Two people, including a police officer, were shot and killed Thursday afternoon on the campus of Virginia Tech, the scene of a 2007 massacre in which 33 people were slain, the authorities said. The campus police officer, whose name was not released, was shot at close range by a man who had walked up to him as the officer was making a traffic stop in a school parking lot at about noon, the police said.
The shooter then fled the scene, the authorities said, leading to a university-wide lockdown of students and staff in campus buildings, the activation of the school’s emergency notification alert system and hundreds of police officers hurrying to respond.
The second victim, whose identity has not been released, was found dead from a gunshot wound, about a quarter of a mile from where the officer had been shot.
The authorities would not say whether the second victim was the man who shot the officer, but by late Thursday afternoon the police had lifted the campus lockdown, saying there was “no longer an active threat,” and allowed people to go home.
The authorities also said that they had found a gun near the body of the second man, and said officers had not shot him. But they would not say if the man had died from a self-inflicted wound. The police said they did not think the shooter knew the person who had been pulled over by the officer.
“We do not believe the gunman was related in any way to the traffic stop,” said Gene Deisinger, the deputy chief of police at Virginia Tech.
No classes were in session on Thursday because students had been given a day off to prepare for finals, but there were still thousands of students, staff and faculty members on campus at the time, officials said. The exams have since been postponed.
Charles W. Steger, the president of the university, described the shooting as a “wanton act of violence,” but the authorities would not discuss a possible motive or disclose other key details about what had happened, saying that they were continuing to investigate.
The shooting took place during what was described as a routine traffic stop in a parking lot near McComas Hall, a gym and sports building.
Witnesses reported seeing the suspect running toward a different parking lot, called the Cage, near Duck Pond Drive. That is where the police said they found the second person. They said he was alive at first sighting but declined to give further details.
An image posted online by a reporter from The Roanoke Times, Lerone Graham, showed a cordoned off area and a white sheet covering a body in the middle of a narrow road.
Before the lockdown was lifted, Ed Falco, the director of creative writing at Virginia Tech, was among 12 professors locked in his office at Shanks Hall, where the English faculty is located.
Mr. Falco, who was off campus during the 2007 shooting, said he had been at home Thursday when he received an alert on the campus message system. He said that because previous alerts had been prompted by backfiring trucks and other false alarms, he decided to go to school for an appointment.
“I figured this would be the same thing, and came to campus anyway,” he said. “I’m fine, but along with everyone else, this brings back very bad memories and bad associations. That this is actually happening is unbelievable.”
Mr. Falco said that there had been a state trooper parked outside the building throughout the afternoon and that the police had been inside to make sure everyone was fine.
Erika Meitner, an assistant professor of English at the university, said her 4-year-old son had been among 45 students on lockdown at a campus daycare center, not far from where the shooting occurred. After nervously waiting for several hours, Ms. Meitner said her husband had gone to campus to pick up her son when the center began to release children.
She said that even though the shooting had occurred not far from Wallace Hall, where the center is located, the children had been unaware that anything was amiss because the gunfire had occurred during their nap time.
“It’s closer than you want your child to be to this,” she said.
A bulletin had described the suspect, traveling on foot in the direction of a recreational sports building, as “white male, gray sweatpants, gray hat w/neon green brim, maroon hoodie and backpack.” It was unclear if that was what the second man was found wearing.
On April 16, 2007, a student, Seung-Hui Cho, shot and killed 32 people before killing himself on Virginia Tech’s quiet campus, five hours south of Washington, D.C., in the western mountains of Virginia. It was the country’s deadliest school shooting, prompting a national outcry, and eventually leading to changes in legislation that closed loopholes, which allowed Mr. Cho to buy guns even though he had been committed to a mental hospital.
A university spokesman described the warning system that was activated on campus during and after the shooting in a video interview by WDBJ television in Roanoke, Va. The university was fined by the Department of Education earlier this year for waiting too long to notify students after the 2007 attack. University officials were in Washington on Thursday to appeal the $55,000 fine.
Hayley Bance, a freshman from Richmond, Va., said she was sitting with some friends in a dining area at the Squires Student Center when the building suddenly became a flurry of police activity.
“It was unreal. It just didn’t feel like it was happening on this campus,” Ms. Bance said. “Then we were told to move away from the windows and were taken upstairs. We saw these two police officers with huge guns. Then it started to feel real.”
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