Community in mourning after college massacre
A close-knit American community is in mourning after a student killed his dean, a lecturer and another student.
The unnamed gunman also injured three women students at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia.
He was eventually overpowered by four other students while still wielding his semi-automatic handgun.
Dr Jack Briggs, the first doctor on the scene, said the dean, Anthony Sutin, had apparently been shot twice in the head at point-blank range, while the professor, who has not been named, was shot while he lay wounded on the ground.
He said: "It appears as though some of these shots were fired after one professor was down and they were shot at point blank range."
Harvard-educated Mr Sutin had been the top legal adviser to former US vice president Al Gore when he made his failed bid for the presidency in 1994 and had also been an assistant attorney-general, one of America's top prosecutors.
Dr Briggs added that the gunman was a foreign exchange student and had been on the point of being told to leave the law school.
He commented: "He flunked out of school last year. He was given another chance, but this was the end of the first semester. I believe that the dean was about to tell him that he would have to leave."
"He took his anger out on the people who I think he thought were responsible for him leaving the school."
Dr Briggs went on: "The person who did the shooting was a patient of mine. I saw him about six months ago. He was complaining of stress. He was a time bomb waiting to go off."
