Virginia Tech Alumnus Shares His Thoughts on Thursday's Shooting

A Virginia Tech alumnus sat at his desk in Silver Spring Thursday afternoon listening to a police scanner and monitoring Twitter for news about his alma mater.

According to James Williams, an employee at Discovery News, Thursday's incident was déjà vu of a time almost five years ago when he covered a shooting at the same Blacksburg, VA campus in April 2007.

“I've felt this sense of impatience and subtle panic before," Williams wrote on Discovery News. "On 9/11 and again during the last VA Tech shooting.”

Williams graduated from the university 20 years ago.

In Virginia, police officials are investigating the cause a campus shooting that stemmed from a traffic stop Thursday shortly after noon, according to the university's news release. The shooting left two dead- one a campus police officer- and lead to a campus lockdown a day before final exams were set to begin.

The unidentified officer for the Virginia Tech Police Department is a four-year veteran, according to reports.

By 5 p.m. the campus lockdown was lifted, when police reported the gunman was dead. Police are still not releasing details about the second shooting victim, a white male, found not far from the original crime scene, according to the release.

When the first shooting occurred in 2007, Williams covered the story. His online video report detailed how new technology including Twitter helped to spread the word outside of campus.

The university's police chief and president were in D.C. earlier Thursday at a U.S. Education Department hearing in which they were appealing a $55,000 fine in connection with the 2007 university shooting.