Virginia Tech gunman named as Ross Truett Ashley

Police have named the Virginia Tech gunman who shot dead a policeman and then himself as Ross Truett Ashley, a part-time student from nearby Radford University.

The day before Thursday's shootings, 22-year-old Ashley stole a sport utility vehicle at gunpoint from a real estate office in nearby Radford. The car was found on the Virginia Tech campus.

Police said Ashley walked up to the police officer and fired, then took off for the campus greenhouses, dropping his pullover, wool cap and backpack. He made his way to a nearby parking lot and when a deputy spotted him he shot himself.

Deriek W Crouse, 39, was the police officer killed. He had been on the Virginia Tech force for four years, joining about six months after 33 people were killed in a classroom building and dorm on 16 April 2007.

Crouse pulled over a student on Thursday and was shot while sitting in his unmarked cruiser. The student didn't have any link to the gunman, state police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said.

Shortly before 12.30pm police received a call from a witness who said an officer had been shot. About six minutes later the first campus-wide alert was sent by email, text message and electronic signs in university buildings. Many students on campus were preparing for exams and they were told to stay indoors.

Fifteen minutes after the witness called police a deputy sheriff noticed a man at the back of another parking lot nearby. The man was by himself, looking around furtively and acting "a little suspicious" according to Geller.

The deputy drove up and down the rows of the parking lot and lost sight of the man for a moment. The deputy then found the man lying on the pavement, shot dead. The handgun was nearby. Police said nobody witnessed the suicide.

The shootings unfolded on the same day Virginia Tech officials were in Washington fighting a federal government fine over their handling of the 2007 massacre. About 150 students gathered silently Thursday night for a candlelit vigil on a field facing the memorial for the 2007 victims.