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VA. TECH SHOOTING'S "HORRIBLE COINCIDENCE"

By Rex W. Huppke

Tribune staff reporter

April 18, 2007

Fairfax County, Va., police investigators said today that Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was a 2003 graduate of the same high school attended by an 18-year-old who went on a shooting rampage last year at a Virginia police station, killing two officers.

Michael Kennedy, armed with an AK-47, fired more than 70 rounds in the parking lot of the Sully District police station on May 8, killing Det. Vicky Armel and Master Police Officer Michael Garbarino. Kennedy was shot to death by police.

Cho and Kennedy lived in Centreville and graduated from Westfield High School, said Officer Courtney Thibault of the Fairfax County Police Department. She said Cho graduated four years ahead of Kennedy.

Once Cho's identify was released by police in Blacksburg, Va., home of Virginia Tech, Thibault said Fairfax County police launched an investigation to determine if there was any connection between the two shooters. She said they found nothing tying the two young men together.

"It's just a horrible coincidence," she said. "It's hard to believe."

Kennedy's father, Brian Kennedy, was charged earlier this month with helping his son obtain the AK-47 used in the rampage. Federal prosecutors claim he was illegally in possession of a small arsenal of weapons, including rifles, shotguns, handguns and more than 2,500 rounds of ammunition.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

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