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US college faulted over massacre
BBC
Thursday Aug 30, 2007
Lives might have been saved if Virginia Tech officials had
acted sooner after student Cho Seung-hui's first killings, a state
report into the shootings says.
"Warning students, faculty and staff might have made a difference,"
it says.
The independent panel also concluded that though Cho had demonstrated
signs of mental instability earlier, college staff had not intervened
effectively.
Cho killed 32 people and himself at the US university in April
in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history.
The eight-member panel, appointed by Virginia governor Tim Kaine,
said officials should have issued an alert or cancelled classes
after Cho shot his first two victims - Emily Hilscher and Ryan
Clark - in a dormitory just after 0700 on 16 April.
(Article continues below)
"The VTPD (Virginia Tech Police Department) erred in not requesting...
a campus-wide notification that two persons had been killed and
that all students and staff should be cautious and alert,"
the report said.
The campus police force initially suspected that Emily Hilscher's
boyfriend was behind the shootings, believing it to be a domestic
incident, and focused their efforts on finding him.
"Senior university administrators... failed to issue an
all-campus notification about the West Ambler Johnston killings
until almost two hours had elapsed," the report added.
More than two hours later Cho killed 30 students and teachers,
plus himself, at the Norris Hall complex in another area of the
campus.
Warning messages
At 0926 the university sent an e-mail to students and staff warning
of a "shooting on campus" and urging caution.
However, while a lockdown might have helped protect some students
and teachers it would have likely been ineffective in stopping
Cho, who "had started on a mission of fulfilling a fantasy
of revenge", the report said.
"From what we know of his mental state and commitment to action
that day, it was likely that he would have acted out his fantasy
somewhere on campus or outside it that same day," the report
said.
The panel were also mindful of the fact that as a student himself,
Cho would have had access to the same warning messages as everyone
else and to the campus buildings.
In fact the report concluded that a complete lockdown of all
131 buildings in the Virginia Tech building was not feasible in
the time available on the day, and that there was little the university
could have done to secure the premises which would have halted
Cho's attack.
"There does not seem to be a plausible scenario of a university
response to the double homicide that could have prevented the
tragedy of considerable magnitude on April 16," the report
said.
Information gap
However, the report was critical of how campus officials had
handled signs of Cho's mental illness.
"During Cho's junior year at Virginia Tech, numerous incidents
occurred that were clear warnings of mental instability,"
the report said.
Police were aware that Cho, who moved to the US with his family
from South Korea in 1992, had been admitted to a mental health
unit in late 2005.
He was sent for evaluation after two female students made complaints
against him, following a period of bizarre behaviour and concerns
that he was suicidal.
But the information was never passed on to university officials
because of a lack of resources, misinterpretation of privacy laws
and passivity, the report said.
"Although various individuals and departments within the
university knew about each of these incidents, the university
did not intervene effectively. No-one knew all the information
and no-one connected all the dots," the report said.
In the lull between killings, Cho sent a package to US network
NBC containing 28 video clips, 1,800 words of text and 43 photos,
11 of them showing Cho aiming handguns at a camera.
Although his motives remained unclear, the report traced his
fantasies to the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado,
in which two students killed 13 people.
The state governor said the purpose of the inquiry was not seek
to lay blame, but ensure that such a tragedy could not happen
again.
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