Virginia Tech Campus Shut Down - Shooting Incident

[King of New York]

Originally Posted by Drake

That's true, I guess, but given that the university didn't really know that there was anything other than a domestic dispute to respond to until the second round of shootings either, I don't think the university can be blamed. Even if they had canceled classes immediately, it's going to take a couple of hours for that information to filter out, which means that you've got a bunch of confused students milling about on campus (showing up, hearing the news, deciding whether or not to leave).

I don't have a problem with the students bitching about it. It's just part of what they need to do to start to conceptualize what happened. They're putting their lives and worldview back together after an eruption of chaos. That's normal and healthy. What won't be normal and healthy is all the finger-pointing and hand wringing that's bound to come down from a legislative body six months or a year from now.

I hear you, and I guess what I am saying is: I think that there are lessons to be learned here from the VT response. Learning lessons without unfairly blaming those administrators whose decisions are the basis of those lessons is the tricky part.

[Ksyrup]

I hadn't seen this specific info on the main news sites I have been reading...




BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as a English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.

News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where Monday's bloodbath began.
Police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set him off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled."

"There was some concern about him," Rude said. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.

The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that he left a note in his dorm room that included a rambling list of grievances. Citing identified sources, the Tribune said he had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women.

Investigators believe Cho at some point had been taking medication for depression, the newspaper reported.

[bryce]

So I just read that this murderer's family lives in Virginia - have we heard anything from his relatives yet? I haven't seen any statement by them, which seems odd. But if they even come out with the "He was a good kid, he was just misunderstood" garbage, ARGH!

[molson]

It's interesting to compare the desires of security/tolerance for reduction in civil liberties between the issues presented by domestic nutjobs vs terrorists.

It's weird, I'm basically against any kind of securitity on college campuses, yet I could care less if the federal government listens to my phone calls to see if I'm a terrorist. And I'm sure there's other people who bitch about not being able to bring liquids on a plane, yet feel we should restrict the movement of thousands of people at a univeristy following an act of violence.

I'm not sure what the difference is. I guess personally, I feel like is just isn't worth restricting freedoms for individual nutjobs, who are completely unpredictable (and sadly, largely unstoppable), where I see terrorism as a more logical, predictable, and (more) preventable threat (not to mention a bigger threat to our country as a whole).

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Icy

One thing i heard today in Spanish news and also read in this thread is that the VT staff used an email as way of communicating about the incident and danger and it's really weird to me so i guess i didn't understand it well.

An email for an emergency?? so if they have a fire emergency, what would they do? send a regular mail or publish it on the next day newspapers? I can't think on an email in my top ten fast ways of telling somebody about an emergency. Don't they have a speaker system? sound and visual alarm system? Can't at least the teachers be notified so they can lock their classrooms?

Maybe it's that students there are reading emails every 5 minutes so it was the best way of telling them, but i doubt it.

Since this was never quite answered:

They said they used the e-mail system, a set of weather-alert speakers that cover the campus, and a broadcast phone system to get the word out. Basically they used every tool at their disposal, with mass e-mail being just one of those.

[Drake]

I fully support the idea of only letting hot and bouncy co-eds on college campuses.

And me. Hot and bouncy co-eds and me.

[Subby]

So here is an interesting piece of information...

My little brother said *yesterday* (afternoon) that he thought he knew who the shooter was because the guy that fit Cho's description as Asian took a theater fictional writing class with his roomate. In that class he wrote a first person narrative about shooting classmates.

Charleym14: yea
Charleym14: it was definately
Charleym14: the kid
Charleym14: in my roommates writing class
Chris Shue RAA: wow
Chris Shue RAA: really?
Chris Shue RAA: tell me again what he wrote? and what class?
Charleym14: it was some like theater fictional writing class
Charleym14: and he wrote af irst person narrative
Charleym14: about shooting classmates
Chris Shue RAA: last semester?
Charleym14: last year
Chris Shue RAA: how did you get it?
Charleym14: i mean they print out a ton of copies of their stories
Charleym14: for everyone to read in the class
Charleym14: and critique
Charleym14: and he just took the copy home
Charleym14: and I read it
Charleym14: I think i threw it out though
Chris Shue RAA: you sure it is the same guy?
Charleym14: 100%
Charleym14: got comfirmation from my roommate
Chris Shue RAA: wow
Charleym14: I mean
Charleym14: I was sure it was him
Charleym14: once all the facts were comign out
Charleym14: to many coincidences
Charleym14: apparently my picture was on the front page of cnn.com
Charleym14: too
Chris Shue RAA: who
Chris Shue RAA: what?
Chris Shue RAA: why>
Charleym14: I was at a vigil last night
Charleym14: and I joined in a prayer circle and apparently they took a bunch of pics of it, I saw it last night in the yahoo slide show
Chris Shue RAA: oh wow
Charleym14: but they must have made it the front page for a while
Charleym14: I mean its me with 8 other people
Charleym14: but im predominant in it
Chris Shue RAA: looking...
Charleym14: if you email dad I sent him the link
Charleym14: last night
Charleym14: I gotta run though
Charleym14: ttyl
Chris Shue RAA: later

:\

[molson]

I definitley read something about his fictional writing teacher being concerned with what he was writing.

[wade moore]

I've heard some stuff like this mentioned in the media (just less specific)...

While useful, I'm worried it's going to lead to more "you should have known" and I still just don't know that you can say that.

[spleen1015]

One of the articles currently up on CNN says his creative writing teacher was concerned about his frame of mind and had him seek counseling. She doesn't know what happened or what the outcome was, but knows that he atteneded.

[molson]

Originally Posted by wade moore

While useful, I'm worried it's going to lead to more "you should have known" and I still just don't know that you can say that.

Ya, I can see it now. "He wrote about killing his classmates and the university did NOTHING???"

I'd guess that at least 1 in 10 fictional writings of males under age 24 involving killing people they know.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by wade moore

While useful, I'm worried it's going to lead to more "you should have known" and I still just don't know that you can say that.

I don't think you can. For every 1 of these people who hurts themselves or others that have these 'early warning' signs, there's probably hundreds or even thousands that have the same and end up hurting no one. There's no way you can predict this behaivor in anyone, despite what the media and Dr. Phil would have us believe.

[Drake]

I worry more about people who have never had revenge fantasies. I mean really, who is more likely to snap: Homer or Ned Flanders?

[Subby]

Not sure if this is what my little bro was referring to, but here is one of his writings:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...071vtech1.html

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by molson

I definitley read something about his fictional writing teacher being concerned with what he was writing.

Hindsight being 20/20 of course.

Here's the thing...once I heard English major, I knew, knew there would be something that would have alluded to this event. As an English major, a creative writing major, whatever, you would write what's on your mind.

If you are a disturbed individual, then of course, you would write such a fantasy.

If this is true, they really dropped the ball, because there would have been a forewarning.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by Subby

Not sure if this is what my little bro was referring to, but here is one of his writings:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...071vtech1.html

That really sucked.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Subby

Not sure if this is what my little bro was referring to, but here is one of his writings:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...071vtech1.html

My opinion of the quality of students at Virginia Tech just went down considerably.

[stevew]

On the season premeire of Law and Order next year, I'm wondering who will be painted as the "bad guy" when they adapt this. I'd venture that they'll try to charge the administration with criminally negligent homicide for failing to alert the students, but I could be wrong....

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by molson

It's interesting to compare the desires of security/tolerance for reduction in civil liberties between the issues presented by domestic nutjobs vs terrorists.

It's weird, I'm basically against any kind of securitity on college campuses, yet I could care less if the federal government listens to my phone calls to see if I'm a terrorist. And I'm sure there's other people who bitch about not being able to bring liquids on a plane, yet feel we should restrict the movement of thousands of people at a univeristy following an act of violence.

I'm not sure what the difference is. I guess personally, I feel like is just isn't worth restricting freedoms for individual nutjobs, who are completely unpredictable (and sadly, largely unstoppable), where I see terrorism as a more logical, predictable, and (more) preventable threat (not to mention a bigger threat to our country as a whole).

I am against restriction at a college level too. We are basically giving up liberties left and right because we need to overcompensate because of things like this. (9/11, etc.)

Nobody expects such events to occur at college level. The people who attend college generally want to be at college. At high school level, there is still up to a point a requirement to attend. Therefore, you get those who want to be there meshed with those who don't. At college, you have to make an effort to attend.

I also think that is why there was such poor response to the 1st shooting. We as a nation are so desensitized to violence that the assumption of murder/suicide (domestic disturbance) was probably the only conclusion met (I mean the guy didn't attack again till 2.5 hours later? The timeline is set yet, but it seems he initially killed then plotted his ultimate revenge - I mean he /walked/ across campus and it doesn't seem that he killed anyone on the way to the academic building -- that to me is a sign that his anger was purposely directed. And he wanted to unleash his fury at maximum. I would assume that individuals that slighted him (relationship or otherwise were at this location)).

Because as a society we expect a measure of death by violence we aren't shocked into reaction fast enough, hence he was able to escape detection until he wanted to be noticed.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by molson

My opinion of the quality of students at Virginia Tech just went down considerably.

Good choice for the ol' control group there.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by sabotai

I don't think you can. For every 1 of these people who hurts themselves or others that have these 'early warning' signs, there's probably hundreds or even thousands that have the same and end up hurting no one. There's no way you can predict this behaivor in anyone, despite what the media and Dr. Phil would have us believe.

Yeah. And if they referred him and attempted to put him through counseling, it seems to me they did do something.

[Ksyrup]

"Are you always full of shit McBeef?" is the new "What's the frequency Kenneth?"

[Drake]

No, it isn't.

[Drake]

[Maple Leafs]

A paper in the UK has printed a story (with photos) of the first victim and is spinning it as "the girl who inspired the attack" or some such.

[LloydLungs]

That was absolutely terrible. Even without the whole "murdering 32 innocents" thing, this guy was a disgrace to English majors. I was writing much better stuff than that at 12.

[kingfc22]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

That really sucked.

Geez. And he was majoring in this??? I read two pages and stopped.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

Geez. And he was majoring in this??? I read two pages and stopped.

To be fair, I think he was majoring in English not Creative Writing...

Not that that means much..

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Drake

No, it isn't.

OK, then it's Wendy's new attack ad campaign slogan.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Subby

Not sure if this is what my little bro was referring to, but here is one of his writings:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...071vtech1.html

Oh I get it. It's not that it was about a disturbing topic, it was that it was disturbingly bad. It all makes sense now.

I can see multiple lines in that garbage used as comedic catchphares.
"Man-to-man up your ass"
"Are you always full of shit, McBeef?"
"My poor little pooey pooey boy!"
"Yes. Now why don't we go to the bedroom and do it doggy style"
"Today is one fruity day."

[Ksyrup]

There's a second story on this blog from a current AOL employee and classmate of this guy. His comments about Cho are pretty interesting:

hxxp://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

[Drake]

I don't know why I keep reading the comments on blogs and newspapers. Every time I do, it just makes me hope that the terrorists win.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

There's a second story on this blog from a current AOL employee and classmate of this guy. His comments about Cho are pretty interesting:

hxxp://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

That MR Brownstone play is friggin awful.

[wade moore]

BTW -

Not a super close relationship, but discovered that the Speech Therapist at the elementry school my Fiance teaches at lost her Neice/Goddaughter in this incident yesterday.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Subby

Good choice for the ol' control group there.

I guess based on that control group, VT students have bigger problems than their writing skills.

The effects on security will be discussed to death (and it's an important discussion). But I wonder if schools will be more careful about who they admit. "Loner with poor writing skills" isn't someone schools like VT should be fighting over. Random extra-curricular activites might be more and more important for high schoolers.

[Izulde]

If I ever sink to that level of "creative" writing, somebody please put me out of my misery.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Fighter of Foo

I'm going to guess no, and at the risk of being flamed, why the fcck would they? Seriously?

This question is like asking if the army has a plan for dealing with specific types of bullets.

You prepare for emergencies and disasters. Anything more specific and it quickly becomes pointless (see airport security).

A violent assailant loose on campus is a pretty generic emergency. More importantly it's one that colleges have faced and VT specifically has faced. It seems that it is pretty universal for colleges to not have planned for this, but that is incredibly irresponsible.

And to other comments, I'm not saying there was any way to prevent this, but the VT response is about as poor as can be imagined. I'll agree that a lockdown is nearly impossible and probably unwarranted given the information at the time, but there are a lot of things that could have been down that would have at least tilted the odds more in favor of the student body.

[st.cronin]

I just changed my facebook status to "Virginia Tech." I'm still saddened and horrified, and Blacksburg has my deepest sympathies.

[Groundhog]

My girlfriend's family are Koreans living in Virginia. I bet they, the school kid age relatives in particular, will get some backlash because of this.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by HiFiRevival

Probably not. Considering the area he was from, and the tremendous amount of integration in this area, it probably won't be bad at all. This isn't a 9/11 no matter how much media may try to make it be. This won't reflect on a people group with much, or maybe any, of the ethnic backlash a true terrorist act would.

I do agree with you, but when you're talking about dumb teenagers, it only takes one moron to say something and turn their heritage into a big deal. Hopefully not of course...

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Logan

I do agree with you, but when you're talking about dumb teenagers, it only takes one moron to say something and turn their heritage into a big deal. Hopefully not of course...

Yeah, unless kids have changed since I was in school someone will use it against them, especially if the kid isn't popular to begin with. I also hope not, but I guess we'll see.

[King of New York]

As regards the guy's writings:

the standard drill in college is, if a prof. sees a student who shows signs of doing harm to herself/himself or others, the prof. documents everything and tells the chair, the relevant dean, and the counselling center. The counselling center then takes it from there. So VT's English Dept. seems to have played it by the book.

It'll be interesting to see if the book gets rewritten as a result of this event.

All colleges are in a tough bind as regards students perceived as potential threats. Toss the student out because you think he's a danger (and very often, the evidence is not nearly as explicit as it is in the VT case), and then you've trampled his civil rights and opened yourself up to a lawsuit--plus, you might set the student off and trigger a shooting. Keep the kid around, and you risk that counselling does not do the trick, and then he kills a bunch of people--at which point, you'll get sued for not doing more to isolate the threat from the rest of the community.

[Groundhog]

When I was in my first year of high school we did a grading exam to put us in our classes. For the English exam we had to write a short story based on a single-entry from a diary that was provided in the paper. It was something about a boy sitting in his room, and I wrote a two or three page story about the kid being a loner and not feeling like he didn't belong, how he had no friends, etc etc. About a week later I got called in to the school counsellor, where they had some external counsellor 'evaluate' me, because they thought that I was writing about myself, which I most definately wasn't. But hey, it got me put in the A class for English.

The point I'm trying to make is that this is going to lead to people being scrutinized for signs that they are about to go all VT on their classmates, and that's a real shame. Obviously writing stories about killing classmates is a major warning bell, but how many folks write violent stories and then never go on and do anything?

Imagine what would happen if someone wrote an American Psycho-esque story while in college over the coming months?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by King of New York

...at which point, you'll get sued for not doing more to isolate the threat from the rest of the community.

I honestly can't begin to imagine what amount this will eventually cost simply in
terms of dollars.

{wonders what the laws in Virginia are like about limits on damages, suits against state agencies, etc}

[Toddzilla]

Kind of a strange confluence of events for me today....

I was a freshman at Virginia Tech back in 1988. Thanks to AP credit and my chosen course of study (Mathematics) I only had to take one semester of English. I was fortunate enough to have Nikki Giovanni as a guest lecturer for 1/2 the semester (she spoke at the convocation this afternoon - she has always been that electric, unfortunately never as brief ). Anyway, one writing assignment was on rituals, focusing on one that was near to us or had a particular meaning in our lives. One guy in my class, who looked eerily like the asshat from yesterday, wrote a horrifically violent and disturbing paper that scared our professor enough to hold him after class and, with campus security in the hallway, told him how inappropriate his paper was, she was going to recommend he get counseling, and asked that he not return to class again that semester. Never saw the guy again.

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

When I was in my first year of high school we did a grading exam to put us in our classes. For the English exam we had to write a short story based on a single-entry from a diary that was provided in the paper. It was something about a boy sitting in his room, and I wrote a two or three page story about the kid being a loner and not feeling like he didn't belong, how he had no friends, etc etc. About a week later I got called in to the school counsellor, where they had some external counsellor 'evaluate' me, because they thought that I was writing about myself, which I most definately wasn't. But hey, it got me put in the A class for English.

The point I'm trying to make is that this is going to lead to people being scrutinized for signs that they are about to go all VT on their classmates, and that's a real shame. Obviously writing stories about killing classmates is a major warning bell, but how many folks write violent stories and then never go on and do anything?

Imagine what would happen if someone wrote an American Psycho-esque story while in college over the coming months?

The problem was this guy was consistent with his stories, they had the same premise, therefore you have a red flag.

[Izulde]

I have to say, reading the comments on the plays site depressed me so much I quit reading after the first 100 or so.

I don't like being pessimistic about society as a whole, but then I go through something like that and it just reinforces my inclination to believe that most people aren't too smart and too prone to knee-jerk reactions (there may be a bit of hypocrisy here, I'll admit).

Yeah, I know censorship is a subject of debate that's as old as stories and the arts themselves... but it's just disheartening to see the weight of reactions tilting the way it is and makes one wonder if academic and artistic freedom will be challenged even more vigorously than ever before.

One of my profs remarked in class today that one of the additional tragedies to this event, besides the ones we've already experienced, is that the university, in many ways the last symbol and implementation of a free and open society was attacked.

I don't remember if he added, but I certainly thought to myself at least, was that a diminishing of that opennes, of that freedom, would be a very sad and unfortunately very possible consequence.

[Buccaneer]

the university, in many ways the last symbol and implementation of a free and open society

Thank you for injecting a bit of levity into this thread.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

My girlfriend's family are Koreans living in Virginia. I bet they, the school kid age relatives in particular, will get some backlash because of this.

I would be *really* surprised if that happened here.