A police officer was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop in the coliseum parking lot of the Virginia Tech campus, officials said this afternoon.

After the shooting - around noon - the gunman ran toward another parking lot known as the Cage where police found a second person fatally shot, the Roanoke Times was reporting

A campus-wide alert told students and faculty to stay inside and lock doors. Authorities were seeking a suspect.

A law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case, said initial reports indicated that the shooting occurred following a traffic stop.

The suspect was described as a white male wearing gray sweat pants, a gray hat with neon green brim, a maroon hoodie and backpack.

As sirens blared, heavily armed police officers were seen running through the area around the roundabout at the end of Washington Street, and officers searched cars around the Cage. At the Coliseum, what appeared to be a body was covered with a cloth in a taped-off area of the parking lot. Officers there told a dozen student-age onlookers to leave for their own safety.

By 2 p.m., students were scarce and police dogs were being used in the search for the gunman. Officials were reporting that the Virginia State Police had been called to take the lead in the investigation.

Tech students Rachel Dallman and Jake Desmarais were enjoying lunch when they heard about the shooting. They stood in the Cassell Coliseum lot 50 feet from a taped off area where a body was covered.

Desmarais was stunned, called the news “shocking,” while Dallman was upset that such an event took place on Reading Day, which would otherwise be a quiet, routine segway into the holidays.

“What’s going on, why? In broad daylight and on Reading Day?” she said.

All Montgomery County schools also were reportedly on lockdown shortly after 2 p.m.

A message left with the university wasn’t immediately returned. Campus police referred all questions to the university.

The shooting came the same day as Virginia Tech was appealing a $55,000 fine by the U.S. Education Department in connection with the university’s response to the 2007 rampage, when a student gunman killed 32 students and faculty and then shot himself.