On Wednesday, Jan 21, at 7:06 p.m., Virginia Tech Police received a 911 call reporting that a female was being assaulted in the Au Bon Pain restaurant located on the first floor of the Graduate Life Center at Donaldson-Brown. When they arrived approximately four minutes later, she was dead.
Following the incident, the university sent out two messages through its emergency alert system, The Roanoke Times reported. The system sent out approximately 40,000 e-mail messages Wednesday night alone.
The alert system was put in place following the fatal shooting of 32 students and staff at the university in April 2007 by a student who then took his own life. The system uses several means of getting messages to the university community including e-mail and text messages.
