Virginia Tech to hold slain officer's funeral Monday
http://dervishcom.blogspot.com/2011/12/virginia-tech-to-hold-slain-officers.html
The Virginia Tech community gathers Monday for the funeral of campus police Officer Deriek Crouse as his friends and those of the man believed to have killed him try to make sense of the tragedy.
Law enforcement authorities say Ross Ashley, 22, shot Crouse on campus Thursday, then killed himself. The episode terrified the Blacksburg, Va., campus and revived memories of 2007, when a student gunman killed 33 people, including himself.
Chief Deputy Robbie Hall of the Montgomery County, Va., Sheriff's Department, where Crouse worked before joining the Virginia Tech department in 2007, attended Sunday's visitation for the officer, who was 39.
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MORE: Gunman never hinted at violence, friends say
"He was professional when he had to be, but he never met a stranger and loved his Pittsburgh Steelers," Hall says. "Just an all-around good guy."
Crouse was an Army veteran who served in Iraq. His wife, Tina Crouse, told The Roanoke Times that he texted "love you lots" just before the shooting. He had a son and four stepchildren. "Somebody took our life from us," she told the newspaper.
Ashley, who was from Partlow, Va., was a part-time business management student at Radford University, which is about 15 miles from Blacksburg. He played football at Spotsylvania High School and transferred to Radford from the University of Virginia-Wise.
Nic Robinson, 21, a Radford University student who knew Ashley well, says she and his other friends are puzzled by his actions. "We just wish that if there were things going on that he would have said something," she says.
Ashley "wasn't Mr. Popularity necessarily," Robinson says, "but he wasn't one of those loners you looked at and said he's creepy."
Ashley, who lived a block from her, worked retail jobs and studied hard, she says. "I wish we could have helped him more."
Matt Dailey, another friend of Ashley's, told The Roanoke Times that they made two or three trips to a shooting range, but he said he didn't think Ashley had used the gun in some time. The shooting range was the same one visited by Seung Hui Cho, the 2007 Virginia Tech gunman. Dailey told the newspaper he saw no signs that Ashley was planning the shooting.
Crouse's funeral will be held today at Virginia Tech's Cassell Coliseum. Lawrence Hincker, the school's associate vice president for university relations, says the last final exams are Thursday and graduation is Friday.
Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller says investigators worked through the weekend on the case but had no new information to release Sunday.
Hall says Crouse in October filled out an application in hopes of returning to the Montgomery County sheriff's office.
"He was tired of the campus atmosphere," he says. "Within the next few days I would probably have been calling him for an interview."
Law enforcement authorities say Ross Ashley, 22, shot Crouse on campus Thursday, then killed himself. The episode terrified the Blacksburg, Va., campus and revived memories of 2007, when a student gunman killed 33 people, including himself.
Chief Deputy Robbie Hall of the Montgomery County, Va., Sheriff's Department, where Crouse worked before joining the Virginia Tech department in 2007, attended Sunday's visitation for the officer, who was 39.
*
MORE: Gunman never hinted at violence, friends say
"He was professional when he had to be, but he never met a stranger and loved his Pittsburgh Steelers," Hall says. "Just an all-around good guy."
Crouse was an Army veteran who served in Iraq. His wife, Tina Crouse, told The Roanoke Times that he texted "love you lots" just before the shooting. He had a son and four stepchildren. "Somebody took our life from us," she told the newspaper.
Ashley, who was from Partlow, Va., was a part-time business management student at Radford University, which is about 15 miles from Blacksburg. He played football at Spotsylvania High School and transferred to Radford from the University of Virginia-Wise.
Nic Robinson, 21, a Radford University student who knew Ashley well, says she and his other friends are puzzled by his actions. "We just wish that if there were things going on that he would have said something," she says.
Ashley "wasn't Mr. Popularity necessarily," Robinson says, "but he wasn't one of those loners you looked at and said he's creepy."
Ashley, who lived a block from her, worked retail jobs and studied hard, she says. "I wish we could have helped him more."
Matt Dailey, another friend of Ashley's, told The Roanoke Times that they made two or three trips to a shooting range, but he said he didn't think Ashley had used the gun in some time. The shooting range was the same one visited by Seung Hui Cho, the 2007 Virginia Tech gunman. Dailey told the newspaper he saw no signs that Ashley was planning the shooting.
Crouse's funeral will be held today at Virginia Tech's Cassell Coliseum. Lawrence Hincker, the school's associate vice president for university relations, says the last final exams are Thursday and graduation is Friday.
Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller says investigators worked through the weekend on the case but had no new information to release Sunday.
Hall says Crouse in October filled out an application in hopes of returning to the Montgomery County sheriff's office.
"He was tired of the campus atmosphere," he says. "Within the next few days I would probably have been calling him for an interview."
