Crouse
Officer Derek W. Crouse, 39 was shot dead following a traffic stop at Virginia Tech Image released by Virginia Tec

The gunman who killed a Virginia Tech police officer on Thursday then turned the same gun on himself, police have announced.

The unidentified gunman shot Officer Derek W. Crouse, 39, after he pulled a driver over in a traffic stop near the campus gymnasium.

Witnesses reported that the shooter fled on foot to another parking lot. Police attending the scene found another man's body with a fatal gunshot wound and a gun nearby.

State police announced Friday morning that ballistics tests confirmed that both Crouse and the suspected shooter had been shot with the same handgun.

Army veteran Crouse, a married father of five, joined the campus police six months after the 2007 massacre at the university, when Seung Hui-Cho killed 32 people and wounded 25 before committing suicide.

The motive for Thursday's shooting is still unknown.

"My heart goes out to [Crouse's] family, who will surely feel most keenly, in the days and months and years ahead, the profound loss that today's events have brought to pass," said university president Charles Steger, who was off campus at the time of the shooting.