playing, many sobbed and wept openly, overcome again by the magnitude of loss.

After the ceremony, bells in the nearby administration building tolled 32 times as mourners approached the semicircle of memorial stones, each engraved with the name of a victim.

Trees were planted in front of an honors dormitory in memory of two members of the program who were slain. Members of several grieving families as well as students took turns shoveling dirt around a white oak for Austin Cloyd and a sugar maple for Maxine Turner.

About 50 people lay down in protest of Virginia’s gun laws. The protesters stretched out on the grass for three minutes, to symbolize the amount of time they say it takes to buy a gun in Virginia and at unregulated gun shows across the country.

Similar “lie-ins” were held at campuses around the country, including the University of Toledo, Ohio State University, Kent State, Oberlin College and in Cincinnati, as well as at other sites around the nation including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Across Ohio, colleges have responded in the last year by installing outdoor public address systems, creating dedicated telephone hot lines and systems that send emergency warning messages to cell phones and computers and tailoring campus counseling programs for walk-in appointments.