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

[kellinator]

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.

Comments

[skellington.livejournal.com]

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.

[smibbo.livejournal.com]

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.

[skellington.livejournal.com]

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.