WASHINGTON, 19 April 2007 — The Virginia university, shaken by Monday’s massacre, were given another scare when police briefly cordoned off a building at the Virginia Tech campus yesterday, but the alert turned out to be a false alarm.

Earlier, it was reported that the student who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday was questioned by campus police twice in late 2005 after female students complained he was harassing them and was hospitalized after he was reported to be suicidal, police said yesterday.

The security scare rattled some students who have remained on the Virginia Tech University campus following the rampage by a South Korean student, Cho Seung-Hui.

“Oh my God, it’s starting all over again,” said student Petty Wingler, 21, as armed police with sniffer dogs descended on an administrative building next to Norris Hall, the engineering building attacked by Cho on Monday. A police officer told reporters there had been a “report of unusual activity” at Burruss Hall, the university’s main administrative building. “It turned out to be unfounded. The site is safe,” he said.

Cho, 23, was not charged with a criminal violation in either incident involving his contact with female students in November and December of 2005, campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said. The female complainants characterized Cho’s contact with them as ‘annoying.’

According to Virginia Tech campus police, the student responsible for the shootings at the university was mentally unstable. After the two complaints, officers asked Cho to speak to a mental health counselor and he agreed. Cho was committed at a facility in Radford, Va., on Dec. 13.

Cho was admitted to Carilion St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital in nearby Radford, Va., on Dec. 13, 2005. Officials said they believe Cho entered the hospital voluntarily. They would not say how much time he spent there. Flinchum said he was not aware of any contact between Cho and campus police since those incidents. An independent panel will examine those events, as well as the rampage itself, following criticism that officials waited too long to inform students and the faculty of a potential danger. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced that former state superintendent Gerald Massengill will lead the probe.

Cho’s roommates and professors yesterday described a troubled, very quiet young man who rarely spoke to his roommates or made eye contact with them. His bizarre behavior had become even less predictable in recent weeks. His dormitory roommates, Joseph Aust and Karan Grewal, steered clear of Cho when they lived with him. They said Cho was quiet and didn’t interact with them. “He pretty much never talked at all,” Aust said. “I tried to make conversation with him earlier in the year. ... He gave one-word answers. He pretty much never looked me in the eye.” Though Cho’s behavior was always strange, Aust said he noticed some changes in recent weeks.

“The last couple weeks [he] was getting up at 6 [in the morning] or even 5:30,” Aust said. “And a couple of days ago, he actually got back to the room at about 2 in the afternoon and slept until 5 the next day.”

Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings — pages filled with twisted, violence-drenched writing.

“It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating,” poet Nikki Giovanni, one of his professors, told CNN yesterday. “I know we’re talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk and jump off buildings,” she said. “There was something mean about this boy. It was the meanness — I’ve taught troubled youngsters and crazy people — it was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak.”

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho’s behavior, including taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to class and she had security checks on her room. She eventually had him taken out of her class, saying she would quit if he wasn’t removed.