Killer Indentified, Media Reports Response Delayed as VA Tech Deems First Shooting Domestic Violence
by Pamela LeaveyDetails on yesterday’s shooting rampage at VA Tech are emerging and the killer has been identified as “Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old resident alien of the United States.”
Sources tell ABC News that Cho killed two people in a dorm room, returned to his own dorm room where he re-armed and left a “disturbing note,” then went to a classroom building on the other side of campus to continue his rampage.
One can not help but wonder if the authorities at VA Tech had handled this differently from the onset, if the mass carnage could not have been avoided. The what-if’s always persist in a case like this, but clearly from other news reports on this killings it’s pretty clear that VA Tech dropped the ball when they failed to lock down the campus immediately after the first shooting. The WaPo reports today that a “2-Hour Gap Leaves Room For Questions.” (my emphasis below)
The first shooting was reported at 7:15 a.m. in a dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, where police found two people fatally wounded. But the first e-mail message from the Virginia Tech administration to students did not go out until more than two hours later, at 9:26 a.m., stating that a shooting had occurred but with no mention of staying indoors or staying off campus or canceling classes.
About 9:45, the shootings began in Norris Hall, a classroom building at the other end of the sprawling campus. Police said the gunman killed 30 people at Norris and wounded about 30 before killing himself.
“I don’t know why they let people stay in classrooms,” said Sean Glennon, a junior from Centreville and the quarterback on the Hokies football team. “A lot of people are angry that campus wasn’t evacuated a little earlier.”
The university president and campus police chief said they decided not to cancel classes after the first shootings because the initial indication at the dorm, based on interviews with witnesses, was that the attack might have been a domestic-violence incident and that the shooter probably had fled the campus.
One can’t help but wonder if lives would have been saved, if authorities at VA Tech handled the first shooting differently by ordering an immediate lock down of the campus and a room to room search of the dorms if, just incase, the shooter had not fled the campus. Instead, Cho Seung-Hui, returned to his dorm room after the first shooting and sat composing a “note, which runs several pages.”
Why should this “domestic-violence incident” have been treated any differently than any other campus shooting? Why wasn’t the campus locked down immediately. Why did it take nearly 2 hours for VA Tech to send out an alert to students? A shooting, is a shooting, is a shooting — domestic-violence or otherwise.
When parents send their kids to schools they expect that schools do everything in their power to keep their kids safe. That’s any school — from kindergarten to college. Our youth are our precious resources. VA Tech President Charles Steger, dropped the ball yesterday when he assumed the shooter left the campus and deemed that a “domestic-violence incident” wasn’t worthy of a full on security alert.
Steger offered this lame defense this morning on Good Morning America:
“The second shooting, no one predicted that was also going to happen that morning,” Steger said. “So if you’re talking about locking it down, what is it you’re going to lock down? It’s like closing a city. It doesn’t happen simultaneously.”
FOX News is reporting that parents are demanding the firing of VA Tech president Steger.
John and Jennifer Shourds of Lovettsville, Va. demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum who he said “screwed up” the handling of separate shooting incidents that left 33 students dead, including the shooter.
“My God, if someone shoots somebody there should be an immediate lockdown of the campus,” said John Shourds. “They totally blew it. The president blew it, campus police blew it.”
ABC reports that “Steger also said he would not step down, and at Tuesday’s press conference, John Marshall, secretary of public safety in Virginia, came to Steger’s side.”
Charles Steger and VA Tech police refused to take a “domestic-violence incident” seriously and 32, count them, 32 lives have been lost. For “three hours” a reign of “horror and chaos” was leveled on the sprawling VA Tech campus. Domestic-violence? This is NOT domestic-violence:
Investigators were trying to sift through what Col. W. Steve Flaherty, the state police superintendent, described as a “horrific crime scene” at Norris Hall, where the shooting had caused tremendous chaos and panic. A 9-millimeter handgun and 22-caliber handgun were recovered from the building
Personal belongings were strewn about on the second floor. Victims were found in four classrooms and a stairwell.
Charles Steger should be handing in his resignation here and now. Charles Steger should be issuing an apology to the families of the victims, instead of offering up his lame defense that he thought it was only a “domestic-violence incident.” The implications of his excuse are far reaching and echo of misogyny. That’s right… it’s the “some guy had a fight with his girlfriend and killed her” routine that is still pervasive in America, that clouded the judgment of Charles Steger and campus police. Maybe, just maybe, if they thought differently of the first shooting, lives could have been saved. Maybe just maybe.
IN THE BLOGOSPHERE: Bizarro theories abound on the right…
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[...] here Democratic Daily follows up on the media reporting and the University’s reponse here.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 3: [...]
Well, I’m going to take a contrarian view with you, Pamela. From what I’ve read, and as someone who works on a university campus, I believe the police and administration officials followed by the proper protocols. Locking down the university following the first shooting would not have prevented the carnage that ensued in the second. He may not have been able to go to a classroom, but since he lived in a dorm on campus and was on campus the entire time, he would more than likely have just shot up his dorm building.
Tragedies like this demand scapegoats and I suppose it’s fair enough to demand the scalp of the univeristy president, but imo, it will solve nothing. Finding out who sold guns and ammo to a “foriegn national” seems a better route.
WTF. Domestic Violence murder is different?
Todd
I get that it’s a big campus, but what I take issue with is the “domestic-violence” inference and the fact they assumed he left the campus. It took them 2 hours to issue a warning to students. In that 2 hours they could have at least searched the dorms just incase he (the shooter) was still on campus.
I was listening Stephanie Miller on Air America this morning talk about this. Classes should have been canceled right away. They could have done more, Todd. I think I am not alone in thinking that.
The president and head of campus police must be fired. Two people shot to death on compus and they “guessed” the killer was gone? Huh? How much does he get paid to make an idiodic decision like that? They subjected all the students on that campus including instructors to danger through their passive, ineffectual response.
Had it been their children on campus, they would be demanding the same thing now. Fire them! The sooner the better and besides it’s inevitable.