kellinator | And stuff like this is why internal reviews are worth their weight in... poop.

Virginia Tech probe finds no fault in massacre response

"Seung-Hui Cho 'was determined to commit murder, planned the crime meticulously and managed to conceal his homicidal urges from all of law enforcement authorities, and the mental health experts who tried to help him and presumably from his own family,' Virginia Tech president Charles Steger said."

Yep, he concealed his homicidal urges so well that Nikki Giovanni (you may have heard of her; she's a prominent American poet) had him removed from her poetry class for writing violent poetry and harrassing female classmates. The department head who afterwards worked with him one-on-one was so scared of him she devised a duress code to call security in case he became violent. And the violent plays he wrote in his other writing class had to be at least somewhat well-known, as former classmates posted them on the Internet within hours of the shooting. But never mind the writing, which last I checked was still protected by the First Amendment; university officials were aware that he had stalked at least two women. After the fact, said stalking seemed to provoke less outrage in the media than his writing; of course, they were only girls. < / SARCASM >

"In the days following the shooting, Steger defended the university's actions, saying that he initially thought the dorm room shooting was 'a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide.'"

Tell me, President Steger, who did you think pulled the trigger? Was it Emily Hilscher, the animal-loving freshman? Or was it her resident advisor Ryan "Stack" Clark, a triple-major Habitat for Humanity volunteer who was reportedly beloved by everyone who knew him? Well it must have been him, after all he was a black guy and you know they all have guns. < / MORE SARCASM >

And why alert the rest of the campus about a domestic shooting, anyway? It's a private matter. Girl probably got what she deserved. < / EVEN MORE SARCASM >

...If you guys ever wonder again why I'm so shallow and devoted to celebrity gossip, here it is: When I look at the real world, I see all sorts of stuff just like this, stuff that I'm powerless to fix, and it makes me so angry and frustrated I can't see straight.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm sorry, but if cops find 2 bodies in a dorm room, the assumption will be that it is either a murder-suicide, or perhaps a love-triangle double-murder (with the shooter having left.)

(There was, in fact, a murder-suicide among by someone who worked in the building with me in 1998. There was certainly no expectation that the company would close down the next day until the circumstances were verified.)

The number of shooting sprees that have started with 2 unrelated deaths and spread to another location are, perhaps, one. (And in any event are a tiny fraction of the number of double-murders out there.)

There were plenty of break-downs BEFORE the first shooting happened, but I can't fault campus cops (whoo! talented crime scene investigators!), with not much information, not realizing a mass shooting was in the works.

There were men killed, as well as women, in this horrible incident. It's obvious that this man showed homicidal tendencies, but there is only so much people can do. Yes, he was kicked out of a class for his writing. Think he's the first? And yes, the female department head was scared. I know I would have been. But think about it. (I'm not making excuses for him.) He was an Asian student. All that had to happen is for them to make noises to dismiss him and he could threaten them with discrimination. I'm not holding myself up as any shining example, but I work on a campus and when someone like that has a problem, there ARE attempts to help. We have all kinds of 'safes' installed. If anyone shows any problems or psychological disorders, send him to...

All for naught if the person doesn't WANT help. And he obviously did not.

Yes. It's awful. And there must have been something that could have been done. But I agree with the above posted that the two unrelated deaths did not indicate a shooting spree had started. The worst is seldom thought until it happens.

You are not the president of Va. Tech. You don't know what avenues were open to him or how much information he was given. Do you not think that he lies awake nights thinking of all those people- faculty AND students - who were murdered on his watch? Do you not think that if he could go back and do things over again, he wouldn't change SOMETHING so that all those people would not die?

No, I'm not the president of Virginia Tech, but you don't have to be a carpenter to know when a chair is badly made (paraphrased from Samuel Johnson). Do I think he feels bad? Certainly. But I find his claim that the university did nothing, nothing at all wrong to be a piece of cover-your-ass bullshit. Things ALWAYS could have been done differently, in any situation. To claim it's not the university's fault at all certainly smacks of "let's do something before we get sued" to me. I expect that from captains of industry, but I expect better from those charged with molding young minds.

And geez, thanks for getting all up in my shit. There are people who need champions, but I've never heard of college presidents being among them. Hell, for what they pay those guys, they SHOULD be up at night worrying.

Finally, your going on about MEN were killed too pretty much proves my point. People sure started caring then, huh? The hyperbole is to make my point -- seems that his earlier menacing was overlooked, and I'm betting people assuming "oh, Asian nerd's acting weird because he can't get a date" was involved. My university wasn't as big as Virginia Tech, but I know stalking was taken seriously there. Even large universities assume some responsibility for the well-being of their students and employees. I'll save my sympathy for the victims' families, thanks.

Did your building notify you that there had been a shooting?

Personally, I only heard about it after the funeral had been announced. So, no, I didn't hear about it for almost a week. There was certainly no mass announcement immediately after the bodies had been found or anything. Management might not have even been informed for several days.

Of course, in a circumstance like this, who do you notify? In my case, the guy down the hall died. So if it was a love triangle, who else would the killer go after? Even assuming you know who the killer was, who do you warn? Where I was working? Where the wife worked? Where the possible killer worked? Related schools? Churches? And what the heck does a "warning" mean? That everyone should bring a gun to work?

If they find a body at Emory, or a Tech student goes missing for two weeks, what do you do? Close the whole campus? Announce "bring a gun to class" day?

I just don't see any really good options for the administration (or the owners of a business) once you get to that point.

whenever a body is found in a building, investigators notify everyone in the building on the off-chance the killer is still around. This is SOP. If there is more than one body? Doubly so. Because, regardless of immediate appearances and assumptions, investigators are required to treat all dead bodies as possible signs of danger. Period. Even if a body is found dead for days, they draw their guns and move about the scene on red-light until the area has been "secured" this is SOP. I am surprised it is not SOP for security of a dorm as well.

In this case, the question was, who ELSE do you notify?

The murder-suicide happened at their home, and his place of work wasn't notified.

In the case of VT, I assume the dorm residents were aware of it, but the rest of campus wasn't notified.

Where do you draw the line for "locking things down" when you find a body?

I personally don't see that closing down an entire campus with tens of thousands of students and staff makes sense.

And stuff like this is why internal reviews are worth their weight in... poop.

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