On April 16, 2007, the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the scene of a tragic mass shooting. Among the victims was Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old Romanian-American male of Jewish ethnicity who was a distinguished professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics. On that fateful morning, he was teaching a solid mechanics class in Room 204 of Norris Hall when the sounds of gunfire echoed through the building.
As the gunman, 23-year-old undergraduate student Seung-Hui Cho, made his way through the academic building, methodically shooting students and faculty, Professor Librescu took decisive action. Understanding the grave danger his students were in, he instructed them to escape through the windows of the second-story classroom. While his students scrambled to safety, Librescu barricaded the door with his own body, preventing the shooter from entering. His courageous stand provided precious time for most of his students to flee.
The perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, fired multiple shots through the door, fatally wounding Professor Librescu. Because of his selfless act, all but one of the students in his classroom managed to escape with their lives. After his rampage, which claimed the lives of 32 people and wounded many others, Cho died by suicide. As the perpetrator took his own life, there were no arrests, trials, or convictions in relation to the massacre. Liviu Librescu's sacrifice, which occurred on Holocaust Remembrance Day, was widely recognized as an act of heroism. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Star of Romania, his native country's highest civilian honor.
