History > 2007 > USA > Gun violence (III)

Cho Seung-Hui

in an image he sent to NBC News

during the two hours between the two sets of shootings.

NBC News, via Associated Press

 Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05

NYT        19 April 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html

Virginia Governor

Closes Gun Loophole

April 30, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:58 a.m. ET
The New York Times

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- The governor said Monday he has closed the loophole that allowed a mentally disturbed Virginia Tech student to acquire the guns used to kill 32 students and faculty members.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine issued an executive order requiring that people who are found to be dangerous and ordered to undergo involuntary mental health treatment must be included in a database barring them from buying guns.

Virginia Governor Closes Gun Loophole, NYT, 30.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech.html

4 Dead

After Violence in Kansas City

April 30, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:38 a.m. ET
The New York Times

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The chaos began with police finding a woman dead and her car missing. It ended when officers fatally shot the man driving the car -- but only after he fired on a police officer and later people at a shopping center, killing two of them.

Police trying to make sense of the four deaths were reviewing security footage and interviewing hundreds of witnesses to the shooting Sunday outside a Target store inside Ward Parkway Center, police spokesman Tony Sanders said.

Target employee Cassie Bradshaw, 19, was in a break room with two other people when they first heard shots. Then, her co-workers saw a man in his 50s with a rifle ''shooting everywhere,'' she said.

''It sounded like maybe firecrackers at first but then they got louder and louder and louder, and it sounded like someone shooting a gun,'' she said.

A woman who identified herself as the slain woman's stepdaughter said the shooter was a longtime neighbor who had worked as a security guard at the Target store. Police could not immediately confirm those details.

Police found the woman's body Sunday afternoon after they went to a home because relatives had not seen her for days. Her car was spotted later in the day at a gas station by an officer, who pulled the driver over and was shot in the arm, police said.

The officer, whose wound was not life-threatening, returned fire and shattered the window of the gunman's car.

The car took off and reports began arriving about 10 to 15 minutes later of shots fired at the shopping center. The man pulled into a parking space and fired at the cars on either side of him, killing two people, authorities said. He fired more shots, wounding at least two people, then went inside the mall, Sanders said.

''Everybody was leaving the mall when the officers ran inside,'' Sanders said. ''They confronted the man and after confronting him, shot and killed him.''

Police did not say how the woman died, or if the gunman was a suspect in her death. But they did say they believed the events were connected.

Police did not release the names of the gunman or the woman found dead at her home. A woman named Pam Reed said the slain woman was her stepmother, Patricia Ann Reed, who was 67 or 68.

Police had corodoned off a home near where the elder Reed lived, and a phone listing for the gunman matched that address.

The Target store was closed Monday. Company representatives did not immediately return a message seeking comment left at Target headquarters in Minneapolis.

The mall, one of the city's busiest shopping centers, was shut down and officers went through each store to see if anyone else might have been involved, Sanders said.

------

On the Net:

http://www.wardparkwaycenter.com

4 Dead After Violence in Kansas City, NYT, 30.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mall-Shooting.html

U.S. Proposal

Could Block Gun Buyers

Tied to Terror

April 27, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL LUO

WASHINGTON, April 26 — The Justice Department proposed legislation on Thursday that would give the attorney general discretion to bar terrorism suspects from buying firearms, seeking to close a gap in federal gun laws.

The measure, which was introduced by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would give the attorney general authority to deny a firearm purchase if the buyer was found “to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism.”

Suspects on federal watch lists can now legally buy firearms in the United States if background checks do not turn up any standard prohibitions for gun buyers, which include felony convictions, illegal immigration status or involuntary commitments for mental illness.

But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, local law enforcement officials and gun control advocates have raised concerns that terrorists might exploit loopholes to buy weapons.

John Ashcroft, the former attorney general and a staunch supporter of gun rights, blocked the Federal Bureau of Investigation from comparing federal gun-buying records against a list of suspects detained as part of the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Ashcroft cited the Brady gun law, which sets out the federal system for background checks, arguing that it prohibited sharing such information for other law enforcement purposes.

In 2004, the F.B.I. instituted a new system that alerted counterterrorism officials when a terrorism suspect tried to buy a gun, giving them three days to find information to disqualify the suspect under the standard federal prohibitions. If the transaction was successful, details like the type of weapon and the place of purchase could not be shared. But if the purchase was blocked, the information could be turned over.

At the request of Mr. Lautenberg, who has long been vocal on the issue, the Government Accountability Office looked into the matter in 2005. It found that federal law enforcement officials approved 47 of 58 gun applications from terrorism suspects over a nine-month period.

Mr. Lautenberg introduced legislation to address the issue, but it stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress. His aides said Thursday that they believed things would turn out differently with backing from the Bush administration and with a Democratic majority in Congress.

But gun control is a touchy issue for Democrats, with many new lawmakers elected on pro-gun stances.

Mr. Lautenberg, who noted that the bill was only being proposed in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, promised to push it swiftly to the floor.

“It took years, but the administration finally realized that letting terrorists buy guns is dangerous,” he said in a statement.

Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, declined to comment on the legislation on Thursday, saying lawyers had not had time to review it.

After the Government Accountability Office report, the Justice Department created a study group on the issue. Nearly two years later, after repeated inquiries from lawmakers, Richard A. Hertling, acting assistant attorney general, wrote to Mr. Lautenberg in February saying that steps had been taken to address certain concerns, including encouraging investigators to visit gun dealers and review firearms applications every time a terrorism suspect was flagged trying to buy a weapon.

A letter signed by Mr. Hertling that accompanied the proposed legislation on Thursday said that in some situations it would be “counterproductive” to deny firearms permits for terrorism suspects, because that might alert them to official interest in their activities.

The legislation also establishes procedures for appealing a decision by the attorney general.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the process took time because it involved delicate issues, including “the protection of sensitive information upon which terrorist watch listings are based, as well as due process safeguards that afford the affected individual an appropriate opportunity to challenge the denial after it is made.”

U.S. Proposal Could Block Gun Buyers Tied to Terror, NYT, 27.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27guns.html

Police:

Va. Tech Bloodbath Lasted 9 Min.

April 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:11 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The bloodbath lasted nine minutes -- enough time for Seung-Hui Cho to unleash 170 rounds from his two pistols, or about one shot every three seconds.

During that time, Virginia Tech and Blacksburg police spent three minutes dashing across campus to the scene. Then they began the agonizing process of breaking into the chained-shut building, which took another five minutes.

Once inside, as they sprinted toward the sounds of gunfire inside Norris Hall, Cho put a bullet through his head and died in a classroom alongside his victims.

A timeline of the rampage emerged Wednesday as police provided new details about what they uncovered in the 10 days since Cho committed the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The five minutes police spent breaking into the building proved to be crucial. During that time, Cho picked off his victims with a hail of gunfire. He killed himself after police shot through the doors and rushed toward the carnage.

State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller praised the officers' response time, noting that had police simply rushed into the building without a plan, many would have likely died right along with the staff and students. She said officers needed to assemble the proper team, clear the area and then break through the doors.

''If you go in with your backs turned, you're never going back,'' Geller said. ''There's gotta be some sort of organization.''

Some police and security experts question the five-minute delay, saying authorities should have charged straight into the melee.

''You don't have time to wait,'' said Aaron Cohen, president of IMS Security of Los Angeles, who has trained SWAT teams around the country since 2003. ''You don't have time to pre-plan a response. Even if you have a few guys, you go.''

Police rapid response to school violence has become an important issue in the last decade.

After the Columbine massacre in 1999, police around the country adopted new policies for so-called ''active shooters.'' Police would no longer respond to emergencies such as school shootings by surrounding a building and waiting for the SWAT team. Instead, the first four officers rush into the building and attempt to immediately end the threat. This system was used to end a 2003 school hostage standoff in Spokane, Wash.

At Columbine, no officers entered the building until about 40 minutes after the first 911 call from the school. Critics have said that decision might have contributed to the death of a teacher who bled to death from gunshot wounds.

Tom Corrigan, former member of the NYPD-FBI terrorism task force and a retired New York City detective, said five minutes seems like a long time when gunfire is being heard, but he added it's tough to second-guess officers in such a chaotic situation.

''I would have liked to have seen them bust down the door, smash windows, go around to another door, do everything to get inside fast,'' he said. ''But it's a tough call because these officers put their lives on the line on a daily basis and I am sure they did the best they could.''

Al Baker, a former 25-year New York police veteran who has done extensive law enforcement training, echoed that sentiment, but said sometimes officers have to do whatever is necessary to enter a building -- whether it's throwing a rock through a window or driving a car through the door. He said the crucial issue is ensuring that officers have the proper training and equipment.

''This is a seminal moment for law enforcement as far as I'm concerned because it proves that minutes are critical,'' he said.

State Police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty, who is overseeing the investigative team looking at the shootings, said police have been unable to answer the case's most vexing questions: Why the spree began at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory, and why 18-year-old freshman Emily Hilscher was the first victim.

''We talk about possible motives and theories and whatnot, but we don't have any evidence to suggest anything,'' Flaherty said.

Witnesses place Cho outside West Ambler Johnston shortly before 7:15 a.m., when he fired the two shots that killed Hilscher and 22-year-old senior Ryan Clark, a resident assistant at the dorm, Flaherty said.

It is not known how Cho got in.

Police searched Hilscher's e-mails and phone records looking for a link. While Flaherty would not discuss exactly what police found, he said neither Cho's nor Hilscher's records have revealed a connection.

''We certainly don't have any one motive that we are pursuing at this particular time, or that we have been able to pull together and formulate,'' Flaherty said. ''It's frustrating because it's so personal, because we see the families and see the communities suffering, and we see they want answers.''

In addition to the 170 rounds Cho fired inside Norris, investigators found unused ammunition in the building, though Flaherty was unsure how much was left. Investigators have compiled 500 pieces of evidence from Norris Hall alone.

Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum said Cho had a class this semester in Norris Hall, although it was not scheduled to meet on the day of the rampage.

Flaherty cautioned that it could be months before the case is closed. The investigation will begin slowing down as authorities examine evidence, he said.

Associated Press Writers Matt Apuzzo and Chris Kahn in Blacksburg, Pat Milton in New York, and Nicholas K. Geranios in Spokane, Wash., contributed to this report.

Police: Va. Tech Bloodbath Lasted 9 Min., NYT, 26.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Police: No Motive in Va. Tech Shootings

April 25, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:13 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Computer files, cell phone records and e-mails have yielded no evidence about what triggered Seung-Hui Cho's massacre at Virginia Tech last week and whether he hand-picked his 32 victims.

In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, State Police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty said authorities have found no evidence that could begin to explain the massacre that ended when Cho took his own life.

Authorities also have no link between the 23-year-old loner and his victims.

''We certainly don't have any one motive that we are pursuing at this particular time, or that we have been able to pull together and formulate,'' Flaherty said. ''It's frustrating because it's so personal, because we see the families and see the communities suffering, and we see they want answers.''

Flaherty spoke to the AP after spending the day in meetings with investigators to prepare for a Wednesday news conference about what authorities have uncovered.

Flaherty, who is overseeing the investigative team looking at the shootings, said police also have been unable to answer one of the case's most vexing questions: Why the spree began at the West Ambler Johnston dorm, and why 18-year-old freshman Emily Hilscher was the first victim.

Police have searched Hilscher's e-mails and phone records looking for a link. While Flaherty would not discuss exactly what police found, he said neither Cho's nor Hilscher's records have revealed a connection.

Flaherty said there was also no link to 22-year-old senior Ryan Clark, who was also killed at the dorm. Nor do investigators know why Cho, an English major, selected Norris Hall -- a building that is home primarily to engineering offices -- to culminate his attack. Cho killed 30 people there before taking his own life.

Frustrating their effort, Flaherty said, is the fact that Cho revealed himself to so few people. Even family members have said they rarely heard him speak.

''I guess the thing that is most startling to me, I say startling, surprising, is a young man who's 23 years old, that's been here for a while, that seemed to not know anybody,'' he said.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Tuesday he may be able to close a loophole that allowed Cho to buy guns. Federal law bars the sale of guns to people who have been judged mentally defective. But it is up to states to report their legal proceedings to the federal government for inclusion in the database used to do background checks on prospective gun buyers.

In Cho's case, a special justice ordered outpatient psychiatric counseling for him in 2005 after determining he was a danger to himself. But because Cho was never committed to a mental hospital, that order was never entered in the database.

Kaine, a Democrat, said in a radio interview that he may be able to tighten that reporting requirement by issuing an executive order.

The governor met with Korean-American leaders to assure them that Virginians do not hold people of Korean descent responsible for the tragedy. Cho was a South Korean immigrant who came to the U.S. at about age 8 and was raised in suburban Washington.

''I can assure you that no one in Virginia -- no one in Virginia -- views the Korean community as culpable in this incident in the least degree,'' Kaine said.

He said state officials will watch for any reprisals against Korean Americans but that none have been reported.

The Virginia Korean leaders asked Kaine to boost mental-health funding for immigrants and their families.

------

Associated Press Writer Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va.

contributed to this report.

Police: No Motive in Va. Tech Shootings, NYT, 25.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Immigrants Seek Mental Health Outreach

April 25, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:50 a.m. ET
The New York Times

ANNANDALE, Va. (AP) -- The video manifesto Seung-Hui Cho mailed midway through his rampage at Virginia Tech revealed a bitter, vengeful and violent young man -- and raised questions about why he hadn't received counseling or treatment that might have averted the massacre that left 32 students and teachers dead last week.

But church officials in Cho's hometown in northern Virginia say the 23-year-old gunman's family tried for years to get him counseling. And experts say his parents, emigres from South Korea, may have been unsure what to make of Cho's disquieting isolation and held back by the stigma mental illness carries in their culture.

Cho, 8 when his family emigrated to the U.S., was already showing signs that worried his family in Korea: He was unresponsive, nearly mute and distant, relatives say. Cho struggled to fit in, but ''we never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence,'' his sister said in a statement Friday.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine met Tuesday with Korean Americans and promised to reevaluate mental health outreach to immigrants after community leaders pleaded with him for more funding and resources.

Although mental health problems still carry a stigma in many cultures, they can be especially hard to identify in immigrant populations where people may not know if problems are internal or related to the stresses of adjusting to a new country.

Theodore Kim, of the Korean American Association of Greater Washington, said Korean Americans were rendered ''completely speechless'' by news that the gunman was from their community.

''Unfortunately, our diligence and helping hand failed to reach Seung-Hui Cho,'' he said tearfully. ''How could this happen?''

In the video sent to NBC, Cho exhibits clear signs of a serious mental disorder, said Dr. Damian Kim, a New York City psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. ''The main culprit here is mental disease -- schizophrenia, the paranoid type,'' he said.

Kim, who specializes in mental health among immigrants, acknowledged that there is no way to know Cho's true condition without having evaluated him. But he said Cho's sense of persecution and reports he had imaginary friends suggest schizophrenia.

''When it becomes chronic, they have a knack for hiding their pathology,'' he said, ''so the family may not have thought there was anything seriously wrong.''

The Rev. Dihan Lee of the Open Door Presbyterian Church in Herndon says many parents are unsure when their children are merely adjusting to U.S. life -- or need outside help.

''If you come to this country and your child has to deal with learning the language, fitting into the culture, and they show behavior problems or are socially awkward, you chalk it up to just trying to fit in,'' he said.

Even if the parents suspect a serious problem, they may hesitate to seek help, said Kim. ''Saving face'' is paramount to Koreans, who are fiercely proud and protective of their family name and reputation. The shame of one is shared by all, he said.

Church is the backbone of many Korean communities in the U.S., serving not only as a place of worship but also as a community center. But mental health is rarely addressed there.

''Koreans wouldn't want people to know their child is mentally unstable. Who would want that stigma to follow him?'' said Henry Pak, 32, of Rockville, Md.

One pastor said Cho's mother went from church to church looking for someone to counsel her troubled son.

''They went around seeking help for their son ever since he stopped talking 10 years ago,'' said Bong-han Kim, an assistant pastor at the One Mind Church of Washington in Springfield.

News that the gunman was Korean set off a torrent of discussion -- and reflection -- among Korean Americans, who debated whether pressures within the community may have contributed to Cho's isolation.

For many, the burden of fulfilling the ''American dream'' can be immense, said Josephine Kim, a Harvard lecturer who specializes in mental health issues among Asian Americans.

She cited a study showing that 76 percent of Asian Americans treated in emergency rooms for attempted suicide cite intergenerational conflicts with their parents.

''The pressure is unreal. Korean parents view their children as extensions of themselves, so if the children fail, they fail,'' she said.

John Lee, 22, a senior at George Mason University, said many of his Korean-American friends chafe under the pressure their parents place on them to get into a top-tier college.

''It's noble that they came all the way over here for our sake, and I really do appreciate it, but sometimes I wish they understood better that it's a different world -- and we have different sets of values and goals,'' he said.

It's hard to see any similarity between Lee -- outgoing, articulate and ambitious -- and Cho, a loner with few friends.

But John's father, Jonathan Lee, recalls a time when his son wasn't so well-adjusted. He was distant during middle school, and his grades dropped.

A psychologist assured him his son was fine -- and was only being teased at school. They eventually turned to a pastor for counseling.

Lee said he could've turned out angry like Cho, so he launched his own rampage, a ''love rampage.''

''I made sure I gave everybody around me an extra dose of goodness,'' he said. ''There is too much hate in this world... and I wanted to spread a message of peace and love.''

------

On the Net:

Open Door Presbyterian Church, http://www.opendoorpc.org

Korean American Family Counseling Center, http://www.kafcc.org

Korean Community Service Center of Greater Washington, www.kcscgw.org

Immigrants Seek Mental Health Outreach, NYT, 25.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting-Mental-Health.html

Police Officer, Gunman Killed in Ind.

April 25, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:20 a.m. ET
The New York Times

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- A man suspected of firing shots at an unoccupied nightclub shot at two police officers Tuesday, killing one, then died when officers returned fire, officials said.

The officers were responding to reports of shots being fired at Club Landing, which is open only on Fridays and Saturdays, and a nearby billboard early Tuesday, said St. Joseph County prosecutor Michael Dvorak.

When they arrived, they learned the gunman had gone to a nearby motel where he lived. They had been talking with him outside his door for several seconds when he began firing, striking both officers, Dvorak said.

Two more officers arrived just before the gunman began firing. One fatally wounded the man, Dvorak said.

Killed was Cpl. Nick Polizzotto, 34, a nine-year member of the force, Police Chief Tom Fautz said. Patrolman Michael Norby, 29, was treated at a hospital and released.

Authorities had not determined a motive and did not immediately release the gunman's name.

The shooting came hours after more than 100 people attended a ceremony Monday to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Cpl. Scott Severns, an off-duty South Bend police officer, after being shot during a robbery attempt.

    Police Officer, Gunman Killed in Ind., NYT, 25.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Indiana-Shootout.html

Grenade in Tx School Scare

Was Inactive

April 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:20 p.m. ET
The New York Times

SOUTHLAKE, Texas (AP) -- An elementary school was evacuated for more than an hour Tuesday morning after a fourth-grader showed up with a hand grenade, authorities said.

The grenade still had the pin in it, but it was later determined to be inactive, school district spokeswoman Julie Thannum said. A bomb squad had been called in to remove it from a classroom.

''The boy wasn't mad at anyone,'' Cpl. Mike Bedrich of the Southlake Department of Public Safety told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. ''He just thought it would be cool to bring it to school.''

Old Union Elementary school's staff and 530 students were moved away from the building while authorities in the Fort Worth suburb investigated, then were allowed to return a little over an hour later.

Thannum declined to say if any action would be taken against the student.

Grenade in Tx School Scare Was Inactive, NYT, 24.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Grenade-Scare.html

 

A police officer saluted the flag-draped casket of Matthew LaPorte

during a funeral service at Sacred Heart Church in Haworth, N.J.

Mr. LaPorte was one of the 32 victims of last week's massacre.

Mel Evans/Associated Press

Virginia Tech Struggles to Return to Normal        NYT        24.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/us/24virginia.html

Virginia Tech

Struggles to Return to Normal

April 24, 2007
The New York Times
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
and IAN URBINA

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 23 — For the most part, the campus of Virginia Tech looked like any other on Monday, a week after the nation’s worst mass shooting. Students, laden with overstuffed book bags, shuffled across the sidewalks and greens, cradling cups of coffee and bottles of water. Books were open on desks, and chalk scratched across boards.

But the resemblance to other universities was entirely superficial. On its first day of classes after the shooting that left 33 dead and 24 injured, the campus was still struggling to decide how to resume a semblance of a normal life.

For one thing, only three-quarters of the student body had returned to classrooms. The others remained reluctant to come back or had taken advantage of the university’s offer to take the rest of the semester off. Many of those who returned refused to talk to the remaining reporters, hoping to give the university a chance to escape the echoes of the killings.

In addition, some departments simply could not open their doors and begin teaching again. Norris Hall, the engineering building that was the site of 30 of the 32 killings, has been taped off by the police, and Ishwar K. Puri, chairman of the department of engineering, science and mechanics, said he was trying to find out whether it would be demolished and what could be salvaged.

“In many cases, our faculty and students do not have access to their scientific data, their notes, their personal libraries, their experimental equipment or a lifetime worth of results,” Professor Puri said of Norris Hall, which holds the laboratories where many of his 80 doctoral students and 25 master’s students work. “Imagine going to work and finding no workplace and no records.”

The students whose teachers were among the five engineering and language faculty members killed were reassigned to other classes Monday.

Dr. Puri said that since his students were blocked from their research and lacked some of the professors they needed, some of them might have to delay finishing their dissertations. That, in turn, could mean an end to their grant money.

The police have pulled from the university’s servers all of the e-mail of the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, as well as that of Emily J. Hilscher, a police spokeswoman confirmed Monday. Ms. Hilscher was one of the first two students killed, in the West Ambler Johnston dormitory.

The spokeswoman, Corinne N. Geller, said the police were still analyzing that information as well as cellphone records and computers. “We have not been able to make a definite link between Cho and Ms. Hilscher,” Ms. Geller said, “but we are still processing all that information.”

Another law enforcement official said it appeared that Mr. Cho had not attended any classes in the month since his parents dropped him off on campus after Easter break. The official said Mr. Cho appeared to have used that time to buy supplies and make other preparations for the shootings.

The authorities also confirmed Monday that Mr. Cho had fired all the shots, officially ruling out the possibility of a second gunman.

The burden of finding alternative locations for the classes that had been held at Norris Hall fell largely on the registrar’s office, which tried to match students and classes with available space in other buildings.

“They had to pull up all the data,” said Mark Owczarski, the university’s director of news and information. “You’re dealing with several dozen faculty offices in Norris Hall and several hundred students. They identified all the affected individuals, contacted them all and found new locations for all the classes.”

Rooms in the more than 100 campus buildings appropriate for lectures were used for the relocated classes. In addition, Mr. Owczarski said, several classes were moved to a nearby corporate research park used by start-up companies.

During meetings last week, professors questioned whether a week was enough time to allow students to stay away. University officials decided that canceling the rest of the academic year was an extreme step and that many students might find returning to campus therapeutic. In the end, Virginia Tech officials asked professors to set aside time to discuss the violent events before moving on to regular course work.

In one freshman chemistry class, which had attendance above 80 percent, a university T-shirt and a bouquet of flowers were placed on a seat to signify a member of the class who had been killed, said Joe Merola, the chemistry department chairman.

“I lost it halfway through class,” Dr. Merola said. “I burst into tears and had to turn it over to the counselors.”

After a lengthy discussion of the shootings and the victims, and how to finish out the semester, the class was eventually able to move on to chemistry, he said.

The campus paused momentarily at 9:45 a.m. on the drillfield, the center of campus life, as a single bell tolled exactly a week after the shootings. A minute later, the bell rang 32 more times as a white balloon was released with each toll.

Some students carried bouquets to lay at the impromptu memorials scattered across campus. Three police officers stood, hands on their gun belts, in front of Norris Hall.

Akash Patel, a sophomore majoring in aerospace engineering, who was back on campus after spending the weekend with friends in Northern Virginia, said the university had been very accommodating. “But I’m stuck here, actually,” he said.

Mr. Patel explained that he had decided to finish his classes largely because he had already bought a nonrefundable plane ticket back home to Fremont, Calif., in May.

Other students said they were still figuring out whether to stay.

Xiaomo Liu, a graduate student in computer science from China, said that since he was working with two other students on a research project, he would have to come to a shared decision about stopping the project now or forging ahead with the research.

“If it is anything like last week, we will not be able to focus,” he said. “We will meet and decide whether to take the grade or not. But I am not even sure if we will be able to do that. One group member went to New Hampshire.”

Karan Grewal, 21, a former suitemate of Mr. Cho, said he had decided to finish classes to avoid ending his college career on such a grim note. But Mr. Grewal said he still did not feel comfortable being near Norris Hall.

“It’s just too sad,” he said.

Nikolas Macko, who joined other students in barricading a door to prevent Mr. Cho from entering their Norris Hall classroom during his killing spree, said he was not apprehensive about returning to the building.

“It was a random event, and I’m hopeful that it was independent and isolated,” Mr. Macko said. “For me, that’s the only way we can move forward.”

Sarah Abruzzese contributed reporting from Blacksburg, and William K. Rashbaum from New York.

Virginia Tech Struggles to Return to Normal, NYT, 24.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/us/24virginia.html

Va. Tech Classes Resume Amid Tributes

April 23, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:40 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Thousands of Virginia Tech students and faculty filled the center of campus Monday to pay solemn tribute to the victims of the campus -- pausing for moments of silence on the day classes resumed a week after a student gunman killed 32 people.

Mourners met at the main campus lawn, listening quietly as a bell rung for each of the 32 victims of gunman Seung-Hui Cho, and watched as 32 white balloons were released into the air in their memory.

An antique, 850-pound brass bell was installed on a limestone rostrum for the occasion, brought to Virginia Tech from the city of Salem. The chimes of the bell echoed through the campus covered with memorials and tributes to the students, including flowers, writings and candles.

The moment of silence began at 9:45 a.m., around the time when Cho killed 30 students and faculty members in a classroom building before committing suicide. Monday's tribute lasted 11 minutes, as the bell rang for each of the victims. Each of the balloons was tied with an orange and maroon ribbon.

As the crowd broke up, people started to chant, ''Let's Go Hokies'' several times.

''I thought last week as time goes by that I could forget this tragic incident,'' graduate student Sijung Kim said. ''But as time goes by I find I cannot forget.''

A moment of silence was also observed at about 7:15 a.m., near the dormitory where the first victims, Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher, were killed.

In front of the dorm, a small marching band from Alabama played ''America the Beautiful'' and carried a banner that read, ''Alabama loves VT Hokies. Be strong, press on.''

Afterward, a group of students and campus ministers brought 33 white prayer flags -- one for each of the dead, including the gunman -- from the dorm to the school's War Memorial Chapel. They placed the flags in front of the campus landmark and adorned them with pastel-colored ribbons as the Beatles' song ''The Long and Winding Road'' played through loudspeakers.

''You could choose to either be sad, or cheer up a little and continue the regular routine,'' said student Juan Carlos Ugarte, 22. ''Right now, I think all of us need to cheer up.''

Ugarte, a senior from Bolivia, wrote a message on a yellow ribbon for one of the victims, Reema Samaha. ''God will forever be with you. I will always pray for you, and remember.''

Andy Koch, a former roommate of the gunman, was among the many students who remembered the shooting Monday. ''Last night, I didn't sleep much,'' he said.

On the main campus lawn stood a semicircle of stones -- 33 chunks of locally quarried limestone to remember each person who died in the rampage.

Someone left a laminated letter at Cho's stone, along with a lit purple candle.

''Cho, you greatly underestimated our strength, courage and compassion. You have broken our hearts, but you have not broken our spirits. We are stronger and prouder than ever. I have never been more proud to be a Hokie. Love, in the end, will always prevail. Erin J.''

University officials were not sure how many students planned to be back Monday. Virginia Tech is allowing students to drop classes without penalty or to accept their current grades if they want to spend the rest of the year at their parents' homes grieving last week's campus massacre.

But whatever decisions they make academically, many students say they will do their mourning on campus -- and that they can't imagine staying away now.

''I want to go back to class just to be with the other students. If you just left without going back to classes, you would just go home and keep thinking about it,'' said Ryanne Floyd, who returned to campus after spending most of last week with her family and avoiding news coverage of the tragedy. ''At least here, being with other students, we can get some kind of closure.''

Students began returning as more details about the rampage emerged. Dr. William Massello, the assistant state medical examiner in Roanoke, said Cho died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head after firing enough shots to wound his victims more than 100 times.

But there was nothing unusual about Cho's autopsy, he said, and nothing that indicated any psychological problems that might explain his reason for the killings.

Meanwhile, Virginia Tech's Student Government Association issued a statement Sunday asking the news media to respect the privacy of students and leave campus. Around campus, camera crews and reporters are routinely met with scorn, including comments such as ''go home.''

''Our students are ready to start moving forward, and the best way we can do that is to get the campus back to normal,'' Liz Hart, director of public relations for the SGA, said in an interview.

Around campus are constant reminders of counseling options, and state police will provide security at least through Monday.

''I still feel safe. I always have,'' said Claire Guzinski, a resident of West Ambler Johnston Hall, where Clark and Hilscher were slain. ''I just think, stuff happens. It's still in the middle of nowhere, a rural area. What are the chances of it happening twice?''

The only thing she feels nervous about, she says, is what to say to classmates who lost close friends.

''What do you say?''

Associated Press Writers Vicki Smith, Allen G. Breed,

Adam Geller and Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

Va. Tech Classes Resume Amid Tributes, NYT, 23.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Praying for a ‘Troubled Soul

and Mourning for Victims

April 23, 2007
By SUEVON LEE
The New York Times

CENTREVILLE, Va., April 22 — Addressing the congregation of Young Saeng Korean Presbyterian Church here on Sunday, the Rev. Myung Sub Chung spoke of a loving family but a profoundly troubled soul.

“In the end, he couldn’t be happy,” Mr. Chung, the lead minister, told the roughly 200 congregation members, referring to 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, who took the lives of 32 people and then his own on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., last Monday.

As Korean-Americans gathered here and at churches throughout the area on Sunday, they embraced a time for reflection and spiritual solace, trying like others to come to terms with the rampage. Weighing heavily on Mr. Chung, and on many in his congregation, was their common heritage with Mr. Cho. “He’s Korean, so that means he’s our family,” Mr. Chung said after services, as he sat in the church’s reception hall, where bowls of steaming noodles were passed around to people seated around long tables.

He spoke about his shock at first seeing the image of the gunman on television.

“I never imagined that type of face,” he said. “That face looked like my son’s.”

Mr. Chung’s church is a mile and a half from the Cho family home, but neither the minister nor members of his congregation could recall whether the family had ever worshipped at Young Saeng Korean Presbyterian.

During the services, Mr. Chung read aloud a letter sent to him by a family that lives in the same neighborhood as the Chos. In the letter, the family wrote, “Jesus loves you deeply and grieves with you.”

For many Korean-Americans, church is more than just a place of worship; it is the center of the community. And it was at churches where they came together in the past week for candlelight vigils in tribute to those who were killed, and where they began working, in some cases with Korean advocacy groups, to raise money for the families of the shooting victims.

At services on Sunday at the Korean Central Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Va., the largest Korean congregation in Northern Virginia, congregation members fastened to their lapels interlocking ribbons of orange and maroon — Virginia Tech school colors — to recall the lost lives.

Some wiped away tears during a slide show featuring photos of the victims and images of the mourning that took place on the Virginia Tech campus.

“I think there has been a special connection because the shooter was Korean,” said Jeannie Hwang Ng, 42, as she stood outside with other members. “Our hearts really go out to the family.”

The Rev. Hank Hahm, delivering a sermon to a Korean-American congregation at the Christ Central Presbyterian Church, said that everyone, including himself, feels angry and isolated at times.

“I look at him and I look at his rantings and ravings, and he was disturbed,” Mr. Hahm said, “but he wasn’t that different from me.”

Won Sang Lee, before delivering a sermon at another service at the same church, to a congregation of mostly Korean-born immigrants, said in an interview that he would urge members to become more involved in each other’s lives.

“With our family members, make sure mentally and spiritually they are all right and to pay attention to our neighbors more closely, and see how we can help,” he said.

Jenny Chung, the wife of the Rev. Chung of Young Saeng Korean Presbyterian Church, said the Korean community felt an enormous sense of loss after the shootings, not only because many in the congregation have children who attend Virginia Tech, but because of what she views as potential tensions between Koreans and the neighborhoods they inhabit.

Although Fairfax County remains home to more than 32,000 Koreans, whose numbers continue to rapidly increase, Ms. Chung said, “We’ve still got a reputation as the minority in this area.”

Praying for a ‘Troubled Soul’ and Mourning for Victims, NYT, 23.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/us/23church.html

Drawing a Line From Movie to Murder

April 23, 2007
The New York Times
By A. O. SCOTT

The mass shooting on the Virginia Tech campus was a ghastly, unique event, and yet the reaction to it, online and in the other news media, quickly took on an almost ritualistic predictability. The crime was so horrifically irrational that the machinery of interpretation went into overdrive, as though the effects of the violence could be healed if the violence itself could somehow be given meaning.

Like everything else in contemporary American media culture, the effort to wrest sense from senselessness was full of contention and contradiction. And of course as soon as the words and images that Seung-Hui Cho had sent to NBC began to circulate, there were fingers of accusation, or at least concern, wagging in the direction of popular culture. That was followed, as expected, by indignant dismissals of the idea that the movies (this crime’s primary scapegoat, since Mr. Cho does not appear to have been a fan of hip-hop or heavy metal) could be in any way to blame for the horror in Blacksburg.

We have been here before. The extreme, inexplicable actions of a tiny number of profoundly alienated, mentally disturbed young men have a way of turning attention toward the cultural interests they share with countless others who would never dream — or who would only dream — of committing acts of homicidal violence. The Columbine massacre provoked a flurry of disquiet about the Goth subculture, with its histrionically sinister music and style of dress. John Hinckley Jr.’s unhinged devotion to Jodie Foster led some commentators to wonder about the connection between “Taxi Driver” and Mr. Hinckley’s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Charles Manson, it may be recalled, was obsessed with the Beatles.

It’s worth noting that literature sometimes figures in these cases as well: Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s killer, carried around a dog-eared copy of “The Catcher in the Rye”; Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb footnoted their crime of kidnapping and murder (a modest one by current standards) with Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. But movies, video games, television and popular music offer a sturdier soapbox for those with an impulse to turn calamities into symptoms. Everyone knows, or can at least be bullied into pretending to know, that mass entertainment is responsible for injecting sex, violence and other pathogens into the eyes and minds of the young.

Mr. Cho’s case offers a new wrinkle, since it appears that some of the films he may have seen, and which may have fed his disordered soul, were foreign. A photograph of Mr. Cho wielding a hammer was thought by some commentators to resemble an image of the South Korean actor Choi Min-sik doing something similar in “Oldboy,” a bloody and critically esteemed revenger’s tragedy directed by Park Chanwook. That both the film and Mr. Cho are Korean seemed full of significance, though it was not always easy to say just what the significance might be.

“Oldboy,” Stephen Hunter wrote in The Washington Post on Friday, “must feature prominently in the discussion” of Mr. Cho’s possible motivations, “even if no one has yet confirmed that Cho saw it.” If he did, Mr. Hunter notes, “he would have passed on the subtitles and listened to it in his native language” and perhaps developed a feeling of kinship with its persecuted, paranoid hero.

Having said this Mr. Hunter goes on to discount the possible influence of “Oldboy” and to focus on the work of John Woo, another Asian director whose violent iconography seems to be more specifically evoked in the photographs of Mr. Cho. “As with the Park movie,” Mr. Hunter writes, “it is not certain that Cho saw Woo’s films, though any kid taken by violent popular culture in the past 15 or 20 years almost certainly would have, on DVD, alone in the dark, in his bedroom or downstairs after the family’s gone to bed.”

From this near-certainty Mr. Hunter makes a short trip to the assertion that during his rampage Mr. Cho “was shooting a John Woo movie in his head.” Evidence for this speculation is found in Mr. Woo’s fondness for two-fisted gunmanship, which Mr. Hunter credits him with introducing into movies, and also in a scene from “The Killer” that Mr. Hunter finds “strikingly similar to what must have happened Monday.”

It is hard to say what all this proves, other than that Mr. Hunter has no peer when it comes to wielding the conditional tense on deadline. He does not suggest that Mr. Woo is to blame for Mr. Cho’s actions. But his article does conjure a story line — the loner in his room watching ultraviolent movies on DVD, gathering inspiration for his own real-life action movie — that has unmistakable and familiar implications. Like guns, it seems, certain movies in the wrong hands can pose a threat to public safety.

This may be true, but only to the extent that a disturbed mind is apt to seek external confirmation of its own disturbance. It seems somewhat fair to conclude that Mr. Hunter, in linking Mr. Cho’s rampage to Mr. Woo’s films, was simply trying to make a guess as to the features of the killer’s mental world.

But the discussion of popular culture has a way of slipping from the particular to the general. Pious denunciations of movie violence can be expected to continue, even as it is unlikely that any serious attempt to curb it will ever be undertaken or that any causal or correlative link between on-screen mayhem and its real-life counterpart will ever be established (particularly since the Asian countries that produce gory and graphic movies, cartoons and comic books tend to have very low rates of actual violence). As “The Sopranos” and “The Departed” are worshiped and rewarded and the latest horror and serial-killer movies dominate the box office, scolds will continue to insist that representations of violence are not a matter of taste but of public morals and public health.

Millions of people meanwhile will continue to be entertained by spectacles of murder, indulging for a few hours in the visceral, amoral thrill of cinematic brutality and then going back to their peaceful, sane, non-threatening business. That we know the difference between reality and make-believe is evident in the shock and horror we feel when confronted with events like the one last Monday in Virginia.

    Drawing a Line From Movie to Murder, NYT, 23.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/movies/23movi.html

Virginia Tech Struggles

to Recover From Shootings

April 23, 2007
By IAN URBINA
and MANNY FERNANDEZ
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 22 — A girl in an orange and maroon bikini basked in the sun less than 20 feet from the Virginia Tech dorm in which one of the worst massacres in American history had begun.

A group of international students gathered for dinner downtown here to escape a campus emptied as many of their American classmates went home to try to heal with the aid of family.

A mother slathered suntan lotion on her toddler as they watched a college baseball game only blocks from where students crowded around a coffin and struggled to find the right way to talk about a dead friend.

“She was a great person,” a young man named Chris said of Austin Michelle Cloyd, a freshman killed during French class in last Monday’s massacre. “She is a great person,” he said, restating his thought.

The Virginia Tech campus was quiet, sunny, sad and playful this weekend. On parts of campus, a hush fell as most administrators, professors and journalists left, leaving behind an awkward mix of painful reminders and signs of the struggle to return to normal.

Norris Hall, where 30 of the 32 killings occurred, has become a somber spectacle. A line of motorcycles and cars moved slowly on Sunday around the Drill Field, in front of the hall where memorials of flowers, candles and signs were erected.

The chief of the campus police, Wendell Flinchum, posed for photographs with well-wishers not far from a woman wearing a placard that said, “Jesus Loves You.”

Alumni clad in orange and maroon, the university’s colors, huddled under a white tent for a picnic on Saturday, while the campus bookstore struggled to handle the surge in demand for Virginia Tech gear.

Plywood had been erected to seal off the area of the dorm where Mr. Cho claimed his first victim.

And pastors strained in their Sunday sermons to make sense of the senseless. “There is good, and there is hope because we all know that God’s love prevails,” the Rev. Susan Verbrugge told the several hundred parishioners who gathered for services at the Blacksburg Presbyterian Church.

Ms. Verbrugge recounted breaking through the previous week’s numbness as she stopped on a morning walk and found herself yelling at the mountains and at God. Though her shouts were initially met with silence, she said, she soon was reassured by the simplest of things, the chirping of birds.

“God was doing something about the world,” she said. “Starting with my own heart, I could see good.”

In Centreville, Va., where the gunman Seung-Hui Cho was reared, the Korean community grappled with feelings of shame and grief.

“Part of it is that we are feeling shame because he is Korean,” said Myung Sub Chung, pastor of the Young Saeng Korean Presbyterian Church about a mile and a half from the house of Mr. Cho’s family. “Mainly, we are angry because he is the gunman.”

Mr. Chung counseled his parishioners to spend more time with their children and not to overlook the spiritual part of life. He added that the tragedy had struck close to home for him because his son graduated from high school in the same class as Mr. Cho, and his daughter was a close friend of one of his victims.

Classes resume here on Monday, and while professors try to find a sensitive way to shift the discussion back toward course work, investigators continue trying to solve the mystery of Mr. Cho’s motive.

Much of the investigators’ attention is focused on the computer and cellphone of the woman thought to have been the first of Mr. Cho’s victims. Police officials are hoping to see if he might have known the woman, Emily Jane Hilscher.

Investigators are also trying to obtain records related to e-mail and eBay accounts that Mr. Cho might have used to buy magazine clips for one of his guns, evidence that could help them fill in the extent of his premeditation.

Memorial services were held in Blacksburg and across the country this weekend for at least 11 victims, with more scheduled for this week.

In Washington, Va., on Saturday, a flock of white doves was released in memory of Ms. Hilscher, an 18-year-old freshman from Woodville, Va.

“She’d rather wear jeans than a dress, drive a truck than a sports car, clean a stall than her room and visit the stables than the mall,” said Ms. Hilscher’s sister, Erica, 21.

On campus, the weekend was especially difficult for the Virginia Tech’s 2,100 international students, many of whom were stranded far from their families as other students returned home. Many of the international students also spoke of exhaustion after having suddenly become spokespeople for their communities and news providers to their countries.

At times, their burden was unbearable.

One Korean student, a freshman, locked himself away in his dorm room for much of the week and through the weekend to avoid reporters and other students, a university official said.

An engineering student, Rhondy Rahardja, 23, from Jakarta, Indonesia, fought back tears as he told of the guilt he felt having told people back home in the chaotic first hours after the shootings that all the university’s Indonesian students had survived, when in fact one — Partahi Mamora Lumbantoruan, a 34-year-old graduate student — had died.

“That’s why I haven’t really slept much,” Mr. Rahardja said. “We’ve been working hard to process his belongings, so we went to his apartment packing his stuff and then go through the process of expediting the body to Indonesia.”

Healing has been hastened in part by a spike in school spirit.

At the Campus Emporium on North Main Street here, workers struggled to handle the backlog of 400 orders for Virginia Tech coffee mugs, footballs, teddy bears, clothing and other gear. On campus, the University Bookstore sold a season’s supply of VT lapel pins in two days last week.

The chants, banners and slogans typically associated with Virginia Tech sports have gained a more emotional currency. At a convocation the day after the shootings, the rousing student chants filled Cassell Coliseum. The nickname for the university’s athletic teams, Hokies, has become a kind of shorthand for a unity that many students said they felt. “After what happened, we chanted, and at that moment, I really felt like I’m a Hokie,” said Ingrid Ngai, 19, a native of Hong Kong.

Reporting was contributed by Sarah Abruzzese

and Christine Hauser in Blacksburg;

Suevon Lee in Centreville, Va.;

and Alicia C. Shepard in Washington, Va.

Virginia Tech Struggles to Recover From Shootings, NYT, 23.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/us/23vatech.html

Internet Key

in Probe of Va. Tech Gunman

April 22, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:55 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Computer forensics are playing a key role in the probe of the Virginia Tech gunman, with investigators revealing he bought ammunition on eBay designed for one of two handguns used to kill 32 people and himself.

The eBay account and other Internet activities provided insight Saturday into how Seung-Hui Cho may have plotted for the rampage, including the purchase of two empty ammo clips about three weeks before the attack.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said the purchase of the clips from a Web vendor based in Idaho was legal and that the company has cooperated with authorities. Attempts to reach the Idaho dealer were unsuccessful.

''Within 24 hours, after Cho's identity was made public, we had reached out to law enforcement to offer our assistance in any investigation,'' Durzy said.

Authorities are also examining the personal computers found in Cho's dorm room and seeking his cell-phone records.

Cho, 23, also used the eBay account to sell items ranging from Hokies football tickets to horror-themed books, some of which were assigned in one of his classes.

A search warrant affidavit filed Friday stated that investigators wanted to search Cho's e-mail accounts, including the address Blazers5505@hotmail.com. Durzy confirmed Cho used the same blazers5505 handle on eBay.

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said investigators are ''aware of the eBay activity that mirrors'' the Hotmail account.

One question investigators hope to answer is whether Cho had any e-mail contact with Emily Hilscher, one of the first two victims. Investigators plan to search her Virginia Tech e-mail account.

Experts say that when the subject of an investigation is a loner like Cho, his computers and cell phone can be a rich source of information. Authorities say Cho had a history of sending menacing text messages and other communications -- written and electronic.

On March 22, Cho bought two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22. A day later, he made a purchase from a vendor named ''oneclickshooting,'' which sells gun accessories and other items. Details on the purchase were unclear, and the seller could not be reached for comment.

Cho sold tickets to Virginia Tech sporting events, including last year's Peach Bowl. He sold a Texas Instruments graphics calculator that contained several games, most of them with mild themes.

''The calculator was used for less than one semester then I dropped the class,'' Cho wrote on the site.

He also sold many books about violence, death and mayhem. Several of those books were used in his English classes, meaning Cho simply could have been selling used books at the end of the semester.

His eBay rating was superb -- 98.5 percent. That means he received one negative rating from people he dealt with on eBay, compared with 65 positive.

''great ebayer. very flexible,'' the buyer said of his Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl tickets, which went for $182.50.

Andy Koch, Cho's roommate from 2005-06, said he never saw Cho receive or send a package, although he didn't have much interaction with the shooter. Students can sign up for a free lottery on a game-by-game basis, and the tickets are free.

''We took him to one football game,'' he said. ''We told him to sign up for the lottery, and he went and he left like in the third quarter, and that was it. He never went again. He never went to another game.''

Cho sold the books on the eBay-affiliated site half.com. They include ''Men, Women, and Chainsaws'' by Carol J. Clover, a book that explores gender in the modern horror film. Others include ''The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre''; and ''The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense'' by Joyce Carol Oates -- a book in which the publisher writes: ''In these and other gripping and disturbing tales, women are confronted by the evil around them and surprised by the evil they find within themselves.''

Books by those three authors were taught in his Contemporary Horror class.

Experts say things like eBay transactions can be hugely valuable in trying to figure out the motivation behind crimes.

An examination of a computer is ''very revealing, particularly for a person like this,'' said Mark Rasch of FTI Consulting, a computer and electronic investigation firm. ''What we find ... particularly with people who are very uncommunicative in person, is that they may be much more communicative and free to express themselves with the anonymity that computers and the Internet give you.''

Cho's computer could hold a record of just about anything he has done, even of activities or communications he may have tried to erase. But Rasch said that likely will not be a problem, noting the way the gunman created a record of his thinking in videos, photos and documents.

''This guy wanted to leave a trail. He wasn't trying to conceal what he did,'' Rasch said.

Associated Press writers Kristen Gelineau and Allen G. Breed contributed to this report.

    Internet Key in Probe of Va. Tech Gunman, NYT, 22.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Tech Gunman

Bought Ammo Clips on EBay

April 22, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:42 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The Internet activities of the Virginia Tech gunman provided more insight Saturday into how he may have plotted for the rampage, with revelations that he bought two ammunition clips on eBay.

Seung-Hui Cho purchased two empty clips about three weeks before the attack in which Cho killed 32 people and himself. The clips were designed for one of the two types of handguns he used.

Cho, 23, also used the account to sell items ranging from Hokies football tickets to horror-themed books, some of which were assigned in one of his classes.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said the purchase of the clips from a Web vendor based in Idaho was legal and that the company has cooperated with authorities.

A search warrant affidavit filed Friday stated that investigators wanted to search Cho's e-mail accounts, including the address Blazers5505@hotmail.com. Durzy confirmed Cho used the same blazers5505 handle on eBay.

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said investigators are ''aware of the eBay activity that mirrors'' the Hotmail account.

The eBay account demonstrates the prime role computer forensics and other digital information have played in the investigation. Authorities are examining the personal computers found in Cho's dorm room and seeking his cell-phone records.

One question they hope to answer is whether Cho had any e-mail contact with Emily Hilscher, one of the first two victims. Investigators plan to search her Virginia Tech e-mail account.

Experts say that when the subject of an investigation is a loner like Cho, his computers and cell phone can be a rich source of information. Authorities say Cho had a history of sending menacing text messages and other communications -- written and electronic.

On March 22, Cho bought two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22. A day later, he made a purchase from a vendor named ''oneclickshooting,'' which sells gun accessories and other items. Details on the purchase were unclear, and the seller could not be reached for comment.

Cho sold tickets to Virginia Tech sporting events, including last year's Peach Bowl. He sold a Texas Instruments graphics calculator that contained several games, most of them with mild themes.

''The calculator was used for less than one semester then I dropped the class,'' Cho wrote on the site.

He also sold many books about violence, death and mayhem. Several of those books were used in his English classes, meaning Cho simply could have been selling used books at the end of the semester.

His eBay rating was superb -- 98.5 percent. That means he received one negative rating from people he dealt with on eBay, compared with 65 positive.

''great ebayer. very flexible. AAAAAA+++++'' the buyer said of his Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl tickets, which went for $182.50.

Andy Koch, Cho's roommate from 2005-06, said he never saw Cho receive or send a package, although he didn't have much interaction with the shooter. Students can sign up for a free lottery on a game-by-game basis, and the tickets are free.

''We took him to one football game,'' he said. ''We told him to sign up for the lottery, and he went and he left like in the third quarter, and that was it. He never went again. He never went to another game.''

Durzy, the eBay spokesman, said the company has been assisting investigators since the start of the case.

''Within 24 hours, after Cho's identity was made public, we had reached out to law enforcement to offer our assistance in any investigation,'' Durzy said. ''In looking at his activity on the site, we can confirm that at no point that he used eBay to purchase any guns and ammunition. It is strongly against eBay policy to try to sell guns and ammunition.''

Attempts to reach the Idaho dealer were unsuccessful.

Cho sold the books on the eBay-affiliated site half.com. They include ''Men, Women, and Chainsaws'' by Carol J. Clover, a book that explores gender in the modern horror film. Others include ''The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre''; and ''The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense'' by Joyce Carol Oates -- a book in which the publisher writes: ''In these and other gripping and disturbing tales, women are confronted by the evil around them and surprised by the evil they find within themselves.''

Books by those three authors were taught in his Contemporary Horror class.

Experts say things like eBay transactions can be hugely valuable in trying to figure out the motivation behind crimes.

An examination of a computer is ''very revealing, particularly for a person like this,'' said Mark Rasch of FTI Consulting, a computer and electronic investigation firm. ''What we find ... particularly with people who are very uncommunicative in person, is that they may be much more communicative and free to express themselves with the anonymity that computers and the Internet give you.''

Cho's computer could hold a record of just about anything he has done, even of activities or communications he may have tried to erase. But Rasch said that likely will not be a problem, noting the way the gunman created a record of his thinking in videos, photos and documents.

''This guy wanted to leave a trail. He wasn't trying to conceal what he did,'' Rasch said.

Associated Press writers Kristen Gelineau

and Allen G. Breed contributed to this report.

    Tech Gunman Bought Ammo Clips on EBay, NYT, 22.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

On Free Will and Virginia Tech

(7 Letters)

April 22, 2007
The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “The Morality Line” (column, April 19):

David Brooks makes the point about choice and responsibility: The killings at Virginia Tech happened at a moment “when background forces stop and individual choice” begins.

Not all troubled people act out violent fantasies; despite his apparent illness, Seung-Hui Cho made a choice in his soul somewhere along the line.

On the other hand, we as a society also have choices, including what kinds of weapons we allow in the marketplace that are easily available to the troubled when they make wrong choices — and that is our responsibility.

Diana Holdsworth
Norwalk, Conn., April 19, 2007

•

To the Editor:

David Brooks is right to suggest that any account of Seung-Hui Cho’s actions will have to assume that he made choices and exercised some degree of self-control in making them. But choices and self-control are complex processes with many underlying contributory factors — physiological, psychological and social.

Mr. Brooks laments the loss of free will in this explanatory mix, but what would we gain by adding it, other than a false sense of closure that some one person is morally to blame? How will this help us prevent similar actions in the future?

Dave Hilditch
St. Louis, April 19, 2007

•

To the Editor:

David Brooks’s columns about the marvels of biology and evolution in explaining human behavior have been eye-opening. Yet he is wrong to dismiss the role of gun laws when it comes to the impact of violent actions.

One wonders why President Bush, who often speaks of the sanctity of life, has done so little to help protect our lives from gun violence.

Chris Homan
Washington, April 19, 2007

•

To the Editor:

In arguing for a return to individual choice, free will and moral responsibility as we try to ponder the inexplicable behavior of Seung-Hui Cho, David Brooks misses the point. Whether Mr. Cho’s actions were determined by social forces outside his control or whether he had free will and was responsible for his behavior does not help us avert future tragedies.

In either case, he was a severely disturbed individual in need of help. We — his peers, his parents, his college, his world — had sufficient warning to intervene so as to protect others from his rage, irrespective of its source, as well as to protect him from himself.

Ferne Traeger
New York, April 19, 2007
The writer is a psychoanalyst.

•

To the Editor:

David Brooks argues that “individual choice and moral responsibility” need to be “closer to the center” of the debate about Seung-Hui Cho’s massacre at Virginia Tech. In doing so, he wisely acknowledges the evidence that some behavior is driven by forces that know no such control.

What also must be debated is the moral responsibility of social systems to protect society from Mr. Cho and Mr. Cho from himself. These systems failed, largely because of barriers to treating his mental illness.

They included laws that protected his rights against involuntary commitment and precluded college officials from discussing his situation with his parents.

Moreover, the community mental health system to which he was directed is broken.

Virginia has a severe shortage of acute-care mental hospital beds and waiting lists for mental health care. People with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other serious mental illnesses cannot get the care they need and often go to prison as a result. Where is the morality in that?

Mary Beth Pfeiffer
Stone Ridge, N.Y., April 19, 2007
The writer is the author of “Crazy in America: The Hidden Tragedy of Our Criminalized Mentally Ill.”

•

To the Editor:

David Brooks presents the dilemma between holding people morally accountable for their actions and the evidence of neuroscience that free will is only an illusion. But the ability of some people to rise above oppressive families and cultures to achieve great things represents a good practical substitute for free will.

Euclid, Newton, Darwin and Einstein all demonstrate the existence of some quality in humans that enables them to break free of the past and of their surroundings. We should remember them whenever we are tempted to think that someone’s failings, moral or otherwise, are fated.

Bill Hibbard
Stoughton, Wis., April 19, 2007

•

To the Editor:

I agree with David Brooks when he says we need to “reconstruct some self-confident explanation for what happened at Virginia Tech that puts individual choice and moral responsibility closer to the center.”

But Seung-Hui Cho made such a choice. He chose to exercise his constitutional right to arm himself, and defend himself from what he perceived as his nemesis, a morally responsible action in his mind.

What we have not done is to construct a barrier to prevent such deluded people from taking advantage of the Second Amendment.

Larry Maxcy
Yucca Valley, Calif., April 19, 2007

    On Free Will and Virginia Tech (7 Letters), NYT, 22.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/opinion/l22brooks.html

Before Deadly Rage,

a Life Consumed

by a Troubling Silence

April 22, 2007
The New York Times
By N. R. KLEINFIELD

From the beginning, he did not talk. Not to other children, not to his own family. Everyone saw this. In Seoul, South Korea, where Seung-Hui Cho grew up, his mother agonized over his sullen, brooding behavior and empty face. Talk, she just wanted him to talk.

“When I told his mother that he was a good boy, quiet but well behaved, she said she would rather have him respond to her when talked to than be good and meek,” said Kim Yang-Soon, Mr. Cho’s 84-year-old great-aunt.

When his parents announced when he was 8 that they were going to America, their relatives were gladdened. “We thought that it would help the boy gain confidence if he moved to the United States’ open society,” said an uncle who asked to be identified only by his last name, Kim.

And yet when he and others heard from Mr. Cho’s mother, it was the same dismal story, a buried life of silence. In church, she told them, she prayed for God to transform her son.

By now, the world knows what Seung-Hui Cho became, how on a gusty, snowy morning last Monday at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., he massacred 27 students and 5 teachers before killing himself.

No one could understand why. On Friday, his sister issued a statement of apology and sorrow that revealed the family’s own bewilderment. “This is someone that I grew up with and loved,” she said. “Now I feel like I didn’t know this person.”

Interviews with investigators, relatives, classmates and teachers offer inklings of how he progressed from silence to murderous rage, and show how he meticulously prepared for his final hours.

•

In Seoul, there was never much money, never enough time. The Cho family occupied a shabby two-room basement apartment, living frugally on the slender proceeds of a used-book shop. According to relatives, the father, Seung-Tae Cho, had worked in oil fields and on construction sites in Saudi Arabia. In an arranged marriage, he wed Kim Hwang-Im, the daughter of a farming family that had fled North Korea during the Korean War.

Their son was well behaved, all right, but his pronounced bashfulness deeply worried his parents. Relatives thought he might be a mute. Or mentally ill. “The kid didn’t say much and didn’t mix with other children,” his uncle said. “ ‘Yes sir’ was about all you could get from him.”

In 1984, relatives who had moved to the United States invited the family to join them. It took eight years to get a visa. In 1992, they arrived in Detroit and then moved on to Centreville, Va., home to a bustling Korean community on the fringe of Washington. They found jobs in the dry-cleaning business and worked the longest of hours. Dry cleaning is a favored profession among Koreans — some 1,800 of the 2,000 dry cleaners in the greater Washington area are run by Koreans — because it means Sundays off for church and sparse need for proficient English, exchanges with customers being brief and redundant.

The goal, of course, was to own one’s own business. But it did not happen for Seung-Tae Cho. He began as a presser — an 8 a.m.-to-10 p.m. job — and that is what he is today. His wife worked in the same capacity until a few years ago, when she accepted a job in a high school cafeteria so the family could have medical insurance.

They lived in a nondescript row house in a modest section of town, friendly but not overly sociable. Jeff Ahn, president of the League of Korean-Americans of Virginia, said the family was uncommonly private among the throbbing Korean-American community of about 200,000 in and around Washington. They shunned the more prominent Korean-language Christian churches, and prayed at a small church outside of town.

High school did not help Seung-Hui Cho surmount his miseries. He went to Westfield High School, one of the largest schools in Fairfax County. He was scrawny and looked younger than his age. He was unresponsive in class, and unwilling to speak.

And that haunted face.

Classmates recall some teasing and bullying over his taciturn nature. The few times he was required to speak for a class assignment, students mocked his poor English and deep-throated voice.

And so he chose invisibility. Neighbors would spot him shooting baskets by himself. When they said hello, he ignored them, as if he were not there. “Like he had a broken heart,” said Abdul Shash, a next-door neighbor.

The Korean community of Centreville is a high-aspiring one, and nothing matters more than bright futures for its children. The area is speckled with tutoring academies — “Believe & Achieve,” “Ivy Academy” — high SAT scores and road maps to elite colleges. The local Korean papers publish lists of students admitted to Ivy League institutions. Mr. Cho’s older sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, went to Princeton and made the lists, but not him. She now works as a contractor for the State Department.

When Mr. Cho entered Virginia Tech, which is crouched in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, his parents drove him to school with guarded expectations. Perhaps he would no longer retreat to video games and playing basketball alone the way he did at home. Perhaps college might crack the mystery of who he was, extract him from his suffocating cocoon and make him talk.

•

Girls figured somewhere in his yearnings, but always from a distance.

In his junior year, Mr. Cho told his then-roommates that he had a girlfriend. Her name was Jelly. She was a supermodel who lived in outer space and traveled by spaceship, and she existed only in the dimension of his imagination.

When Andy Koch, one of his roommates, returned to their suite one day, Mr. Cho shooed him away. He told him Jelly was there. He said she called him Spanky. SpankyJelly became his instant-message screen name.

He became fixated on several real female students. Two of them complained to the police that he was calling them, showing up at their rooms and bombarding them with instant messages. They found him bothersome but not threatening. After the second complaint against him in December 2005, the police came by and told him to stop.

A few hours after they left, he sent an instant message to one of his roommates suggesting he might as well kill himself. The campus police were called, and Mr. Cho was sent to an off-campus mental health facility.

After a counselor recommended involuntary commitment, a judge signed an order deeming him a danger and he was sent for evaluation to Carilion St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital in Radford, Va. A doctor there declared him mentally ill but not an imminent threat. Rather than commit him, the judge allowed him to undergo outpatient treatment. Officials say they do not know whether he did.

His junior-year roommates mostly ignored him because he was so withdrawn. If he said something, it was weird. During Thanksgiving break, Mr. Koch recalled, Mr. Cho called him to report that he was vacationing in North Carolina with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president; Mr. Cho said he had grown up with him in Moscow.

In class, some students thought he might be a deaf-mute. A classmate once offered him $10 just to say hello but got nothing. He hunched there in sunglasses, a baseball cap yanked tight over his head. Sometimes Mr. Cho introduced himself as “Question Mark,” saying it was the persona of a man who lived on Mars and journeyed to Jupiter. On the sign-in sheet of a literature class, he simply scribbled a question mark instead of his name.

But he wrote. Those who read his stories, his poems, his plays — they were the ones who wondered.

English teachers were disturbed by his angry writings and oddness. In a poetry class in his junior year, women said he would snap pictures of them with his cellphone beneath his desk. Several stopped coming to class.

Lucinda Roy, then head of the English Department at Virginia Tech, began to tutor him privately. She, too, was unnerved. She brought him to the attention of the counseling service and the campus police because she thought he was so miserable he might kill himself.

During their private sessions, she arranged a code with her assistant. If she uttered the name of a dead professor, the assistant was to call security.

Last semester, he took a playwriting class in which he submitted two one-act plays, “Richard McBeef” and “Mr. Brownstone,” both foulmouthed rants. In “Richard McBeef,” a 13-year-old threatens to kill his stepfather. Steven Davis, a senior in the class, said he finished reading the play one night, turned to his roommate and said, “This is the kind of guy who is going to walk into a classroom and start shooting people.”

•

The first gun he bought was a Walther .22-caliber pistol. He ordered it from an Internet gun site and picked it up at a pawnshop near campus on Feb. 9.

Why then? Investigators say they are trying to discover if there was some precipitating event. Evidently, though, a plan had been hatched and was in motion.

On March 12, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Mr. Cho rented a van from Enterprise Rent-A-Car at the Roanoke Regional Airport that he kept for almost a month. The next day, he bought the second gun at Roanoke Firearms, where he laid out the requisite three pieces of identification: his Virginia driver’s license, his green card and a personal check. He paid by credit card: $571 for a 9-millimeter Glock pistol, one of the store’s best sellers, a favorite for target shooting and self-defense. He took 50 rounds of ammunition.

On March 22, Mr. Cho showed up at the PSS Range, advertised as “Roanoke’s only indoor pistol range,” $10 an hour. Mr. Cho spent an hour practicing and bought four ammunition magazines for the Glock. Range employees, investigators said, remembered a young Asian man videotaping himself inside a van in the parking lot.

Over the next few weeks, he fulfilled the rest of his shopping list. Investigators said he went to the Wal-Mart in Christiansburg on March 31, April 7, April 8 and April 13. During those visits, he bought cargo pants, sunglasses and .22-caliber ammunition. He also bought a hunting knife, gloves, a phone item and a granola bar. He visited Dick’s Sporting Goods for extra magazines of ammunition. He got chains at Home Depot.

On March 28, he stayed at the MainStay Suites in Roanoke, according to Ed Wray, the general manager. On April 8, he spent the night at the Hampton Inn in Christiansburg. Investigators think that some of his videos were shot in this hotel room, because a gold extension cord for a lamp that is visible in one of the images resembles one in the room.

All told, investigators calculate that Mr. Cho spent several thousand dollars getting ready for April 16, most of it charged to a credit card.

•

In the last few weeks, Mr. Cho’s roommates noticed a few new oddities in this most odd man. He cropped his hair to a military buzz cut. In the evenings, he was working out with a certain frenzy at the gym.

None of his roommates had known him until this academic year. He was a senior, an English major, and someone who, at 23, was older.

Throughout the term, they had not seen him with anyone who might constitute a friend. He ate his meals in the dining hall in solitude, embracing what they took to be a subaltern status they assumed he preferred.

The six roommates occupied Suite 2120 in Harper Hall, designed in requisite college bland: a cinderblock common area, three compressed bedrooms, a single bathroom. Sharing a bathroom lets you learn things about your roommates, but not everything. They knew that he took medication but did not know what it was for. He had acne.

It was common for him to go to sleep at 9 p.m., unthinkable for a college student, and to awaken at 7 a.m. But lately he had been getting up earlier and earlier, as if there were insufficient time to do what he needed to do.

It was not yet 5 a.m. on Monday when Joe Aust, a sophomore who shared Mr. Cho’s room, heard his rustlings. He was already crouched at his computer, where, from his copious music downloads, he liked to repeatedly play “Shine,” a song of spiritual longing from the Georgia alternative rock band Collective Soul.

Karan Grewal, 21, another suitemate, bumped into Mr. Cho in the bathroom. Not a word.

Mr. Cho dabbed moisturizer on his eyes and slid in contact lenses. He brushed his teeth.

The groggy Mr. Aust went back to sleep. When he got up about 7 to prepare for class, Mr. Cho was gone.

•

Emily Hilscher, a freshman, lived in Room 4040, near the elevators on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston Hall, one building from Harper. Shortly after 7 a.m., she was killed by bullets from Mr. Cho’s gun. The same fate met Ryan Clark, one of the dorm’s resident advisers. Mr. Clark is believed to have come out of his room to investigate the noise, only to stumble into death.

Officials say they know of no connection between Mr. Cho and Ms. Hilscher, and remain baffled about why he began there and why he chose not to end there. “The biggest thing for us is Location One,” a law enforcement official said. “Why Location One? Why did he stop at two killings there?”

The campus police received a 911 call at 7:15, when the rest of the campus was still opening its eyes, the thousands of students who commuted to school not yet on the grounds.

Classes had not begun, and the campus was not alerted to the dormitory killings. The university police quickly picked up some information, and the nature of it led them to make a decision and follow a trail. Ms. Hilscher’s roommate, Heather Haughn, had shown up at 7:30 to meet her and accompany her to class. Instead, she encountered the campus police.

One of the things she told them was that Ms. Hilscher had a boyfriend, Karl D. Thornhill, a senior at nearby Radford University; Ms. Hilscher had spent the weekend with him at his off-campus townhouse, and he had dropped her off at her dorm that morning. Ms. Haughn also told them that Mr. Thornhill had guns and had been shooting them at a range two weeks earlier.

Based on what she said, the police concluded that they had the most clichéd script of all — the lovers’ quarrel. They went looking for Mr. Thornhill, and found him on the highway, driving home from a class. They pulled him over and started interrogating him.

But he was the wrong man, and the police were at the wrong place.

•

That gave Mr. Cho time, and he had uses for it.

The police know he returned to his dorm room because he accessed photo files there. He harbored messages of hate, and now was when he chose to offer them to the world.

He assembled a package, and in it were QuickTime videos of himself, 43 photographs and an 1,800-word statement outlining his place in a world he saw arrayed against him. Many of the snapshots were of him brandishing guns — at nothing, at the camera, at himself. One showed him with a hammer. There was a photo of bullets standing lined up as if soldiers awaiting inspection.

His rage was brutally transparent in his multimedia screed and suicide note. He ranted against hedonism and trust funds, against high-class taste for vodka and cognac. He praised the Columbine High School killers as martyrs, and styled himself a Christ figure.

He said, “You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience.”

“You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,” he said. “But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.”

He took his package to the small post office a few blocks from the main gates of campus and arranged with the postal clerk to send it by overnight mail to NBC in New York. The postage was $14.40. It was time-stamped at 9:01 a.m. Then, investigators say, he went back to the dorm to arm himself.

•

At 9:26 a.m., the university issued this e-mail message to the campus: “A shooting incident occurred at West Ambler Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating. The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case.”

By then, though, the calculus of the day had already set in motion the next sequence, and there was nothing to stand in its way.

•

Norris Hall is a brown, cavernous, L-shaped classroom building situated across the drill field on the other side of campus from Harper Hall. It can be walked from Harper Hall in less than 15 minutes.

Sometime around 9:30, Mr. Cho stepped inside Norris Hall. He was wearing cargo pants, a sweatshirt, an ammunition vest and a maroon cap, the school color. He carried a backpack — a receipt for one of the guns stuffed inside — and he was carrying chains and some knives. On one arm was inscribed Ax Ismael, a name whose significance has not been determined but might be a Biblical allusion.

He unfurled the chains and wrapped them around the interior handles of the doors. The entrance secured, he mounted the stairs to the second floor and the classrooms. Second period had begun.

•

The stairs he took emptied into the short end of the L, where there were seven classrooms. Two were vacant, and five were in session: Rooms 204, 205, 206, 207, 211. Gun drawn, he forged into four of them. Inside of 10 to 15 minutes, forensics evidence concluded, he fired more than 175 rounds in killing 30 people, the worst slaughter of its kind in the history of the country.

•

The first police officers on the scene forced their way in by blasting open the front doors with a shotgun. That blast, investigators believe, alerted Mr. Cho that he had time for only one more shot.

They found his body sprawled in the stairwell. He had turned one of his guns around and shot himself. The officers shouted, “Shooter down! Shooter down! Black tag!” Black tag is police code for dead.

And that was all the killing there would be at one mountainside college campus on one awful Monday.

In death, Seung-Hui Cho finally spoke, but it was through the QuickTime videos received by NBC and broadcast on Wednesday. A pastor at a Korean church in Centreville watched the tapes on television with his family. He told the Seoul newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, “All my family said that was not the Seung-Hui we knew. It was the first time we saw him speaking in full sentences.”

    Before Deadly Rage, a Life Consumed by a Troubling Silence, NYT, 22.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/us/22vatech.html?hp

Students Recount

Desperate Minutes

Inside Norris Hall

April 22, 2007
The New York Times
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
and KATIE ZEZIMA

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 21 — The Elementary German class was under way in Room 207, reviewing German translations of computer parlance. A young man peeked in, saying nothing, and withdrew. Students who noticed him thought that either he was searching for someone or trying to locate his class. He did the same thing across the hall in Room 206, and again in Room 204.

Later, some of the students would conclude that he was not actually looking for anyone but was gauging mass — calculating a plan for the limited time he was likely to have, so that he could achieve the greatest carnage.

During the brutal interlude that Seung-Hui Cho spent last Monday on the second floor of Norris Hall, the engineering building at Virginia Tech, he would slaughter 30 people in a matter of minutes, in a furious fusillade of gunfire. From interviews with eyewitnesses who survived the attack, these are accounts of what happened.

•

Sometime just past 9:30 a.m., Mr. Cho reentered Room 206, Advanced Hydrology, a graduate level class taught by Prof. G. V. Loganathan. He shot the teacher and then turned and fired at everyone else in the class.

Guillermo Colman, 38, dove to the floor and huddled against the radiator; another student fell on top of him. At first, he thought this might be a stunt of some sort, something with ketchup substituted for blood, until a bullet hit behind his left ear.

The gunman left, and the students who were still conscious heard gunfire in nearby classrooms. It was not long before the killer returned and pumped more bullets into the students sprawled on the floor. Mr. Colman’s head was bleeding, and for that reason he might not have been shot again, and he lived.

•

In Room 204, the students in Solid Mechanics were learning about strain displacements when they heard what they took to be construction noise, what to them sounded like an enormous hammer pounding.

“It was like someone would hit a nail, pull back, hit a nail, pull back,” said Alec Calhoun, a junior in the class. “Then, after about three hits, we started hearing screams.”

Prof. Liviu Librescu, the teacher, said, “That’s not what I think it is, is it?”

The big hammer was a gun.

One student shouted, “That’s gunfire, I’m getting out of here.” He grabbed his belongings and dashed into the hallway, trailed by one other student. But the killer was in the hallway. The first student was shot twice, but managed with assistance from his classmate to hobble downstairs. They tried the doors, but they had been chained shut and they could not get them open, so they ducked into a ground-floor classroom to hide.

Professor Librescu said, “Someone call 911.”

From the back of the room, Mr. Calhoun waved his cellphone in the air. He had already called.

Desks were hurriedly flipped on their sides as protective shields, and the students crouched behind them. Four students had skipped class, because they had a homework assignment for third period that they had not completed. Another happened to just then be in the bathroom down the hall, and a professor wounded in the hallway ran in and locked both of them inside.

Others, hearing the gunfire, had locked themselves in the lounge and the offices on the floor. The classrooms alone were without locks.

Fearing the door led to death and recognizing that it could not be locked, the Solid Mechanics students chose the windows and whatever fate they would bring. “It was the most helpless feeling I had known,” said Caroline Merrey, a senior. Soon after class was to end, she had a telephone interview scheduled for her first job as a graduate.

One of the students opened a window, leapt onto the windowsill and kicked out the screen. The teacher was yelling at the students to get out as quickly as possible. Students clambered through and began dropping the two stories toward grass that had been drenched by a Sunday rain. Ms. Merrey tossed her knapsack and windbreaker out the window and climbed onto the sill: “I hung from the window from my fingertips and I just closed my eyes and said to myself, ‘Here we go.’ ”

She landed next to a friend moaning that he had broken an ankle.

Nine or 10 jumped, and Mr. Calhoun said he was the last to go. As he stood on the sill, he wavered. He saw students ahead of him fall and get injured, screaming in pain. One would break a leg.

Jump? Don’t jump? A gunman controlled the hall. He spied a shrub and aimed for it. He successfully landed in it, bounced off and finished on his back on the grass. Picking himself up, he sped for the nearest building.

Matt Webster had not yet jumped. Professor Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who was 76, had his weight against the door, but the gunman bulled his way in and shot the professor and then fired at the remaining students.

“He walked over to everyone individually and stood over us and shot down on us,” Mr. Webster said. A bullet grazed Mr. Webster’s head and penetrated his bicep.

A woman near him was moaning from her wounds, and another student was hit in the leg.

Oddly, in all the mayhem, there were no screams. “There was no time for it,” Mr. Webster said. “It all happened so quickly.”

•

The gunfire had roused the attention of others on the floors above and below, and most of them sought refuge in their rooms. Kevin P. Granata, a professor with an office on the third floor, ventured downstairs to investigate. Mr. Cho killed him in the hallway.

Gene Cole, 52, a custodian, was talking to his supervisor on the first floor when a secretary came downstairs and alerted them to sounds of gunfire. Mr. Cole took the elevator to the second floor. He came upon a wounded woman on the floor, writhing in pain, unable to speak. Before he could get to her, the gunman charged out of a classroom, raised his gun and fired five shots at Mr. Cole. All missed.

“I felt the bullets whiz by my head,” he said.

He darted down the stairs, yelling at his boss to get out. Mr. Cole fled through the auditorium exits. His supervisor, Mr. Cole said, hid in the bathroom.

•

The Issues in Scientific Computing class in Room 205 had heard the gunfire. Zachary Petkewicz had shoved a table against the door and held it shut. Mr. Cho managed to get the door open six inches, but no further. He fired two shots into the door, splintering wood but hitting no one, and emptying his clip. One bullet struck the podium, and the other hit a window. The students could hear him reloading as he retreated.

In Elementary German, Room 207, students had heard noise outside, but dismissed it as construction racket. The door was closed. Mr. Cho opened it, and before it hit the doorstop, he was firing.

“There was emptiness in his eyes,” said Derek O’Dell, a sophomore. “He was like a stone.”

He shot Christopher J. Bishop, the teacher, then turned on the class. Students dropped to the floor, jostling for cover. The gunfire continued — 10, 20, maybe 30 shots. The volley covered little more than a minute, but it felt like much longer.

Mr. O’Dell was hit in the right arm. “I was under my desk,” he said. “Then I started belly crawling military-style to the back of the room, while he was firing, and hid under another desk.”

Kevin Sterne, 21, a senior, was shot twice in the thigh, his femur artery ruptured. Drawing on his knowledge as an Eagle Scout, he snatched an electrical cord and wrapped it fast around his leg, stanching the bleeding and saving his life.

Five were dead and most of the others wounded. The four or five who had not been hit lay still on the floor, feigning death to live. There was no hope of escaping through windows here, not on this side of the hallway. Only the bottoms of the windows opened, with a crank, and the opening was too slim. There was no lawn below, just concrete. One student cranked open a window and began screaming for help.

The survivors heard gunfire ringing in another classroom. Trey Perkins feared the killer would return and finish them off: “I told people that were still up and conscious, ‘Just be quiet because we don’t want him to think there are people in here because he’ll come back in.’ ”

Using his belt as a tourniquet, Mr. O’Dell stopped the bleeding in his arm and then leap-frogged across a half-dozen desks to the front of the room. He slammed the door shut and barricaded it with his foot, leaning against the blackboard to avoid shots coming through the door. Two classmates propped their feet against the door. The others tried shoving the podium over, but it was bolted to the floor.

Sure enough, the gunman returned. He got the door open an inch, before the students shut it again. He squeezed off half a dozen shots into the door, and left.

Hearing the disturbances, Clay Violand, a junior in the Intermediate French class in Room 211 told Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, the professor, to push a desk against the door. She glanced out in the hallway first, and pulled her head back with a look of frozen terror. She told her students to call 911 and get down. She shoved a desk against the door, but the barricade did not hold.

“I saw a gun emerge into view,” Mr. Violand said. “Following the gun was a man.”

He ducked under his desk.

The professor and nine students were killed.

“Shot after shot went off and I never felt anything,” Mr. Violand said. “I played dead and tried to look as lifeless as possible.”

He whispered to a classmate, “If he thinks you’re dead, then he won’t kill you.”

And he prayed: “I prayed that an invisible blanket of protection be placed around me.”

Colin Goddard had called 911 and then dropped the phone, the line still open to the dispatcher. A bullet hit him in the left leg, breaking his femur. He, too, lay motionless, and the gunman left.

Moments later, he was back. Lying still on the floor, Mr. Goddard saw shoes approach, heard additional shots fired, then the shoes stopped next to him. He felt two more bullets rip into him, in the shoulder and buttocks. He was still conscious, and he would live. So would Mr. Violand. The shoes moved away, headed toward the front of the room. Somewhere nearby, one more shot rang out.

The police had burst through. Mr. Cho had turned his gun on himself.

Alicia C. Shepard contributed reporting.

    Students Recount Desperate Minutes Inside Norris Hall, NYT, 22.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/us/22norris.html

The Nation

When the Group Is Wise

April 22, 2007
The New York Times
By BENEDICT CAREY

SEUNG-HUI CHO seemed indifferent to every small act of human kindness, any effort to connect.

According to classmates of Mr. Cho, the Virginia Tech killer, one student made several attempts to speak to him, even after reading his frightening writings. Mr. Cho’s suitemates, and some teachers, too, made an effort to engage him. And there were undoubtedly others. Maybe they signaled their openness with a slight nod, a friendly widening of the eyes.

Those acts of genuine decency failed to prevent Mr. Cho’s rampage on Monday. But the tragedy in Blacksburg, Va., illustrates how human social groups, whether in classrooms, boardrooms or dormitories, are in fact exquisitely sensitive to a threat in their midst, and act in ways both conscious and unconscious to test how dangerous it is. Take a step back, and the peer group can be seen as a single organism that recoils from a threat, then sends out feelers, in the form of overtures from its members, to gauge whether danger is imminent or might be reduced.

The Blacksburg case suggests just how this process typically works, and highlights its strengths as well as its limits in preventing a crisis.

After this shooting (and most school and workplace rampages, big and small), forensic experts quickly and properly cautioned that no profile of a rampage killer exists. Most predatory killers score very highly on the most rigorously tested measure to predict violence, the so-called psychopathy checklist; but many who do not commit crimes also score high.

Yet out in the world, no one uses questionnaires or diagnostic manuals to check out a stranger or an acquaintance. People read the other person’s body language, tone of voice; they read between the lines of what is said. They absorb most of this information instantly, unconsciously, and often accurately, studies suggest. And they sometimes get the creeps — for reasons they might not be able to explain right away.

The evidence that this happened over the months and years before the shooting in Blacksburg is now abundant. After hearing Mr. Cho read one of his sinister poems in a creative-writing class, dozens of his classmates did not show up the next time the class met, so as to avoid the young man, according to the teacher. This is what most human social groups do, when they collectively register a threat: they move away, socially and often literally.

The thousands of years that early humans lived in small, fragile kin groups helped shape their instinct for social distancing, anthropologists say. A person who steals, who lies or who incites fights is a direct threat not only to those lured into confrontations but also to the coherence and ultimate survival of the group itself.

“Social stigma is rooted in part in a concern for social predictability,” said Robert Kurzban, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “One thing that’s crucial in groups, particularly small groups, is cooperation, and if someone is unpredictable, they don’t cooperate or coordinate well and represent a group threat. So people look out for such individuals.”

To guard against a real threat, this instinct is naturally conservative. It flags as potentially threatening many people who aren’t, as millions of people living with mental illness have experienced firsthand.

In some ancient societies and religious communities, the rules that guided how to manage a person thought to be dangerous were very explicit, said David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Binghamton and the author of “Evolution for Everyone.” Bad gossip, followed by a rebuke, then ostracism. Each stage sets in motion more isolation. This escalating discipline protects the community but is also intended to bring about a change of heart in the outcast.

Finally, if such a change isn’t forthcoming, there is expulsion. “For some nomadic cultures, it was as simple as saying, ‘O.K., you go this way, we’re going that way,’ ” Dr. Wilson said.

Modern societies are — blessedly, for most people — far more tolerant. Their justice systems are less likely to be swayed by hearsay, or claims of possession and superstition. People perceived as threatening have some civil rights, and as the Virginia Tech case showed, the authorities are limited in what they can do if a person of interest hasn’t actually made threats or attacks.

Still, the peer group is tracking the person carefully and, deliberately or not, doing its own tests for a threat.

For some 20 years, Lawrence Palinkas, a professor of social work at the University of Southern California, has studied the social networks that form like crystals among work teams who spend the winter together in scientific missions in Antarctica. The groups, which range in size from a dozen people to nearly 200, very often have at least one outcast. That person may be simply unlucky, picked on by influential people central to the group. But often the person helps define the identities of those who make up the group’s core.

“It’s a stable situation, because in a way that isolated person helps define a group; people look at him and can say, ‘I’m not like him, someone who doesn’t fit in,’ ” Dr. Palinkas said.

It often happens, Dr. Palinkas has found, that another group member makes an investment and helps reel the outcast back in. But this is much more likely to succeed when the main group is a cohesive one, like a team or work crew with a tightly bound inner core, Dr. Palinkas said. “If it’s a group that is split into factions, diffuse, not well integrated, then it is very hard to integrate the isolates,” he said.

Large college campuses tend to be tolerant, fluid, self-enclosed societies, where almost anyone can find a niche. The peer group around Mr. Cho, even as he avoided direct eye contact, seemed to be extending a tentacle now and then, to see if the young man was ready to find his own place. The student who tried to talk to Mr. Cho in English class, Ross Alameddine, made several attempts.

Mr. Cho ignored every one, and many more from others who were less patient.

Debate will undoubtedly continue about what could have, or should have, been done by university officials, campus police officers or the Virginia mental health system. Teachers will have their say, as will administrators.

But it is clear from interviews that many of Mr. Cho’s peers knew in their guts the danger the young man presented. They sent up alarms, even while watching him. They kept their distance, as a natural protective instinct.

And through the spirit of people like Mr. Alameddine, who would become one of the random shooting victims, they continued to send out feelers: small human invitations that, in the shadow of what was to come, now look very large indeed.

    When the Group Is Wise, NYT, 22.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/weekinreview/22carey.html

Virginia Tech

pays respects to victims,

and gunman

Sat Apr 21, 2007
8:47PM EDT
The New York Times
By Andrea Hopkins

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Mourners gathered on Saturday for the funerals of many of the 32 victims killed at Virginia Tech as some students extended a note of forgiveness to the gunman responsible for the massacre.

A small tribute to Seung-Hui Cho, who shot his victims then himself on Monday, has been added to a growing memorial of stones in the center of the sprawling university in southwest Virginia where knots of weeping students continue to gather.

"I just wanted you to know that I am not mad at you. I don't hate you," read a note among flowers at a stone marker labeled for Cho. "I am so sorry that you could find no help or comfort."

The note, one of three expressing sorrow and sympathy for the gunman, a deeply disturbed English major, was signed: "With all my love, Laura." A purple candle burned and a small American flag stood in the ground nearby.

Other memorial stones were decorated with flags from Canada, Peru, and Israel for victims who came from those countries. There were also teddy bears, photos and scribbled notes of grief from friends and family.

Nearly a dozen funerals and services for victims, who included 27 students and five teachers, were held in Blacksburg and across the United States, following the worst shooting spree in modern U.S. history.

In Narrows, a tiny factory town about 30 miles from the university, some 800 mourners filled the high school auditorium to overflowing for the funeral of Jarrett Lane, 22, an engineering student who would have graduated in May.

"He had the world by the tail," state Sen. John Edwards told the packed auditorium, where students in Virginia Tech's orange and maroon mixed with townspeople in black.

After the service, mourners walked together across the school's track, where Lane once raced, to a green cemetery in the crook of Virginia's mountains, and stood quietly beneath a cloudless sky as he was buried.

In Evans, Georgia, some 100 members of the Virginia Tech marching band saluted Ryan Clark, 22, a member of the Marching Virginians and one of Cho's first victims.

Clark, a resident assistant in the dormitory charged with helping other students, was killed when he ran to the room where the initial shooting took place. He had been due to graduate in May and wanted to pursue a doctorate in neuroscience.

REMEMBERED EQUALLY

At Virginia Tech, graduate student Chris Chabalko, 29, said adding a stone memorial for Cho was fair.

"He was a student. Thirty-three people died," said Chabalko. "There's nothing anyone can do about it now. We've got to remember them equally."

Cho's family issued a heartbroken apology on Friday for the actions of the 23-year-old, who moved to Virginia with his family from South Korea when he was a child.

"He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare," the family said in a statement.

(The order of Cho's name has been changed in line with his family's practice. He had been previously identified by police and university officials as Cho Seung-Hui.)

Questions remained about how Cho, who had been investigated after stalking complaints in 2005 and treated for mental illness, was able to buy the two guns he used in the rampage.

Under federal law, Cho should have been barred from buying a gun, but wording differences with a Virginia law allowed him to legally get a weapon, a state law professor said.

Richard Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia's Commission on Mental Health Law Reform, said someone deemed a danger to himself and committed to out-patient care cannot buy a gun under federal law. But the state prohibition applies only to those committed to a hospital, which Cho was not.

As a result, his details would not have been captured by an FBI background check system used by gun sellers.

"It is not a new problem. It has been festering for many years," Bonnie said.

    Virginia Tech pays respects to victims, and gunman, R, 21.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1631133620070422

Trade brisk at U.S. gun shows

after shooting spree

Sat Apr 21, 2007
7:02PM EDT
Reuters
By Tim Gaynor

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Thousands of shoppers packed more than two dozen gun shows across the United States on Saturday, as the domestic arms trade kept up a brisk pace after the worst shooting rampage in modern American history.

Traders at firearms fairs in Arizona and Georgia hawked weapons ranging from high-powered handguns to assault rifles just days after a disturbed student, Seung-Hui Cho, ran amok at Virginia Tech university, shooting dead 32 people and then himself.

The killings reignited a highly charged debate about gun ownership in the United States, where annual firearms sales average 4.5 million a year, and the number of privately owned guns is at an all-time high above 215 million, according to government figures.

The Arizona state flag fluttered at half-staff over the Crossroads of the West gun show in Phoenix, where several thousand visitors combed through more than a hundred stalls selling wares from hollow-tipped bullets to sniper scopes.

"Business is doubly good today because of the tragedy at Virginia Tech," said trader Mike Detty, as customers handled AR-15 assault rifles at his stall in a warehouse thronged with traders and customers.

"Any time there is some kind of shooting or event involving firearms ... prices go up because demand skyrockets," he said, adding that he expected to sell around 20 of the semi-automatic weapons over the course of the afternoon.

The right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the domestic firearms industry is worth more than a billion dollars a year.

"Most people don't have to hunt to eat; they buy guns because they enjoy it," said trader John Lawrence, selling replica pistols and ammunition clips to family groups at the show.

"People here are really passionate about collecting firearms -- half of them don't shoot 'em, they just have 'em to play with them, trade them back and forth," he added.

RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

Gun control advocates say the ready availability of weapons enables sprees like the Virginia Tech killings, while enthusiasts insist on their constitutional right to own and use firearms for hunting, target practice and self-defense.

For retired gold prospector Spencer Kirby, strict gun control was not the solution to killing sprees like the one on Monday, but the cause of them.

"My first thought is that if one of the students had had a gun to defend themselves, it would have been one dead madman instead of a whole bunch of innocent people," Kirby told Reuters, as he sought a buyer for a Colt .45 pistol.

Dealers and shoppers at a gun show at a farmers' market in Atlanta said they were appalled by the killings at Virginia Tech but that gun ownership was the inalienable right of all law-abiding Americans.

Atlanta resident Herb Johnson, who said he kept a gun to protect his family and was also involved in shooting competitions, was at the show to restock ammunition.

"I believe in the Second Amendment because the forefathers decided that if only the government has weapons then the government controls and the government is supposed to be of the people," Johnson said.

Johnson said he was careful to keep it locked in a safe during the day to avoid an accident involving young children. Part of gun safety was educating children about guns, he said.

(Additional reporting by Matthew Bigg in Atlanta)

    Trade brisk at U.S. gun shows after shooting spree, R, 21.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2122336720070421

Mass Shootings

More Common Since 1960s

April 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:46 p.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- Mass public shootings have become such a part of American life in recent decades that the most dramatic of them can be evoked from the nation's collective memory in a word or two: Luby's. Jonesboro. Columbine.

And now, Virginia Tech.

Since Aug. 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman climbed a 27-story tower on the University of Texas campus and started picking people off, at least 100 Americans have gone on shooting sprees.

And all through those years, the same questions have been asked: What is it about modern-day America that provokes such random violence? Is it the decline of traditional morals? The depiction of violence in entertainment? The ready availability of lethal firepower?

Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox blames guns, at least in part. He notes that seven of the eight deadliest mass public shootings have occurred in the past 25 years.

''I know that there were high-powered guns before,'' he said. ''But this weaponry is just so much more pervasive than it was.''

Australia had a spate of mass public shooting in the 1980s and '90s, culminating in 1996, when Martin Bryant opened fire at the Port Arthur Historical Site in Tasmania with an AR-15 assault rifle, killing 35 people.

Within two weeks the government had enacted strict gun control laws that included a ban on semiautomatic rifles. There has not been a mass shooting in Australia since.

Yet Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota State Department of Corrections, said the availability of guns was not a factor in his exhaustive statistical study of mass murder during the 20th century.

Duwe found that the prevalence of mass murders, defined as the killing of four or more people in a 24-hour period, tends to mirror that of homicide generally. The increase in mass killings during the 1960s was accompanied by a doubling in the overall murder rate after the relatively peaceful 1940s and '50s.

In fact, Duwe found that mass murder was just as common during the 1920s and early 1930s as it is today. The difference is that then, mass murderers tended to be failed farmers who killed their families because they could no longer provide for them, then killed themselves. Their crimes embodied the despair and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, the sense that they and their families would be better off in the hereafter than in the here and now.

On Dec. 29, 1929, a 56-year-old tenant farmer from Vernon, Texas, named J.H. Haggard shot his five children, aged 6 to 18, in their beds as they slept. Then he killed himself. He left a note that said only, ''All died. I had ruther be ded. Look in zellar.''

Despondent men still kill their families today. But public shooters like Virginia Tech's Seung-Hui Cho are different. They are angrier and tend to blame society for their failures, sometimes singling out members of particular ethnic or socio-economic groups.

''It's society's fault ... Society disgusts me,'' Kimveer Gill wrote in his blog the day before he shot six people to death and injured 19 in Montreal last year.

In the videos and essays he left behind, Cho ranted about privileged students and their debauched behavior.

He also mentioned the Columbine killings, referring to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as ''martyrs.'' Imitation undoubtedly plays a role in mass shootings as well, said Daniel A. Cohen, a historian at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

''Certain types of crimes gain cultural resonance in certain periods,'' Cohen said.

So many post office employees gunned down their co-workers during the 1980s and early '90s that they spawned a neologism. To ''go postal,'' according to the Webster's New World College Dictionary, is ''to become deranged or go berserk.''

The most recent postal shooting was in January 2006 when Jennifer San Marco, a former employee who had been fired a few years earlier because of her worsening mental state, walked into a letter sorting facility in Goleta, Calif., and killed six people with a handgun.

Criminologist Fox speculates that the increasing popularity of workplace killings, and public shootings generally, may be partly due to decreasing economic security and increasing inequality. America increasingly rewards its winners with a disproportionate share of wealth and adoration, while treating its losers to a heaping helping of public shame.

''We ridicule them. We vote them off the island. We laugh at them on `American Idol,''' Fox said.

But there has also been an erosion of community in America over the past half-century, and many scholars believe it has contributed to the rise in mass shootings.

''One would think that there's some new component to alienation or isolation,'' said Jeffrey S. Adler, a professor of history and criminology at the University of Florida.

People used to live in closer proximity to their families and be more involved with civic and religious institutions. They were less likely to move from one part of the country to another, finding themselves strangers in an unfamiliar environment.

Even so, the small-town America of yesteryear wasn't completely immune. On March 6, 1915, businessman Monroe Phillips, who had lived in Brunswick, Ga., for 12 years, killed six people and wounded 32 before being shot dead by a local attorney. Phillips' weapon: an automatic shotgun.

Remarkably, violence in today's media seems to have little to do with mass public shootings. Only a handful of them have ever cited violent video games or movies as inspiration for their crimes. Often they are so isolated and socially awkward that they are indifferent to popular culture.

Ultimately, it is impossible to attribute the rise in mass shootings to any single cause. The crimes only account for a tiny fraction of homicides.

And a significant fraction of those who commit them, including Cho, either kill themselves or are killed by police before they can be questioned by investigators.

    Mass Shootings More Common Since 1960s, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting-Strangers.html

A Life Cut Short, but Richly Lived

April 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times

VIENNA, VA. (AP) -- Vibrant and determined, Maxine Turner never was the type to cower under an umbrella. When rain struck during a Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall, others dove for cover. Maxine turned her face skyward and let the raindrops kiss her cheeks.

Later, amid grumbling from fellow soggy travelers, she and her mom Susan broke into spontaneous song, belting out, ''Always look on the bright side of life.''

It could have been her motto. The Virginia Tech senior, killed at age 22 in the massacre that cut short so many young lives, oozed enthusiasm from her 5-foot-1, 110-pound frame. Halloween, swing-dancing, tae kwon do, Zelda, chemistry -- she made them all her own.

And she was smart, way smart.

Maxine -- Max to her friends -- died just weeks before she was to receive an honors degree and start a chemical engineering job with the makers of Gore-Tex in Maryland, an employer she strategically selected because they weren't far from the beach.

''Not sure what I'll be doing yet,'' she told friends. But she knew her future would be ''AWESOME.''

Enthusiasm, accomplishment and zest for dreams were common among the 27 students killed by the gunman, who also shot five professors to death before taking his own life. Among the young victims: class jokers, animal lovers, voracious travelers, athletes, musicians, a high school valedictorian.

For all her gifts, Maxine was practical and in many ways understated, her parents remembered in an interview Friday that swung between laughter-filled recollections of a life so fully lived and sorrow over what will never be.

Friends and roommates filtered through her parents' living room, gently adding a few memories but more often silent as Max's parents sketched her life story.

''She was the greatest person ever,'' her roommate for four years, Michelle Vrikkis, said simply.

And modest. When new arrivals at Tech began comparing SAT scores, Maxine's 1500 -- with a perfect 800 on mathematics -- would have stood out. ''I did pretty good,'' was all Max would say, her mother recalled.

''She was an amazing girl but you'd never know it,'' Susan said. ''Everyone always seemed surprised when she did these things. It was like, Maxine? Are you kidding, Maxine? She just flew under the radar.''

Max's photo leaps from the pages of an album chronicling her four years at Tech. There she is, in a carpet wrestling match, plying her hair-dying skills on a friend, modeling her Zelda costume for Halloween, duct-taped to a window in an unauthorized, only-at-Tech contest to see who could stick up there the longest.

Another picture, showing a sign on her dorm-room doors, speaks of her focus and determination: ''Do not be offended, but I really need to work and I will not let anyone in.''

President of the swing-dance club during high school, she embraced tae kwon do in college with equal passion. She had earned her red belt and was intent on getting her black belt.

''She wasn't going to get it at what she called a just sort of a 'black-belt factory,''' said Susan. ''She wanted to really know it and really be able to do it.''

She was an accomplished violinist. She was a youth ambassador to Hawaii. She spent three weeks on a skipjack studying oysters on the Chesapeake Bay, and that was before high school. She packed in so many advanced courses early in high school that she had time for fun electives such as gourmet foods in her senior year.

In college, it was the same story. That was why she had room in her senior schedule for German, and why she was in Norris 207 when the gunfire erupted.

Her mom says everyone assumed Max wanted to take German because it is so connected to engineering. ''No,'' she said. ''Maxine wanted to take German so she could understand the lyrics to Rammstein,'' a German metal band.

About the only thing Maxine didn't embrace was Girl Scouts -- ''too patsy,'' remembers Paul Turner, her father.

''She really wanted to be in Boy Scouts, because they did more camping, and Girl Scouts did all this artsy-craftsy thing,'' added Susan.

Max helped to found Virginia Tech's chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, the national sorority for women in engineering. She was an officer of the tae kwon do club. She volunteered regularly at the local animal shelter. She mastered the ''Legend of Zelda'' video games. (Twilight Princess, from the most recent ''Zelda'' game, was her buddy icon.)

But call home? Max was too busy. Susan's ringtone for Max was ''Mission Impossible'' because it was such an event to get a call. But they instant-messaged constantly, and Max would let her playful side come through.

Last week, after Friday night's formal dance, Susan remembers that Max's ''away'' message said, ''I was looking in the mirror and I thought, hmmm, something's missing there. I think a tattoo would look really good there.'' And then she wrote, ''Now that I've completely freaked mommy out, I'm gone for the day.''

No tattoos for her, though; she was too needlephobic.

Susan thinks Max's ever-changing hues of hairtips may help show her two sides. By turns red, magenta, blue, and so on, Max washed the color out and stuck with plain blondish-brown hair for her job interviews. Then, when her job at W.L. Gore & Associates was in the bag, she dyed the tips red again over spring break, with mom's help.

Now, her sorority sisters are dying their own hair tips -- ''to honor the other side of Maxine,'' says her mother.

Ever practical, Max spent the March break at home despite her friends' efforts to entice her on a cruise. She was eager to start apartment-hunting in Maryland and get in one last dental appointment while still on her parents' insurance.

One day she was scheduled to go to an all-day music festival with friends; instead she went to her 13-year-old brother Anthony's soccer game.

When it came time to select a college, Max immediately wanted Virginia Tech. Her parents made her at least apply to some bigger-name schools. Even after the acceptance letters from Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon arrived, Max insisted on Tech.

''She stood on that campus and she said, 'This is my school. I don't want to go anywhere else,'' Susan recalled. ''She loved it. Her whole four years.

''It was the right place for her -- until Monday.''

    A Life Cut Short, but Richly Lived, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Turner.html

South Koreans

Feel Sorrow Over Shootings

April 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:06 a.m. ET
The New York Times

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre in the nation where the shooter was born has been an outpouring of sympathy mixed with feelings of shame. There are also concerns that going too far in apologizing would make it appear South Korea is unjustifiably taking some blame for the killings.

Expressions of regret have ranged from candlelight vigils and religious services to online tributes. South Korea's ambassador to the U.S. proposed the idea of Koreans living in America taking turns in a 32-day fast to honor each of the victims.

President Roh Moo-hyan has expressed condolences four times -- the first before it even emerged the culprit was a South Korean immigrant, followed by words of sympathy to the American people and to President Bush.

''This is a sensitive time,'' the leading Chosun Ilbo daily cautioned in an editorial. ''We must ensure that our true intentions, to share the sorrow, can travel across the ocean and reach the hearts of grieving Americans.''

Seung-Hui Cho left South Korea as a boy and lived in the United States for more than 14 years, where he apparently grew into a deeply troubled young man whose murderous spree was facilitated by easy access to guns.

Much of the reaction to Cho's nationality in his native land is colored by South Korea's keen awareness of its national image. South Korea is obsessed with how it is perceived by the outside world, and its group-oriented culture means the achievements of the few are marshaled into rallying cries for the many.

''Koreans think very much in terms of national identity rather than individual identity,'' said Michael Breen, author of the book ''The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies.''

South Koreans are quick to take group credit even from afar. The most notable recent example is Pittsburgh Steelers' wide receiver Hines Ward, the offspring of an African-American father and Korean mother, who was feted as a national hero after he was named Most Valuable Player in the 2006 Super Bowl -- even though he and American football were virtually unknown here before.

But that sense of collective pride has also meant Koreans fear facing group reprisal after Cho's shooting spree.

There are worries about everything from personal assaults to possible fallout for a proposed free trade agreement between Seoul and Washington or long-held hopes of relaxed U.S. visa requirements for South Koreans.

The deputy head of the U.S. Embassy in South Korea reassured Koreans in a speech Friday they should not feel any collective guilt and that the shooting would have no bearing on U.S.-South Korean ties -- forged after American forces came to South Korea's defense in the 1950-53 Korean War.

''This tragic incident will have no influence on our bilateral relationship. It was an act of one individual,'' said Deputy Chief of Mission William Stanton.

Part of the reason South Koreans may express fears of reprisals is because of what could have transpired had the situation been reversed and an American student went on a rampage at a South Korean campus, noted Breen.

For example, when two girls were killed in a traffic accident involving a U.S. military vehicle in 2002, South Korea was gripped with anti-American fervor whipped up by mass protests. The mood was fanned by politicians seeking a boost in that year's presidential vote that brought Roh to power with a promise not to ''kowtow'' to the U.S.

Since Monday's shootings, however, there have been no signs of any reprisals against Koreans in the United States.

''It will be very instructive to Koreans to watch the reaction of Americans,'' Breen, a Briton, said of the response to the shooting rampage. ''They know it's more gracious than their own reaction would be.''

The shooting story has been the top news this week in all South Korean media -- as it would be even in the absence of a Korean connection, given the scale of the massacre that has shaken the country's key ally.

Media here have also reported on the rest of the world's coverage of the event, and appeared to display a sense of relief that their reporting focused on U.S. gun culture along with Cho's psychological problems as the main factors behind the rampage.

The shootings have also led South Korea to embark on some soul-searching about its children and the ever-increasing pressures they face amid cutthroat competition at school. Writing in the Hankyoreh newspaper, columnist Sin Ki-sup said there were other young people like Cho who are ''lost in despair and rage'' and called on parents to help.

''The beginning of a solution will be the recognition that the dreams of young people are in a state of collapse,'' Sin wrote. ''Dreams that have collapsed might not be revivable, but if we share their pain, we might help them begin to dream new dreams.''

(This version CORRECTS the story of the name to Seung-Hui Cho, and Cho is correct on second reference)

    South Koreans Feel Sorrow Over Shootings, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Virginia-Tech-SKorea.html

Accused Teen: 'I Just Freaked Out'

April 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:05 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BARABOO, Wis. (AP) -- A teenager accused of gunning down his principal told detectives in a videotaped interview that he didn't mean to kill him but ''freaked out'' when the principal tackled him in a school hallway.

Eric Hainstock, 16, also told investigators in the same interview hours after Principal John Klang was fatally shot that he'd been in anger management classes for years but found them useless.

''He's like, 'Your choices are based on your beliefs,''' Hainstock said, referring to his instructor. ''Like, 'duh.' It gets annoying.''

Prosecutors presented the videotaped interrogation of Hainstock at a hearing on his request to be tried as a juvenile. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on adult charges. If convicted as a juvenile, Hainstock would be released at age 25.

Authorities say Hainstock, then 15, walked into the school before classes and shot Klang three times as the principal tried to wrestle the boy to the ground. Klang managed to disarm Hainstock but died later that day.

The videotape, time-stamped less than three hours after the shooting, shows Hainstock sitting in an interview room with his face buried in his arms. He has the hood on his sweatshirt pulled over his head.

Hainstock told detectives he was upset with school officials because they didn't stop other students in this southwestern Wisconsin town from picking on him and calling him names. Going to school with guns occurred to him just that morning, he said, and he just wanted officials to listen to him.

When Klang grabbed him from behind and put him in a bear hug, he put the revolver under his left armpit and shot the principal, he said. He said he didn't mean to kill him, but ''I just freaked out.''

''It was just 'pop!' and then a couple seconds later 'pop!' and then a couple seconds later, 'pop!''' Hainstock said.

Weston Schools teacher Alyssa Brewer testified Friday that Hainstock once threw a chair in a classroom and challenged a music teacher to a fight over a spitball shooter.

Eric Hainstock erupted into anger when he was caught with the toy fashioned out of a pen, and he refused to hand it over, Brewer said.

When she ordered Hainstock to another room to cool off, he stood up, threw a chair across the room and came at her, asking her ''Do you want to (expletive) go? If you want to (expletive) go we can go right now'' and grabbed her arm, Brewer said.

Another student went for help and Hainstock left the room, she said.

Prosecutors wanted Brewer's testimony to show Hainstock's violence as impulsive and that he still could be dangerous at age 25.

Defense attorneys have been working to portray Hainstock as immature and a victim of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of his family and classmates. They contend he needs treatment available only in the juvenile system.

Psychologist Michael Caldwell, testifying for the defense, said the teen likely wouldn't give up on therapy and medication in a juvenile facility because he would know he'd go free in a few years. He hasn't shown enough capacity for planning to think that way, he said.

Caldwell said touching Hainstock triggers memories of abuse and kicks his aggression to another level, adding the principal may have inadvertently made matters worse by tackling Hainstock and escalating his rage.

However, ''I would never imply he did the wrong thing,'' Caldwell said of Klang, who has been called a hero.

    Accused Teen: 'I Just Freaked Out', NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Wisconsin-School-Shooting.html

Huckabee Favors

Concealed Gun Policy

April 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:34 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said a concealed handgun carried by a faculty member or student at Virginia Tech might have reduced the toll from Monday's shooting spree by a student.

''If somebody had been able to stop the shooter before he was able to kill that many people, there may not have been that many,'' the former Arkansas governor said Thursday in an interview with radio station KUAR at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in response to a question about carrying concealed weapons.

A longtime hunter, Huckabee has spoken publicly before about his support for concealed-weapon permits -- and his own license to carry.

Seung-Hui Cho, 23, killed 32 people Monday on the Virginia Tech campus before taking his own life.

Huckabee stressed that a renewed debate over gun control is not the proper reaction to the Virginia Tech deaths. He said the nation instead should discuss mental health issues -- particularly how an obviously sick young man managed to slip through the cracks.

''What was really most troubling about this situation was not just his choice of mayhem in terms of a weapon, but more disturbing was the fact that here was a clearly mentally person who was exhibiting many, many signs and he still slipped through the system and was able to do this,'' Huckabee told the radio station by telephone from New Hampshire, where he is campaigning.

Huckabee cautioned against using tragedy as a springboard to ''take away'' the rights of others.

------

CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Friday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be ousted if he interfered with a prosecution.

The former Massachusetts governor, however, stopped short of calling for Gonzales' resignation, saying not enough details were known about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

''If he removed someone to interfere with the prosecution or an intended prosecution, then that would be wrong and would justify his removal,'' Romney said after a campaign event in eastern Iowa. ''A president can change people for any reason he wants, but interfering with a prosecution would be wrong.''

Many Democrats have called for Gonzales to step down, and some Republicans have done the same. Romney recommended lawmakers not be hasty in passing judgment.

''I wouldn't convict until I heard the witnesses and the evidence, and that's something which is an ongoing process,'' he said.

Romney made his remarks after speaking before about 400 people at a luncheon. He repeatedly said change was needed in Washington, but he expressed support for some Bush administration policies and hailed the president's strategy in Iraq -- from the initial invasion to the latest troop increase.

''Right now the president's posture and my position on Iraq may not be the most popular,'' he said. ''And I understand that, but that goes with the territory with doing what you believe is the right thing.''

During a campaign appearance Friday night in Carmel, Ind., Romney said he was shocked that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would say that the war has been lost.

''It's not worked anywhere near as well as we had hoped it would, and there have been setbacks and there are huge challenges,'' Romney said at a state GOP dinner. ''That's a very different thing than saying we've lost the war in Iraq.''

Reid's remarks encouraged violent jihadists ''to parade to their believers around the world that they beat America, and that's not what happened,'' Romney said.

The former Massachusetts governor added: ''Is there something wrong among the Democrats that they can't form the words 'win' and 'success' on their lips?''

------

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson became the latest Democratic presidential candidate Friday to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign, saying he's become a burden to the Justice Department.

''After reviewing the attorney general's behavior, I must reluctantly conclude that new leadership is needed,'' Richardson said in an interview with The Associated Press. ''It's time for him to go.''

The call is significant because Gonzales, a fellow Hispanic, has enjoyed Richardson's support to this point. But Richardson said the questions that have been raised about the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, and the role that Gonzales played in those firings, have effectively ended his ability to run the agency.

''He's lost his ability to lead,'' Richardson said, adding that he watched Gonzales' testimony before a Senate committee and found his explanations of his activities unconvincing. Gonzales needed a clear and cogent explanation of his actions, and that didn't happen, Richardson said.

''What bothered me was his couching his explanations,'' said Richardson. ''It's important that he be fully open.''

------

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) -- Republican Rudy Giuliani received a warm introduction from former President George H.W. Bush on Friday as the presidential candidate delivered a speech on combatting terrorism.

Bush, whose presidential library is on the Texas A&M campus, introduced Giuliani, praising his handling of events in New York City after the terrorist attacks.

''It was in his courage under fire starting the morning of Sept. 11 that the world saw the best of Rudy Giuliani,'' the elder Bush said. ''We saw a genuine leader.''

Giuliani returned the praise, calling the former president a great leader.

Speaking before about 2,500 people, Giuliani said the United States has sought to bring the world together through increased economic opportunities and democracy.

''Before that vision can be a reality, we're going to have to win the war on terror, or as I call it, the terrorists' war on us,'' he said. ''It's the greatest challenge of our generation.''

He reiterated his support for the current President Bush's handling of the war on terror and the conflict in Iraq, saying both are examples of how the country has gone on the offensive in trying to defeat terrorism.

''There is no excuse any longer (after Sept. 11) to go back on defense,'' he said. ''The first person to get it was President Bush. He understands the true nature of what we face.''

Giuliani also called on the country to support the use of the USA Patriot Act as well as aggressive but legal surveillance and interrogations to fight terrorism.

------

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- Leaf peepers, yes. Political junkies, not so fast.

A plan to promote the New Hampshire primary as a tourist attraction has been all but abandoned after the primary's fiercest protector raised concerns about tarnishing the state's political tradition.

''The presidential primary was not created for an economic benefit for this state,'' Secretary of State Bill Gardner said Thursday. ''People can come take a look at our leaves -- that can be encouraged -- but the primary is not the same.''

Until he got a call from a reporter, Gardner was unaware of the marketing campaign the state Division of Travel and Tourism had planned to roll out early next month. Imagining ads beckoning visitors to come do their tax-free holiday shopping while they checked out the candidates, he quickly arranged to meet tourism official Vicki Cimino to lay out his objections.

''I was pretty blunt with her,'' he said.

With other states moving up their primaries to share some of the spotlight on New Hampshire, Gardner said he doesn't want to promote the idea the primary is a cash cow, which he said it isn't.

''Some people accuse of us being so adamant about protecting it because we do it for the money,'' Gardner said. ''That's not why we do it.''

Associated Press writers Mike Glover in Des Moines, Iowa, Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., Juan A. Lozano in College Station, Texas, and Nafeesa Syeed in Coralville, Iowa, and Steve Herman in Carmel, Ind., contributed to this report.

    Huckabee Favors Concealed Gun Policy, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-On-the-2008-Trail.html

U.S. Rules Made Killer

Ineligible to Purchase Gun

April 21, 2007
By MICHAEL LUO
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, April 20 — Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.

The special justice’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.

The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include “determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority” that as a result of mental illness, the person is a “danger to himself or others.”

Mr. Cho’s ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.

Currently, only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Thursday. Virginia is the leading state in reporting disqualifications based on mental health criteria for the federal check system, the statement said.

Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases, however, is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. So the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification addresses only the state criteria, which list two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police: someone who was “involuntarily committed” or ruled mentally “incapacitated.”

“It’s clear we have an imperfect connection between state law and the application of the federal prohibition,” Mr. Bonnie said. The commission he leads was created by the state last year to examine the state’s mental health laws.

Mr. Bonnie, the director of the University of Virginia Institute on Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, said his panel would look into the matter. “We are going to fix this,” he said.

“I’m sure that the misfit exists in states across the country and the underreporting exists,” he said.

After two female Virginia Tech students complained about Mr. Cho’s behavior in 2005, he was sent to a psychiatric unit for evaluation and then ordered to undergo outpatient treatment, which would not qualify as an involuntary commitment under Virginia law, Mr. Bonnie said.

“What they did was use the terms that fit Virginia law,” he said. “They weren’t thinking about the federal. I suspect nobody even knew about these federal regulations.”

But Christopher Slobogin, a law professor at the University of Florida who is an expert on mental health, said that under his reading of Virginia law, outpatient treatment could qualify as involuntary commitment, meaning Virginia law should have barred Mr. Cho from buying a weapon as well. Mr. Bonnie said he and the state’s attorney general disagreed with that interpretation.

Mr. Slobogin added that the federal statute “on the plain face of the language, it would definitely apply to Cho.”

A spokesman for the Virginia attorney general’s office declined to comment on Friday, saying only that various agencies were “reviewing this situation.”

Richard Marianos, a spokesman for the federal firearms agency, said Friday that federal and state officials were looking into the question, studying the court proceedings and testimony.

But Mr. Marianos added, “If he was adjudicated as a mental defective by a court, he should have been disqualified.”

Dennis Henigan, legal director at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the oversight on the federal law in Virginia had probably been occurring for some time.

“They may have been doing this for years, just basically assuming, if the guy’s not disqualified under state law, then we don’t have to send anything to the state police,” Mr. Henigan said. “It’s a failure to recognize the independent obligation to the federal law.”

Most states do not follow the letter of the federal law when it comes to the mental health provisions, said Ron Honberg, legal director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group.

“I suspect if we look at all the requirements that exist for the states, there’s probably a whole lot of them that don’t implement them,” Mr. Honberg said, explaining that the gap often comes from a lack of resources but also because no one is enforcing the requirements.

“When something like this happens, then people start to pay attention to this,” he said.

Representative Carolyn McCarthy, Democrat of New York, has been pushing a bill to require states to automate their criminal history records so computer databases used to conduct background checks on gun buyers are more complete.

The bill would also require states to submit their mental health records to their background check systems and give them money to allow them to do so.

According to gun control advocates, the mental health information currently submitted to the national check system is often spotty and incomplete, something Ms. McCarthy’s bill is designed to address.

Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and a former member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, is co-sponsoring the bill, which has twice passed the House only to stall in the Senate. Congressional aides say Mr. Dingell is negotiating with pro-gun groups to come up with language acceptable to them.

“The N.R.A. doesn’t have objections,” Mr. Dingell said in an interview. “There are other gun organizations on this that are problems.”

A spokesman for the rifle association declined to comment Friday on the legislation, but Mr. Dingell said the measure could prevent future tragedies.

“It resolves some serious problems in terms of preventing the wrong people from getting firearms,” he said.

    U.S. Rules Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/21guns.html?hp

Memorial Services Held in U.S.

and Around World

April 21, 2007
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA and MANNY FERNANDEZ

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 20 — Many of the 32 victims of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech were remembered Friday at memorial services around the state, the nation and the world, at the same time as the family of their killer issued an apology.

“He has made the world weep,” said the statement, released by Sun-Kyung Cho, the sister of Seung-Hui Cho, the 23-year-old Virginia Tech senior who methodically killed dozens of students and faculty members on Monday. “We are living in a nightmare.”

The statement, given to The Associated Press by Wade Smith, a lawyer in Raleigh, N.C., on behalf of Ms. Cho, said that family members never envisioned that Mr. Cho was capable of such violence, noting that he struggled to fit in.

“We feel hopeless, helpless and lost,” Ms. Cho said. “This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn’t know this person.” She added, “Our family is so very sorry for my brother’s unspeakable actions.”

Mr. Cho’s parents, who live in Centreville, Va., a Washington suburb, and work in the dry cleaning business, have not made any statements or been seen publicly since their son was identified as the gunman on Tuesday.

The statement was the first indication the family preferred to refer to their son as Seung-Hui Cho, rather than Cho Seung-Hui, the more traditional Korean formation the university used when identifying him on Tuesday.

The statement came as six memorial services for victims were held around the world on Friday — three in Virginia, one in New Jersey, one in Israel and another in Nova Scotia. Arrangements have been made for at least 16 other services in six states through Tuesday.

That Friday also happened to be the eighth anniversary of another mass killing, at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo., added another grim element to a day already heavy with grief.

“It’s a hard day,” said the Rev. Alexander W. Evans, the pastor of Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, at a memorial service for Kevin P. Granata, 45, an engineering professor who was killed by Mr. Cho. “But we’re here to give thanks for his life.”

Tears flowed among those in the sanctuary as a former department chairman described Mr. Granata’s bravery in ushering students into his office and out of harm’s way before going to investigate the gunfire.

Less than 40 miles away in Narrows, Va., a line of about 300 mourners shuffled quietly through a gymnasium at Narrows High School, casting their gaze down at the body of Jarrett Lee Lane.

“Everybody in town knew Jarrett,” said Darrel Tawney, a family friend of Mr. Lane, who was the high school’s 2003 valedictorian and a star baseball player. “You didn’t go to the ballgame except to watch him.”

Governors in 39 states and Guam declared Friday as an official day of mourning, while businesses closed briefly at noon in Blacksburg to observe a statewide moment of silence.

Also on Friday, President Bush announced in his weekly radio address that senior officials at the Departments of Education, Justice and Health and Human Services would participate in a review of the broader questions of dealing with people whose mental health makes them a danger to society.

The officials, he said, would travel to communities around the nation, meeting with educators, mental health experts and local officials. He said Michael O. Leavitt, the health and human services secretary, would report back to him with recommendations about how to avoid such tragedies in the future.

Having retrieved the bodies of their relatives from the medical examiner’s office in Roanoke, Va., grieving families returned home to mourn in ways that were as diverse as the faiths and backgrounds of those people killed, including cremations, Roman Catholic wakes, secular remembrances and sitting shiva. Some ceremonies were public, while others were not.

At a Hindu ceremony on campus Thursday, 33 candles were lighted, including one for Mr. Cho, who shot himself after his deadly killing spree.

“He also was a lost soul,” said Kusum Singh, who helped organize the Hindu ceremony to memorialize G. V. Loganathan, 52, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Minal Panchal, 26, an architecture student from Mumbai, India.

Several hundred people gathered on the Virginia Tech campus’s Drill Field to watch the release of 32 maroon and orange balloons, each bearing a victim’s name.

“Mike, we love you,” said Katie Willson, of Williamsburg, Va., as she let go a balloon for Michael S. Pohle Jr., a fifth-year senior biology major who was killed in his German class.

In the background, four state troopers stood in front of Norris Hall, the site of 30 of the shootings still cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape.

The widespread distribution of the week’s funerals made clear the global nature of the tragedy.

In Sumatra, Indonesia, services were held for Partahi Mamora Lumbantoruan, an engineering doctoral student.

In Nova Scotia, a memorial service was held Friday for Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French professor killed while teaching a class.

Also on Friday, in Ra’anana, Israel, family members attended the burial of Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old engineering lecturer and Holocaust survivor, who was shot while trying to protect students in a classroom.

“They ask me today about your past and I don’t know what to say, but that I am proud of you,” said the victim’s son, Joe Librescu. “You taught me right from wrong, and sometimes I didn’t listen. But now my ears are open.”

In mourning, families struggled with the senselessness of the violence. Souheil Samaha, the cousin of one of the victims, Reema Samaha, marveled at the irony of her death in America. He said that the last time Ms. Samaha was in Lebanon visiting extended family, she got trapped in northern Beirut by the war that broke out last summer and was among the American-Lebanese civilians who had to be evacuated by an American warship.

“I haven’t really processed everything that has happened,” Mr. Samaha, a Virginia Tech student, said in a telephone interview, adding that a burial will be held for Ms. Samaha on Monday.

Tuesday’s service for Austin Michelle Cloyd in her hometown, Champaign, Ill., will be held on what would have been her 20th birthday. The family of Emily Jane Hilscher, a member of the campus equestrian club who dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, asked that donations be made to the Rappahannock Animal Welfare League in Amissville, Va.

Other campuses found their own ways to show support.

At Pennsylvania State University, about 800 students have signed up to wear maroon and orange shirts and will sit in the stands in the formation of the VT symbol during the university’s football game this weekend.

For Ms. Cho, the sister of the gunman, mourning came with a promise that the family would do whatever necessary to explain Mr. Cho’s actions.

“There is much justified anger and disbelief at what my brother did, and a lot of questions are left unanswered,” she wrote in the statement. “Our family will continue to cooperate fully and do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well.”

Reporting was contributed by Sarah Abruzzese, Christine Hauser and Alicia C. Shepard in Blacksburg and Jennifer Medina in Ra’anana, Israel.

    Memorial Services Held in U.S. and Around World, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/21virginia.html

NASA gunman received bad review

 

21.4.2007
AP
USA Today

HOUSTON (AP) — The shooter in an apparent murder-suicide at the Johnson Space Center had received a poor job review and feared being fired, police said Saturday.

William Phillips, 60, smuggled a snub-nosed revolver into the space center Friday, shot David Beverly, 62, and barricaded himself with a hostage before shooting himself in a building that houses communications and tracking systems for the space shuttle, officials said.

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said Phillips bought the .38-caliber revolver March 18, two days after receiving an e-mail citing deficiencies in his job performance and saying that he was going to be reviewed.

A copy of the e-mail was found in Phillips' lunch bag on the day of the shootings, police Lt. Larry Baimbridge said.

On Friday, Phillips had lunch with Beverly and another man, police said. Then, early that afternoon, Phillips entered Beverly's office with the gun in his hand and said "You're the one who's going to get me fired," Baimbridge said.

After Beverly talked with Phillips for several minutes, Phillips shot him twice. He then returned and shot Beverly twice more, officials said.

Phillips duct-taped a woman to a chair, holding her for hours, police said. Officers entered the room and freed her after hearing the gunshot that killed Phillips.

The woman hostage, identified by NASA as Fran Crenshaw, a contract worker with MRI Technologies, worked in the same general area.

Space agency spokesman John Ira Petty said Saturday that NASA was conducting what he called a continuous review of security procedures. Petty would not discuss specifics, saying the apparent murder-suicide was a police matter.

To enter the space center, workers must show an ID badge as they drive past a security guard. The badge allows workers access to designated buildings.

Beverly's wife, Linda, said her husband of 41 years was an electrical parts specialist who felt working at NASA was his calling.

"His intellect and his knowledge, David really felt he was contributor," she said.

Phillips, an employee of Jacobs Engineering of Pasadena, Calif., had worked for NASA for 12 to 13 years. He was unmarried, had no children and apparently lived alone.

During the confrontation, NASA employees in the building were evacuated and others were ordered to remain in their offices for several hours. Roads within the 1,600-acre space center campus were blocked off, and a nearby middle school kept its teachers and students inside as classes ended. Doors to Mission Control were locked as standard procedure.

    NASA gunman received bad review, UT, 21.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-21-nasa-gunman_N.htm

Gunman Kills

NASA Worker and Himself

April 21, 2007
The New York Times
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

HOUSTON, April 20 — A contract worker brandishing a revolver took control of part of a Johnson Space Center building on Friday afternoon, and killed a hostage and then himself after a standoff with the police.

Another hostage, identified as Fran Crenshaw, was not harmed. After the three-hour standoff, F.B.I. agents and the police began trying to figure out what relationship, if any, the gunman had with the hostages.

“I don’t know what any of the relations were at this time,” Capt. Dwayne Ready of the Houston police said of the three people involved in the incident. “I am sure we will learn if there were any relationships, and what they may have been.”

Captain Ready said the police had not found any note by the gunman, identified as Bill Phillips. The police later searched his house for clues.

The male hostage, David Beverly, was fatally shot in the initial minutes, the authorities said. Three hours later, the police heard another shot. They then found the gunman with a fatal gunshot to the head.

NASA officials said the space center security office received a call at 1:40 p.m. that a man had shot a gun twice in Building 44, which houses communications and tracking equipment.

NASA security officers, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Houston police, surrounded the building. A SWAT team prepared to storm the building but took control of the building methodically, knowing that the gunman had barricaded himself in a second-floor office.

The police shepherded employees, mostly engineers for spacecraft tracking, outside, directing them to a nearby firehouse. Operations were not interrupted elsewhere at the space center, officials said.

The police tried for three hours to contact the gunman, who officials said worked for Jacobs Engineering, a subcontractor at the space center.

John W. Prosser, an executive vice president for Jacobs Engineering, said, “Our understanding is the person involved is an employee.”

Mr. Prosser said he would not give more details. The police said the man was 50 to 60 years old.

Building 44 has offices and a few laboratories to support tracking spacecraft like the International Space Station and the space shuttle. It is a block west of Mission Control and not far from the main gate for employees and visitors.

Security at the center is not tight for employees. Metal detectors are not used. Visitors have to apply for temporary entry badges, but full-time employees and contractors bear cards that they show to guards at the gates. Except for occasional high security periods, people with hard passes come and go freely.

A spokeswoman for NASA, Eileen Hawley, suggested that security policies would be reviewed.

John Schwartz contributed reporting from New York, and Maureen Balleza and Thayer Evans from Houston.

    Gunman Kills NASA Worker and Himself, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/21houston.html

Police:

Gunman at NASA center kills self,

hostage

20.4.2007
AP
USA Today

HOUSTON (AP) — A NASA contract worker took a handgun inside an office building Friday at the Johnson Space Center and fatally shot a hostage before killing himself, police said. A second hostage escaped with minor injuries.

The gunman was able to take a snub-nosed revolver past NASA security and barricade himself in the building, which houses communications and tracking systems for the space shuttle, authorities said.

NASA and police identified him as 60-year-old William Phillips. He had apparently had a dispute with the slain hostage, police said.

"Right now we're trying to understand why this happened, how this happened," Mike Coats, director of the Johnson Space Center, said in a news conference. He said they had reviewed their procedures earlier this week because of the Virginia Tech shootings.

"But of course we never believed this could happen here to our family and our situation."

NASA spokesman Doug Peterson said the agency would review its security.

"Any organization would take a good, hard look at the kind of review process we have with people," Peterson said.

To enter the space center, workers flash an ID badge as they drive past a security guard. The badge allows workers access to designated buildings.

NASA identified the slain hostage as David Beverly, a civil servant who worked at the agency. Beverly, who was shot in the chest, was probably killed "in the early minutes of the whole ordeal," police said.

A second hostage, identified by NASA as Fran Crenshaw, escaped after being bound to a chair with duct tape, police Capt. Dwayne Ready said.

The gunman, an employee of Jacobs Engineering of Pasadena, Calif., shot himself once in the head more than three hours after the standoff began, police said. Initial reports indicated two shots were fired about 1:40 p.m. and another shot was heard about 5 p.m.

John Prosser, executive vice president of Jacobs Engineering, confirmed that the gunman was a company employee but declined to release any information about him.

Police said homicide investigators searched the gunman's house where he lived alone and found no guns or any evidence at all about the shooting. Police Chief Harold Hurtt said there was apparently a dispute between Phillips and Beverly, but didn't elaborate.

"I do not know what occurred between the two gentlemen today," Hurtt said.

He said Crenshaw, who worked in the same general area, was presumably taken hostage after Beverly was shot.

"She was very courageous, a calming influence in this whole issue and apparently was a very positive relationship between her and the suspect because he at no time that we know of threatened to do injury to her," Hurtt said.

Beverly's wife, Linda, said her husband was an electrical parts specialist and had recently celebrated 25 years of service with NASA. She said her husband had mentioned Phillips to her before, but she declined to say in what regard. She said it wouldn't be fair to Phillips.

Coats said Phillips had worked for NASA for 12 to 13 years and "up until recently, he has been a good employee."

During the confrontation, NASA employees in the building were evacuated and others were ordered to remain in their offices for several hours. Roads within the 1,600-acre space center campus were also blocked off, and a nearby middle school kept its teachers and students inside as classes ended.

Doors to Mission Control were locked as standard procedure.

NASA employees and contract workers were kept informed of the situation by e-mail.

Michael Zolensky, who studies cosmic dust, said workers were gathered around a television watching news reports of the situation.

President Bush was informed about the gunman as he flew back to Washington from an event in Michigan, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Jacobs Engineering provides engineering for the international space station, space shuttle and other spacecraft programs, and conducts research and development for new technology. In 2005, the company received a five-year contract with the space center worth up to $1.15 billion.

    Police: Gunman at NASA center kills self, hostage, UT, 20.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-20-nasa-gunman_N.htm

Schools, state offices

hit by new threats

Fri Apr 20, 2007
8:40 PM ET
Reuters
By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - Security alerts on Friday forced the evacuation of schools in Colorado and California, the Arizona state Capitol and a NASA building in Houston where there was a fatal shooting incident as police confronted more alarms after this week's massacre at Virginia Tech.

Four days after the Virginia attack, and on the eighth anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School near Denver in which 15 people died, a heightened sense of alert gripped the country, especially at educational institutions.

In Houston, NASA evacuated a building at the Johnson Space Center after a man entered with a gun and was heard to fire at least two shots.

As police drew closer to where the gunman had barricaded himself in a room, they heard a shot and found him and his male hostage dead. A female hostage, who was gagged and bound, was not harmed.

Johnson Space Center is home of Mission Control and the training center for NASA's astronaut corps.

A bomb exploded outside the Ponderosa High School in Parker, Colorado, not far from Columbine School, and officials caught a suspect who was carrying another explosive device.

"At this time it has not been determined what the device was," Douglas County Sheriff's Deputy Cocha Heyden said. There were no injuries reported.

Many schools and other institutions have received threats since Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui shot and killed 32 people and himself on the university campus on Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

In Phoenix, police evacuated part of the state Capitol for several hours after a telephoned bomb threat, authorities said. State employees later returned to work after police swept the complex and declared it safe.

In Northern California, a man who threatened to go on a killing spree inspired by the Virginia Tech murders turned himself over to police on Thursday night.

Before Jeffery Thomas Carney turned himself in, schools in Yuba City and Marysville north of the capital, Sacramento, went into lockdown and said they would stay closed on Friday.

In Massachusetts, a part-time student was accused in a Boston court on Thursday of sending an e-mail threatening to kill an ex-girlfriend and recreate the Virginia Tech bloodshed at a local college.

In Santa Clara, south of San Francisco, officials at Mission College evacuated about 2,000 students and several hundred staffers on Friday morning after finding an anonymous bomb threat in a bathroom, a spokeswoman for the college said.

    Schools, state offices hit by new threats, R, 20.4.2007, http://jp.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyid=2007-04-21T004001Z_01_N20286632_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-1

Gunman's family feels 'hopeless'

20.4.2007
USA Today
From staff and wire reports

BLACKSBURG, Va. — The family of Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung Hui said Friday they feel "hopeless, helpless and lost," and "never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."

"Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us," said the statement to the Associated Press issued by the gunman's sister, Sun Kyung Cho, on her behalf and that of her family. She works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees billions of dollars in American aid for Iraq.

"We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced," she said.

"Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act."

The statement was issued during a statewide day of mourning for the victims of the worst massacre in U.S. history.

"We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," she said.

"We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."

She added: "He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare."

She said her family will cooperate fully with investigators and "do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well."

The remarks are the first public statements from the family of the shooter. They have been under guard since the Monday massacre.

Earlier Friday, bells rang out at noon across the campus of Virginia Tech, 32 orange and maroon balloons were sent aloft — each bearing the name of a victim of this week's shooting rampage that has shocked the nation.

Many among the thousands who gathered in front of the administration building wearing the Hokie colors wept as the balloons floated higher then disappeared from sight.

Gov. Tim Kaine had called for the moment of silence today as the school struggles to cope with the tragedy. Although many students had already left school, which was closed at mid-week, thousands of relatives and townspeople joined the "Hokies" on campus for the day of mourning.

A memorial featured a semi-circle of 33 stones, each with a display of flowers. Each was also draped with a ribbon bearing the name of a person who died in the killing spree, including Cho Seung Hui, the 23-year-old gunman.

Elizabeth Lineberry, 17, of Carroll County High School, Hillsville, Va., who will be a freshman at Virginia Tech next year, was wearing a white Hokie shirt as she gazed at the stone bearing Cho's name.

"His family is suffering just as much as anyone else," she said of Cho. "So I think we should put a stone out for him, too. He was a Hokie just like everyone else."

Jennifer Rose, 21, of Princeton, W.Va., who works near the school, disagreed. "He (Cho) was somebody's family, but it (the rock) shouldn't be with the people he killed. I don't understand it."

In the middle of the drill field, four tents were set up for visitors to sign condolence boards.

At one point, someone took a red rose and handed it to Charles Steger, the university president, who placed the flower at the center of the semicircle.

Steger paused briefly, then walked away. Someone shouted "Let's go!" and the crowd broke into a cheer: "Hokies! Let's go, Hokies!"

In the afternoon, about 800 people attended overflow funeral services at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church for Kevin Granata, an engineering professor who was killed in the melee. Pastor Alex Evans said it was the biggest gathering ever at the church. Asked about the mood during the service, Evans said "it was a tough one. Very tough, very tough, unimaginable."

Vigils are also underway today at churches across the state and around the country, from California to the National Cathedral in Washington.

President Bush wore a maroon and orange tie today in a show of support.

"We want the world to know and celebrate our children's lives, and we believe that's the central element that brings hope in the midst of great tragedy," said Peter Read, whose 19-year-old daughter, Mary Karen Read, was killed. "These kids were the best that their generation has to offer."

He also called on television stations to refrain from brocasting any more of the video statements recorded by the gunman, a 23-year-old legal resident from South Korea.

Cho, who is described by roommates as a loner, is blamed for killing 30 people and himself at Virginia Tech. He is also linked to two others deaths the same morning at the school.

Investigators are "making some really great progress" into determining how and why the shootings happened, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Friday. She said they hope to have something to tell the public next week.

Police filed a search warrant for a laptop and cellphone used by one of the first victims, Emily Hilscher, who was shot in a dormitory.

"The computer would be one way the suspect could have communicated with the victim," the warrant said, but it offered no basis for a belief that Cho might have been in contact with her.

In Pennsylvania, members of Jeremy Herbstritt's family sat quietly in the front of a worship hall in State College as students and staff lit candles and signed a condolence banner to mourn Herbstritt, a Penn State alumnus who was pursing graduate studies at Virginia Tech.

"We will remember" read a large placard next to the banner near the front of the hall. Several students and staffers wore Virginia Tech sweat shirts. Virginia Tech alumni declared Friday a national day to wear Hokie colors of orange and maroon.

Kaine on Thursday appointed an independent panel, including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, to look into how authorities handled the tragedy.

Asked Friday if the attacks had been preventable, Ridge said his "preliminary judgment would be probably not," but he said he hoped the investigation would find ways to reduce the risk in the future.

"This is a national tragedy, and we have to learn some lessons and apply them," Ridge told CBS' The Early Show. "The last thing we want to do in our universities and public places is turn them into citadels or armed fortresses."

Private funeral ceremonies were held Thursday for Egyptian Waleed Mohammed Shaalan and Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan of Indonesia.

In Rannana, Israel, relatives and friends gathered for the funeral of Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old Romanian-born engineering professor who was killed by the gunman while barring his classroom door to allow students to escape.

"All of the classes in statistics and composites are over now," Librescu's son, Arieh, said at his eulogy. "Now you are starting a new career teaching heroism and millions of people are busy studying."

In Seoul, meanwhile, Cho's relatives reflected on the gunman as a child.

"From the beginning, he wouldn't answer me," Kim Yang-soon, Cho's great aunt, said in an interview Thursday with Associated Press Television News. He "didn't talk. Normally sons and mothers talk. There was none of that for them. He was very cold."

"When they went to the United States, they told them it was autism," said Kim, 85, adding that the family had constant worries about Cho.

Cho's uncle gave a similar account, but said there were no early indications that the South Korean student had serious problems. The uncle asked to be identified only by his last name, Kim.

Cho "didn't talk much when he was young. He was very quiet, but he didn't display any peculiarities to suggest he may have problems," Kim told the Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. "We were concerned about him being too quiet and encouraged him to talk more."

Cho left South Korea with his family in 1992 to seek a better life in the United States.

The family's location isn't publicly known, but South Korean officials say they are being protected.

"We know the family is under protection, not in protective custody as has been reported," Consul General Taemyon Kwon told USA TODAY. "We're not sure where they are. But as far as we know, they are together. They're being overseen by representatives from the Virginia State Police and the FBI. We're trying to contact the family. But the family hasn't agreed to meet us."

Kim, the uncle, said the family never visited their homeland that he did not recognize his nephew when his picture appeared on television as the culprit in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

"I am devastated," Kim said between heavy sighs. "I don't know what I can tell the victims' families and the U.S. citizens. I sincerely apologize ... as a family member."

In South Korea, Cho's parents ran a small book store in Seoul, Kim said. The family lived in a two-room apartment no larger than 40 square feet.

"They had trouble making ends meet in Korea. The book store they had didn't turn much profit," Kim said.

He said his sister — Cho's mother — occasionally called around holidays, but never mentioned having any problems with her son.

"She said the children were studying well. She didn't seem worried about her children at all," Kim said. "She just talked about how hard she had to work to make a living, to support the children."

He said he has been unable to reach Cho's mother since Monday's massacre. She and her husband now work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington.

Contributing: Andrea Stone, in Blacksburg, Va.; Steve Marshall, Douglas Stanglin and Roger Yu in McLean, Va.;The Associated Press

    Gunman's family feels 'hopeless', UT, 20.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-20-virginia-tech_N.htm

Lecturer Killed Saving Students

at Virginia Tech Buried in Israel

April 20, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:10 a.m. ET
The New York Times

RAANANA, Israel (AP) -- A Holocaust survivor gunned down trying to save his students from the Virginia Tech shooting rampage was buried in Israel Friday to the sobs of his grieving family.

Engineering Professor Liviu Librescu's body was wrapped in a prayer shawl according to Jewish tradition, and his two sons intoned the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead.

A representative of the Romanian government posthumously awarded the Romanian-born Librescu the country's highest medal for his scientific accomplishments and heroism. Romanian officials laid a wreath at the grave.

''I walked through the streets today with my head held high because I have such a father,'' his elder son, Joe, said.

Librescu, a 76-year-old aeronautics engineer and lecturer at the school for 20 years, died trying to barricade the door of his Virginia Tech classroom to keep the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, away from his students.

''It's so painful for me to think of your last moments, in which you suffered. I'll never know what went through your mind, but I hope very much that wherever you are, you will watch over your family,'' Librescu's weeping wife, Marlena, said.

Librescu's family said his last moments were recounted in numerous e-mails from students after the attack.

''My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,'' Joe Librescu told The Associated Press after the massacre. ''Students started opening windows and jumping out.''

As the students jumped, Librescu was shot dead, one of the 32 victims in the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

A child in Nazi-allied Romania during World War II, Librescu was deported along with his family to a labor camp in Transnistria and then to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani, his son said. According to a report compiled by the Romanian government in 2004, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were killed by the Romanian regime during the war.

Librescu worked as an engineer at Romania's aerospace agency under the postwar Communist government, his son recounted, but his career was stymied in the 1970s because he refused to swear allegiance to the regime. He was later fired when he requested permission to move to Israel.

After years of government refusal, according to his son, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin personally intervened to get the family emigration permits. They moved to Israel in 1978.

Shmulik Moyal, 60, a friend and former neighbor of Librescu, described Librescu as a serious, scholarly man.

The family left in 1985 for Virginia, where Librescu took a position teaching mathematics and engineering at Virginia Tech.

    Lecturer Killed Saving Students at Virginia Tech Buried in Israel, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Virginia-Tech-Holocaust-Survivor.html

NBC News Defends

Its Use of Material

Sent by the Killer

April 20, 2007
The New York Times
By BILL CARTER

NBC News fought back yesterday against a growing backlash over the way it handled the pictures and writings of the student who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, strongly defended the network’s decision to broadcast the material.

“The news-value question is long gone,” Mr. Capus said. “Every journalist is united on this. You can tell by their actions.” He referred to the widespread use of the material NBC released by virtually every other news organization in the country.

Still, NBC announced early in the day that it would limit its use of the images across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10 percent of its airtime.

NBC received a package in the mail Wednesday from the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui. The material included 23 pages of writing and photographs and videos on DVD. Mr. Cho made rambling threats and was depicted brandishing guns and other weapons.

Families of some of the victims, some law enforcement officials and executives from competing television news organizations have accused NBC of being insensitive or exploitative in the way it presented the materials on the air.

But in an interview, Mr. Capus described a daylong process of evaluation on Wednesday, involving numerous NBC executives and news staff members, some of whom, including Matt Lauer, the “Today” show anchor, expressed some reservations about putting the statements of a mass killer on television.

Mr. Lauer said on his program yesterday, “Let’s be honest, there are some big differences of opinion right within this news division as to whether we should be airing this stuff at all, whether we’re taking the right course of action.”

Numerous NBC executives had been involved in the process, Mr. Capus said, including the president of the company, Jeff Zucker, and the head of its standards division, David McCormick. Along with the management and many of the staff members of the news division they had weighed all the factors before deciding how to proceed, Mr. Capus said.

“It’s not every day we get a story like this,” Mr. Capus said. “We went over it for seven and a half hours. We didn’t rush it on the air. We weren’t promoting it. We weren’t trumpeting it all day. It was extraordinary, and that’s how we treated it.”

One law enforcement official said that the F.B.I. had not publicly taken issue with NBC’s decision to broadcast the material because it was not the agency’s place. “It was their property, and it was sent to them,” the official said, referring to NBC. “And they’re in the news business.”

F.B.I. agents sought to determine whether the package contained material beyond what might have been recovered in Virginia. Mr. Capus said the network had expected some of the criticism heard yesterday from family members and friends of the victims — in one example several family members canceled an appearance on “Today” to protest the network’s use of the material.

Of the comments by family members and police officials, Mr. Capus said, “It is understandable and not surprising given the horrific experience they have all been through.”

NBC was more surprised at the criticism from Col. Steve Flaherty of the Virginia State Police, who after praising the network’s handling of the material on Wednesday said yesterday that he was disappointed that it had broadcast it. But Mr. Capus said that, too, might be expected given the way the events have rocked the Virginia Tech community.

But upon hearing that executives at other television news organizations had accused NBC of exploiting the material for its own advantage, Mr. Capus said, “I chalk that up to competitive silliness.”

Two of those competitors, ABC and CBS, led their newscasts last night with the backlash against the use of the images from the mailing, with ABC’s report specifically taking NBC to task for “promoting their pictures before their actual release.”

In interviews yesterday several competitors questioned some of NBC’s decisions concerning the way it distributed the images, which went out accompanied by a list of rules for how they could be used, including points like: “No Internet use. No archival use. Do not resell,” and “Mandatory credit; NBC News.”

The chief source of complaint about NBC seemed to be that it had failed to understand how extraordinary and sensitive the images really were, and that it erred in treating them like a news exclusive.

Paul Friedman, the vice president of CBS News, said NBC had not done enterprise reporting to come into possession of this material, but had “picked it up in its mailroom.”

And while the rules about usage were fairly standard for the television news business, Mr. Friedman said that “in this instance it seemed inappropriate” for NBC to be so proprietary about material of such sensitive nature.

One aspect that clearly irritated many of NBC’s competitors was the impression of the logo “NBC News,” which the network burned into every image from the material. Mr. Friedman of CBS said he had thought about calling NBC executives Wednesday night to suggest they remove the logo simply to distance the network from the material. “It may backfire for them to be so closely associated with footage that makes people’s flesh crawl,” Mr. Friedman said.

But NBC had supporters as well. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said, “NBC was obviously very sensitive.” He added, “While reasonable people may disagree, it was clear they were trying to exercise restraint.”

    NBC News Defends Its Use of Material Sent by the Killer, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20nbc.html

Colorado mourns Columbine victims

20.4.2007
AP
USA Today

LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) — As they marked the eighth anniversary Friday of the Columbine school shooting and mourned the recent victims at Virginia Tech, many Littleton families were also questioning a judge's decision to seal information about the killers.

Columbine High School was closed Friday, as it had been every April 20 since the 1999 attack in which two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.

Invoking the Columbine tragedy, Gov. Bill Ritter asked state residents to join a bell-ringing and moment of silence for the Virginia Tech victims on Friday.

"We experienced a terrible tragedy at Columbine High School," Ritter said. "The people of Colorado will stand in solemn silence on the anniversary of that dreadful day with the people of Virginia as they grieve."

But federal Judge Lewis Babcock's decision earlier this month to seal for 20 years the testimony of Harris' and Klebold's parents about the boys' home lives has infuriated some survivors and victims' relatives, who feel the information could help prevent future school rampages.

"I don't think you can stop every crazy person. But some of the things Babcock locked up show what these crazy kids did," said Don Fleming, whose 16-year-old daughter, Kelly, was killed in the attack. "It's no use to anybody if it is locked up."

"If society knew, it could possibly prevent future shootings," Fleming said. "We're finding out that everything that the latest killer did is similar to what Klebold and Harris did."

Cho Seung Hui, who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus on Monday before taking his own life, called Harris and Klebold "martyrs" in a videotape he mailed to NBC that was broadcast Wednesday.

Michael Shoels, father of Columbine victim Isaiah Shoels, was on the Virginia Tech campus Friday to urge school officials there to avoid secrecy and keep families informed during the investigation.

"I don't want them to get caught up in what we got caught up in Colorado," he said. "They need to let these parents know that they are going to do whatever they can to get to the bottom of this."

That may not only prevent some lawsuits, but it will help other schools learn and change, he said.

"The child that killed their children, he's dead also. There's no prosecution here. So why not open up and let it be a lesson to everyone?" he said.

In the Columbine records ruling, Babcock cited a need for confidentiality and concerns that releasing the testimony from the killers' parents could encourage copycat crimes.

Many in this suburb of Denver think the decision was a mistake.

"Are the people of Virginia going to wait 20 years?" said Dawn Anna, whose 18-year-old daughter, Lauren, was killed at Columbine.

Watching the events unfold in Virginia was a painful reminder of the chaos and suffering she went through eight years ago, she said. The parents of students slain at Columbine met this week to deal with the shock of the Virginia killings. The judge's decision dominated their conversation.

"I felt like I was looking at Lauren's murderer. It's as if someone has been cruelly replaying April 20," Anna said.

The Harrises and Klebolds commented publicly only through their lawyers. Michael Montgomery, an attorney who represented the Harris family, said the judge "made an absolutely appropriate decision." The judge declined to comment Thursday.

Much information about the Columbine killers is available on the Internet, including video clips of the two practicing their marksmanship, Harris' diaries, and websites dedicated to both killers.

Authorities learned that Harris and Klebold played violent games, made violent videos at school, and were bullied.

Researchers into school-related violence support the Columbine families' position on releasing the tapes, noting the relative frequency of violent campus incidents. The Centers for Disease Control reported in 2002 that were 220 school-related shootings from 1994 to 1999, resulting in 253 deaths.

"The judge said the tapes were incendiary. We have plenty of things already that stimulate violence," said sociologist Ralph Larkin, author of Comprehending Columbine.

Katherine Newman, a professor at Princeton who has written about shooting rampages, said the information should be released.

"A 20-year lag deprives the rest of the country of what might be valuable insight," she said. "Indeed, having done a lot of research with the families of victims, they are left with a big hole in the middle not only by the loss of their children but by the unanswered 'why' questions."

    Colorado mourns Columbine victims, UT, 20.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-20-columbine_N.htm

Columbine Memories

Strained by Tech Link

April 20, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:30 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) -- Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui's homage to the Columbine High School killers has made preparations for Friday's eighth anniversary of the Colorado rampage all the more devastating, survivors and victims' relatives said.

In the video he mailed to NBC during a gap in Monday's fatal shootings of 32 people at Virginia Tech, Cho, 23, referred to ''martyrs like Eric and Dylan'' in a disjointed attempt to explain his motives for killing the others and himself.

The decision by NBC and other networks to air the footage drew immediate criticism from relatives of the Virginia Tech victims, but Columbine families said Cho's acknowledgment of high school shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold has made the anniversary all the more raw.

''I felt like I was looking at Lauren's murderer. It's as if someone has been cruelly replaying April 20,'' said Dawn Anna, whose 18-year-old daughter, Lauren, was among 12 Columbine students slain along with a teacher by classmates Klebold and Harris, who took their own lives.

Columbine High will be closed Friday, as it has been every April 20 since the 1999 shootings.

Invoking the Columbine tragedy, Gov. Bill Ritter asked state residents to join a bell-ringing and moment of silence taking place across the country for the Virginia Tech victims Friday.

''We experienced a terrible tragedy at Columbine High School,'' Ritter said. ''The people of Colorado will stand in solemn silence on the anniversary of that dreadful day with the people of Virginia as they grieve.''

    Columbine Memories Strained by Tech Link, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Columbine-Anniversary.html

Backlash Leads to Pullback on Cho Video

April 20, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:53 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- With a backlash developing against the media for airing sickening pictures from Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, Fox News Channel said Thursday it would stop and other networks said they would severely limit their use.

NBC News was the recipient Wednesday of Cho's package of rambling, hate-filled video and written messages, with several pictures of him posing with a gun. Contents began airing on ''Nightly News,'' and its rivals quickly used them, too.

Family members of victims canceled plans to appear on NBC's ''Today'' show Thursday because they ''were very upset'' with the network for showing the pictures, ''Today'' host Meredith Vieira said.

Virginia State Police Col. Steve Flaherty -- who praised NBC Wednesday for coming to authorities first with the package -- said Thursday he was disappointed with what the network showed.

''I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it,'' he said.

The Virginia Tech administrator who is dealing with the victims' families also said that he wished NBC News had kept the material under wraps.

''It would be much more preferable to indicate they'd received these things, here's a description of them, then they're turned over to the police,'' said Ed Spencer, associate vice president for student affairs. ''Our students, our families, or whole Hokie community, I think we're still reeling from all this. And that was not good, to see that.''

NBC said the material was aired because it helped to answer the question of why Cho killed 32 people and himself on the Virginia Tech campus Monday.

''The decision to run this video was reached by virtually every news organization in the world, as evidenced by coverage on television, on Web sites and in newspapers,'' NBC said in a statement. ''We have covered this story -- and our unique role in it -- with extreme sensitivity, underscored by our devoted efforts to remember and honor the victims and heroes of this tragic incident.''

NBC and its MSNBC cable outlet will ''severely limit'' use of these pictures going forward, ''Today'' host Matt Lauer said, a restriction echoed by ABC News. At both CBS News and CNN, producers will need explicit approval from their bosses to use them going forward.

Fox News announced on the air late Thursday morning that it would no longer air Cho's material, saying ''sometimes you change your mind.''

These decisions, of course, came more than 12 hours after the pictures became available, after they already made their impact. The news cycle dictates they would be used less, anyway.

''It has value as breaking news,'' said ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider, ''but then becomes practically pornographic as it is just repeated ad nauseam.''

Jon Klein, president of CNN U.S., said the decision to air it was a tough call.

''As breaking news, it's pertinent to our understanding of why this was done,'' he said. ''Then, once the public has seen the material and digested it, then it's fair to say, `How much should we be showing it?' I think it's to the credit of news organizations that they are dialing back.''

NBC News said it had no indication why Cho chose it for his message. A Postal Service time stamp shows it was mailed at 9:01 a.m. Monday, during the two hours between his first shooting at a Virginia Tech dorm and his massacre at a classroom building.

------

NBC News is owned by General Electric Co. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CNN is owned by Time Warner Inc. Fox News Channel is owned by News Corp.

    Backlash Leads to Pullback on Cho Video, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Virginia-Tech-NBC.html

University Explains

the Return of Troubled Student

April 20, 2007
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA and MANNY FERNANDEZ

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 19 — Officials at Virginia Tech on Thursday defended their decision to allow the gunman in Monday’s rampage to return to campus after he was released from a psychiatric facility, even though they were aware of his troubled mental history and potential for violence.

Cho Seung-Hui, 23, the student who killed himself and 32 others, received outpatient psychiatric care ordered for him after he was involuntarily hospitalized and reportedly suicidal in late 2005.

Christopher Flynn, director of the campus counseling service, said the university had played no role in monitoring Mr. Cho’s psychiatric treatment.

“The university is not part of the mental health system nor the judiciary system, and we would not be the providers of mandatory counseling in this instance,” Mr. Flynn said at a news conference. “This is not a law enforcement issue. He had broken no law that we know of. The mental health professionals were there to assess his safety, not particularly the safety of others.”

Also on Thursday, a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified said it now appeared that Mr. Cho had fired more than 100 shots during his rampage. The official said investigators believed that most of the 32 dead were shot a minimum of three times.

Investigators now believe that after Mr. Cho left the scene of the first shooting, where two people were killed in a dormitory just after 7 a.m., he went to the post office to mail a package of writings and videos to NBC News, the official said, and then returned to his dormitory room before going to Norris Hall, where 30 people died.

He chained shut a door to the building from the inside, using chains he had bought at Home Depot, the official said. The police who first responded to the shootings were able to force their way in by firing at the door with a shotgun, the official said.

Investigators believe the shotgun blast alerted the gunman to the arrival of the police, and he shot himself.

In the weeks before the violence, the investigator said, Mr. Cho went to a shooting range in Blacksburg, spending an hour practicing with the weapons.

Investigators believe, based on interviews with an employee at the range, that Mr. Cho recorded part of his video statement in a van in the range parking lot, the official said.

Soon after the shootings, university officials and police were criticized as taking too long to alert students to the danger after the first one.

On Wednesday, criticism increased after court documents, classmates and professors indicated that Mr. Cho had a long history of disturbing and menacing behavior. On Thursday, even President Bush joined the chorus of those questioning whether more could have been done to avoid the tragedy, though he did not specifically mention university officials.

In previous cases like that of Virginia Tech, “there have been warning signals that if an adult, for example, had taken those signals seriously, perhaps tragedy could have been avoided,” Mr. Bush said at a town meeting in Tipp City, Ohio.

“One of the lessons of these tragedies is to make sure that when people see somebody or know somebody that is exhibiting abnormal behavior, to do something about it,” he said.

Also on Thursday, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia said the state, rather than the university, would oversee a review panel that plans to examine how the university handled Mr. Cho’s mental health needs and the Monday shootings.

The panel, which Mr. Kaine said would seek to make recommendations before classes start in the fall, will be led by retired Col. Gerald Massengill, a former state police superintendent, and includes Tom Ridge, the former secretary of homeland security, Mr. Kaine said.

“This is a case study of a very tragic incident that has occurred unfortunately in Virginia,” Colonel Massengill said at a news conference. “We’re not trying to second-guess anyone with any decision or any action that was taken.”

In defending their actions, university officials pointed out that Mr. Cho was legally an adult and that a doctor at the psychiatric center in nearby Radford where Mr. Cho was sent in 2005 determined that he was mentally ill but not an imminent danger to himself or others.

“I know that we followed all of our policies correctly in the past and we acted on information that we had at the time,” said Edward Spencer, associate vice president for student affairs.

He added that Mr. Cho had lived in a suite with five other students, and that “none of them expressed any concern to us of any violence, danger or whatever. I think that gives you a view of the inner world of mental illness.”

Police officials said that while the multimedia manifesto Mr. Cho sent to NBC News on Monday provided them with little new information to help their investigation, they were disappointed it was broadcast.

“We appreciate NBC’s cooperation, and they’re cooperating with all of the authorities, though we’re rather disappointed in the editorial decision to broadcast these disturbing images,” Col. W. Steven Flaherty, the superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said during a morning news conference.

NBC defended its decision to release parts of Mr. Cho’s video, saying that it “did not rush the material onto air, but instead consulted with local authorities, who have since publicly acknowledged our appropriate handling of the matter.”

The police recovered a Dell laptop computer and a cellphone that appeared to belong to Emily J. Hilscher, Mr. Cho’s first victim, according to an affidavit for a search warrant filed on Thursday afternoon.

The police have been investigating whether there were any links between Mr. Cho and Ms. Hilscher.

Police officials said they were also continuing to explore whether Mr. Cho had any connection with any of his other victims.

Crime scene technicians recovered a total of 17 spent magazines of ammunition, the majority of which were for Mr. Cho’s 9-millimeter handgun, a law enforcement official said.

“He ended up buying a load of mags from Wal-Mart and Dick’s Sporting Goods,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “This was a thought-out process. He thought this through.”

Classes were scheduled to resume on Monday, but Mark G. McNamee, university provost and vice president for academic affairs, said that the university planned to offer students a number of ways to complete the semester. Students will have the option of removing themselves from the campus for all or part of the semester without penalty to their academic standing, Mr. McNamee said.

The students killed on Monday will be posthumously awarded the degrees they were pursuing, he added. The degrees will be awarded in regular commencement exercises.

    University Explains the Return of Troubled Student, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20virginia.html

Virginia Tech Explains,

Defends Response

April 20, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:46 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Eight months ago, the mere possibility that a gunman was headed to Virginia Tech was enough for school officials to cancel classes and order a campus-wide lockdown. This week, the response was much different: Authorities waited more than two hours to alert the school's nearly 26,000 students that two of their classmates had been shot dead in a dormitory.

By that time, while police were chasing the wrong suspect, a different young man was murdering 30 more people to complete the worst shooting spree in modern U.S. history.

Police and school officials have spent nearly as much time defending their decisions as they have releasing details about the Monday morning massacre by Cho Seung-Hui.

What led to the differing responses?

In the first case, a hospitalized jail inmate wrestled a gun from a sheriff's deputy, fled from the hospital and was spotted near the campus.

On Monday, police believed based on early interviews that the shooting in West Ambler Johnston dorm was a domestic dispute that posed no danger to others.

''If a murder appears in your neighborhood, and it appears to be a domestic dispute of some sort, the process is not to seal off the neighborhood until there appears to be some serious problem,'' said Ed Spencer, Virginia Tech's associate vice president for student affairs.

''West Ambler Johnston was the same situation.''

Virginia State Police, called to the scene after the second shooting, defended the university's early decisions.

''It's not like anybody said, 'In another two hours, there will be another shooting and 31 people will be dead. Let's wait around for that,' '' State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Thursday.

When campus and local police arrived at West Ambler Johnston shortly after the 7:15 a.m. 911 call, they found two students shot dead: Emily Hilscher and her neighbor, Ryan Clark. Hilscher's roommate pointed them to the dead student's boyfriend, who had been firing guns at a shooting range recently.

When police caught up with him off campus, he fueled their suspicion by making inconsistent statements about the whereabouts of his guns.

As officers surrounded the dorm, school officials considered a lockdown. But with thousands of students on their way to class and with police believing they had a suspect, the idea was scrapped.

''You shut campus down, you put 9,000 people on the streets,'' said Lt. Bruce Bradberry of the Blacksburg Police. ''Now what are you going to do? You just created a mess.''

University President Charles Steger met with his senior staff and discussed how best to notify students. Some students have suggested administrators could have sent people door to door or sent text messages to their cell phones.

Some schools have equipment that can do just that. Pennsylvania State University, for example, has used the system to alert participating students to everything from school cancellations to road closures.

Virginia Tech officials began looking at such systems last fall after the escaped inmate case.

But there are limits.

''I don't know how you shut down a public campus,'' said Stephen Abrams, the emergency management coordinator for Penn State.

Even if they could have notified all Virginia Tech students, officials said it was unclear what they would have said. They didn't want to cause panic and, based on the early police interviews, they believed the shooter was headed off campus.

At 9:26 a.m. Monday, more than two hours after the first shooting, administrators sent a campus-wide e-mail and a recorded phone message that a homicide had occurred on campus and urging students to be aware of any suspicious activity.

Nineteen minutes later, while police were interviewing what they thought was their suspect, a second 911 call came in: a much bigger shooting, this time in Norris Hall.

''Just standing there at the time, the expression on their faces and I'm sure on mine was 'This doesn't make sense. How can there possibly be by coincidence two tragic kinds of events going on in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech at the same time?''' Spencer said.

Students who have spoken publicly have been hesitant to criticize the university's handling of the case. Thousands of students gave Steger a standing ovation at a memorial service Tuesday.

''At first I was very, very mad at the administration,'' said student Jen Meadows, president of a campus sexual assault awareness group.

But the more she learned about Cho, the more she was convinced nothing could have been done -- from kicking him out of school to locking down the campus -- to prevent the shootings.

''This kid, if he didn't end up doing this here, it would have been somewhere else. This had nothing to do with our students or our school,'' she said.

John Marshall, Virginia secretary of public safety, said campus officials ''made the right decisions based on the best information that they had available at the time.''

Schools are required by federal law to alert students to threats in a timely fashion. No families or survivors have spoken publicly about suing the school for its response. Attorney General Bob McDonnel, who would represent the state and the school, is reviewing the school's response.

''When our system fails like it did Monday, we are heartbrokem and more detemerined, like a mother lion, to protect them,'' said Virginia Tech civil engineering professor Randy Dymond. ''I don't want to rush to a judgment ... But I do think we have a right to know about crimes or possible crimes or possible suspects as soon as the information is available.''

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has formed a commission to study the response and Virginia Tech says it will conduct a similar inquiry.

''The primary purpose is to learn all we can and make recommendations to get better. The primary purpose is not blame, it's not recrimination, it's not pointing fingers,'' Kaine said Thursday.

Officials need to balance security with the need to have an open campus, said Steven J. Healy, director of public safety/police chief at Princeton University and president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators.

''I don't think there's anything we can do to create absolute security,'' he said.

''I do think one of the lessons we will learn from this very tragic incident is how to manage warnings and notices to the community ... dealing both with the timeliness of them and the methodology we use to reach them.''

Geller, the State Police spokeswoman, said it's easy in hindsight to connect the two shootings but there was no reason at the time to believe more violence was imminent.

''You're looking at the totality, you're not looking at it as it happened,'' she said. ''You had a double homicide in a dorm room. A double homicide is not a massacre.''

Associated Press Writers Justin Pope, Chris Kahn and Kristen Gelineau in Blacksburg, Va., Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va., Genaro C. Armas in State College, Pa., and Randy Pennell in Philadelphia contributed to this story.

    Virginia Tech Explains, Defends Response, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting-Response.html

Grieving Parent:

Remember Our Children

April 20, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:43 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Peter Read wants you to make a choice.

He asks that you turn away from the face of the deranged gunman glaring at the camera. Gaze instead at the face of a bright and bubbly brunette who smiled even when she was unhappy, a face always in the middle of a crowd.

It is the face of Mary Karen Read, the daughter he will now see only in scrapbooks.

Hers is just one of 32 promising lives cut short at Virginia Tech -- the life of a musician, an aspiring schoolteacher, a doting big sister to five siblings. A 19-year-old freshman who had just filed her first tax return and learned, the day before she died, how to make a pumpkin pie.

When you think of the massacre that befell this quiet college town, those are the memories Peter Read wants you to remember.

''We want the world to know and celebrate our children's lives, and we believe that's the central element that brings hope in the midst of great tragedy,'' Read said Thursday, with his wife, Cathy, at his side. ''These kids were the best that their generation has to offer.''

As the Reads left Blacksburg on Thursday for their home in Annandale, they were exhausted, pale, heartbroken -- and furious. On television, the overwhelming image of the tragedy was the face of Cho Seung-Hui -- a killer whose name Peter Read cannot bring himself to speak.

''I want to issue a direct personal plea, to all the major media,'' he told The Associated Press. ''For the love of God and our children, stop broadcasting those images and those words. Choose to focus on life and the love and the light that our children brought into the world and not on the darkness and the madness and the death.''

Several networks have already heard Read's message loud and clear -- from disgusted viewers. Fox News Channel announced it would no longer run the disturbing audio and images of the gunman. NBC, which aired the material first, and cable outlet MSNBC said they would ''severely limit'' their use.

Read hopes the focus will swing back to the children. Children such as Paul Turner's daughter Maxine, a 22-year-old chemical engineering major from Vienna who loved beaches, swing dancing and her close-knit circle of friends. She would have graduated soon, and she had already lined up a job in Elkton, Md.

At Virginia Tech, Maxine Turner co-founded a sorority and earned a red belt in Tae Kwon Do. She loved the German band Rammstein and signed up for a language class to understand the lyrics.

It was there that she died.

On Thursday, her body rested at a morgue in Roanoke, where state and U.S. flags were lowered and access was heavily guarded by police. A hearse will arrive sometime this week to carry her home, a scenario that will be repeated many times as parents hold funerals.

Like so many today, the Read family is blended: Peter Read, a 44-year-old Air Force veteran, married Yon Son Yi, of Palisades Park, N.J., who gave birth to Mary Read. But the couple later divorced.

Yi remarried and had a second daughter, Hannah, 4 1/2. Read remarried too, and he and his wife had four children: Stephen, 11; Patrick, 4 1/2; Brendan, 2 1/2; and Colleen, 10 months.

The Reads live in a quiet cul-de-sac in Annandale, where they moved in 2001 from Virginia Beach.

Mary Read made friends fast. She joined the French honor society, the National Honor Society and the marching band. She played lacrosse for two years and moved easily between the cliques that fill high school hallways.

She wanted to teach math and science to elementary school students, and she enrolled at Virginia Tech.

In her dorm room were scrapbooks filled with hundreds of photographs -- at summer band camp, at Myrtle Beach, on the arm of her father as part of the homecoming court.

The end of her freshman year was just weeks away, and she had planned to spend the summer at home, working at a deli and helping care for her siblings.

She came home Easter weekend, staging practice egg hunts for her brothers. Then, the weekend before her death, she came home again.

She divided her time between her friends and her family those two days but was inseparable from her laptop. She sat on the stairs, where the wireless reception was best, to instant message and e-mail her friends. A brother sat nearby, toy computer on his lap.

''He wanted to be like Mary,'' Peter Read recalled.

On Sunday, Read's wife showed his daughter how to make her favorite dessert, a pumpkin pie. And when Read took her to the bus stop at 4:30 p.m., she had a slab of the pie and a container of Cool Whip in a plastic bag.

Mary Read never called to check in when she reached Blacksburg, but her parents know what she did that night: She had recorded her favorite TV show, ''House,'' on DVDs and watched them on her laptop during the 4 1/2-hour ride.

The next morning, she had French class in Norris Hall, where gunman Cho Seung-Hui took her life.

When news of the shootings broke, Peter Read started calling his daughter, hoping she would pick up. Then he called her roommate. The hours wore on, without word.

When Read learned that the parents of his daughter's longtime friend Danielle Waters were driving to Blacksburg late that afternoon to find their daughter, he asked to ride along.

On the drive, Olga and John Waters learned their daughter was alive. Around 9:30 p.m., Read's cell phone rang. It was his wife, and the state police were at their door.

The Reads won't talk about their grief over these past few days. It's too painful, too personal. The time is not yet right.

But they share the photos and drawings from their daughter's dorm room, which was just as she had left it.

In a plastic bag was the empty container that had held her pie. And on her desk was a calendar Mary Read's grandmother had given her years ago, each day offering a quote from a famous woman.

On April 16, the words were from a teacher, Helen Keller:

''When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.''

Associated Press writers Sue Lindsey in Roanoke and Kristen Gelineau in Blacksburg contributed to this report.

Grieving Parent: Remember Our Children, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-One-Parent.html

VT Killer's Hammer Pose

Resembles Movie

April 20, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:33 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- One of the photographs in the Virginia Tech killer's ''multimedia manifesto'' may have been inspired by a bloody South Korean movie, adding to the debate over the influence of pop culture on heinous crimes.

''Oldboy,'' from the respected director Chan-woo Park, is about a man mysteriously imprisoned for 15 years. After escaping, he goes on a rampage against his captor. In one stylized and plainly unrealistic scene, he dispatches more than a dozen henchmen with the aid of a hammer.

In the package of materials that Cho Seung-Hui sent to NBC News, one photo shows Cho brandishing a hammer in a pose similar to the movie's signature image, which was splashed across its promotional posters.

The photograph with the hammer stood out from the other 42 photos, which generally showed Cho posing with handguns in a military-style vest and backward baseball cap.

The second film in Park's ''Vengeance Trilogy,'' ''Oldboy'' won the Grand Prix prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. It was hugely popular in South Korea, where more than three million people saw it.

The connection was spotted by Professor Paul Harris of Virginia Tech, who alerted authorities. The similarities have prompted speculation, especially in online forums, that Cho's massacre may have been partly inspired by ''Oldboy.''

There was no apparent link between Cho and ''Oldboy'' besides the lone photograph among the 28 video clips, 23-page written message and 43 self-portrait photos that he sent to NBC. Cho killed the 32 victims with a handgun and a pistol, and did not seem to reference the film in any of his notes or messages.

A screenplay written by Cho, however, did feature killings with a hammer.

Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said investigators had reviewed Cho's photographs and videos and said he knew of no connection between Cho and the movie.

Tartan Films, which distributed ''Oldboy'' in the U.S., said in a statement Thursday: ''To be associated in any way with the tragic events that occurred at Virginia Tech is extremely disturbing and distressing. It is clear from news reports that the individual who perpetrated this heinous crime was deeply troubled. We believe that anyone would find it hard to explain his motives or actions.''

Notorious killers are commonly linked to movies or music. The trench coats worn by the Columbine murderers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were seen by some as reflective of those worn in ''The Matrix.'' Some also assigned blame to Goth rocker Marilyn Manson, who later criticized the media in his song ''Target Audience (Narcissus Narcosis).''

The late rapper Tupac Shakur was claimed to have inspired a number of killings, including the murder of four students and wounding of ten others in Jonesboro, Ark. in 1998 by Mitchell Johnson.

One of the earlier examples of pop culture being connected to a mass homicide was the link between the Beatles and Charles Manson, who was captivated by the song ''Helter Skelter.''

Loren Coleman, author of ''The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines,'' says that he's gradually coming to see Cho as a ''copycat of many things,'' especially Columbine. In one missive, Cho referred to the Harris and Klebold as ''martyrs.''

''This in-depth analysis of his manifesto and this document, we may get some hints there, but this was a person that was terribly imbalanced,'' Coleman said. ''To look for clues rationally in such an irrational document is really a fool's game.''

Writing for the Huffington Post, filmmaker Bob Cesca dismissed Cho's ''Oldboy'' connection as ''the most ridiculous yet,'' and noted many other popular culture references that feature images of a raised hammer.

''It seems like a cop-out, like an easy way out to explain away a tragedy like this,'' Cesca said Thursday. ''Clearly I think the primary issue here is mental illness. It could be any number of things that maybe had a small part in this, but to create (a movie) as a trigger is missing the bigger picture.''

    VT Killer's Hammer Pose Resembles Movie, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Virginia-Tech-Movie-Inspiration.html

California towns lock schools;

man turns self in

Fri Apr 20, 2007
2:21AM EDT
Reuters
By Alan Naditz

YUBA CITY, California (Reuters) - Teachers locked classroom doors, lowered shades and kept nearly 22,000 school children inside all day on Thursday in two northern California cities after a man threatened to go on a killing spree inspired by Monday's mass murder at Virginia Tech.

Police patrolled public schools in Yuba City and nearby Marysville 40 miles north of state capital Sacramento after Jeffery Thomas Carney allegedly said he intended to make the mass slaying at Virginia Tech "look mild."

Carney, 28, surrendered late Thursday to the Sutter County sheriff's office, Sutter County sheriff Jim Denny said in a press conference.

Local officials say Carney called his pastor at the United Methodist Church on Wednesday evening to say he was armed with an AK-47 rifle, improvised explosive devices and poison and would seek to provoke a confrontation with police to "commit suicide-by-cop."

"At about 8:30 a.m. we asked the principals to put all schools in lock-down," said Nancy Aaberg, superintendent of the 12,000 pupil Yuba City Unified School District. "We just kind of felt it was a consistent across-the-board safety measure."

"We actually had police at all of our campuses," she said in an interview. "It was a generic threat; there was no specific threat to any of our specific schools."

Schools have been jittery this week after Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui shot and killed 32 people and himself on the Blacksburg, Virginia, campus on Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. The murders have prompted a series of scares at universities and schools across the United States.

Yuba City officials sent high school students home early on Thursday. Officials in sister city Marysville across the river also locked down schools, impacting 9,700 students, an administrator said.

Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties canceled all classes on Friday because Carney was still at large until late in the day.

The sheriff's department described Carney, as a transient and reportedly a methamphetamine abuser.

The Sutter County Sheriff's Department said Carney has a criminal record including burglary and conspiracy and was out on bail following a charge of domestic violence against his parents, according to the Sutter County Sheriff's Department.

He faces charges of making criminal threats and committing a felony while on bail, said Sheriff Jim Denny.

Court records show that two years ago Carney filed for bankruptcy, listing total liabilities of $20,718, including $9,674 due in child support. He listed his occupation as personal assistant to his mother, Marie Carney, a real estate broker.

    California towns lock schools; man turns self in, R, 20.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1926039420070420

Gunman's video shocks families

Fri Apr 20, 2007
1:26AM EDT
Reuters
By Andrea Hopkins

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - A videotaped diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman shocked victims' families and mesmerized television viewers, but police said on Thursday it yielded little for their investigation of the campus massacre.

Still grieving, students at the university expressed disgust at self-made photos and a disturbing video the killer mailed to NBC News on Monday when he paused during the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

Police handling the investigation criticized the airing from Wednesday evening of the images and rants by Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people and then himself at the sprawling campus in southwestern Virginia.

State police chief Steve Flaherty said victims' families and the Virginia Tech community had been badly struck not only by tragedy but by the intense media attention surrounding it.

Cho's video manifesto brandishing guns and ranting at times incoherently drew wall-to-wall U.S. news coverage.

"The world has endured a view of life that few of us would or should ever have to endure," Flaherty told a news conference. "I'm sorry you all were exposed to these images."

Campus authorities have also faced questions after it emerged that they had become aware of Cho's troubled mental state 17 months before he went on his killing spree.

University officials insisted they had no responsibility for monitoring Cho's psychiatric care after he was said to have been suicidal in 2005 and was sent to a mental health center.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine announced the makeup of a panel, including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, to look into the university's response to the shootings, after it was criticized for being slow to warn students of the danger.

'LITTLE MORE THAN PORNOGPRAHY'

With Cho's imbalance displayed in his video manifesto, families of victims were so upset at NBC's decision to air the images that they canceled appearances on the network.

NBC insisted it acted responsibly. But the network and its rivals, ABC, CBS and Fox, said they would limit future use.

"Once you've seen it, its repetition is little more than pornography once that first news cycle is passed," said Jeffrey Schneider, ABC News senior vice president.

The package received by NBC News on Wednesday carried a time stamp showing Cho mailed it after he killed his first two victims in a dormitory but before he went on to slaughter 30 more in classrooms. NBC turned the material over to the FBI.

"That's crazy. He kills two people and then goes to the post office and then he's ready for round two? It's creepy," said graduate student Nick Jeremiah, 34.

The dead included not only Americans but students from Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Egypt. A professor with dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship was also killed, hailed as a hero for barring the door to give students time to escape.

In a sign of exhaustion with the media spotlight, a hand-lettered sign on campus said "Media, stay away."

The university said Cho's victims would be awarded their degrees posthumously. Though classes resume on Monday, students can request an immediate end to their semesters with credit for work already done, Virginia Tech said.

The images and rambling monologue suffused with paranoia added to a chilling portrait of Cho, a 23-year-old student whose dark writings had worried professors and classmates.

NBC News President Steve Capus defended the broadcast of the material, saying: "This is I think as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer."

ADMIRATION FOR COLUMBINE KILLERS

Cho is shown railing against wealth and debauchery and voicing admiration for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. "You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and tortured my conscience," he says, speaking directly to the camera.

Cho immigrated from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, where his parents work at a dry cleaners.

Police disclosed on Wednesday that Cho had been accused of stalking women students and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in 2005 because of worries he was suicidal. That has raised questions whether his later actions had been foreshadowed.

Reflecting nationwide security jitters, schools in Yuba City, California, were ordered into a "lock-down" after police warned a man had threatened a killing spree in locals schools.

(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington, Michele Gershberg in New York, Gina Keating in Los Angeles and Jim Christie in San Francisco)

    Gunman's video shocks families, R, 20.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1631133620070420

Anger of Killer

Was on Exhibit in His Writings

April 20, 2007
The New York Times
By MARC SANTORA and CHRISTINE HAUSER

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 19 — More than anyone else on the Virginia Tech campus, it was the professors and students in the English department who knew of the mental turmoil of Cho Seung-Hui.

Where the Virginia Tech police only heard scattered reports of his harassing behavior, and mental health professionals knew of his suicidal tendencies, it was the English department — where he was a major — that read his writings and saw the images of persecution, revenge and anger that they revealed, many months before he erupted into violence on Monday and killed 32 people, as well as himself.

And those English professors and students appear to have worked harder than anyone to intervene in his life. Trying to balance the freedom needed to be creative against the warning signs of psychosis, as many as eight of his teachers in the last 18 months had formed what one called a “task force” to discuss how to handle him, gathering twice on the subject and frequently communicating among themselves.

On at least two separate occasions they reached out to university officials, telling them as recently as this September that Mr. Cho was trouble. They made little headway, however, and no action was taken by school administrators in response to their concerns.

The students also made their fears known, some even refusing to attend class as long Mr. Cho was there. Others tried to reach out to him.

Ross Alameddine sat a few feet from Mr. Cho for months in a class examining contemporary horror films and literature. Both students were required to keep what were known as “fear journals,” where they chronicled both their reaction to the material covered in class and their own fears.

Mr. Alameddine, according to classmates, made an effort to speak to Mr. Cho on several occasions, trying to draw him out of his closed world and his refusal to interact with other students.

On Monday, Mr. Cho shot and killed Mr. Alameddine.

There is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Cho targeted his classmate, but it is the first time one of the victims has been connected to Mr. Cho before the shootings.

The class they took together was new, offered for the first time last fall. The students studied movies like “Friday the 13th” and read Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft and Patricia Cornwall novels. “We had a whole discussion on serial killers,” said one student, who asked that she not be named because she wanted to avoid a crush of attention from the news media.

Mr. Cho never spoke during the discussion, she said, but he took notes.

The student and Mr. Cho were in another class as well, a small class on playwriting, during which she grew fascinated by him.

“In all honesty, I took a huge interest in him last semester,” she said. “I never heard him speak a word, and I was so curious about him. I actually tried to follow him after class one day, but he got on a bike and I couldn’t keep up. He had a red bicycle.”

In interviews with six members of the English faculty who had Mr. Cho in a class or had been in close contact with him, they described how as early as September 2005 and as recently as September 2006, they found themselves struggling to define the line between a legitimate work of self-expression and one of violent or sick imagery that needed to be restrained.

“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,” said Prof. Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the English Department. “But we’re all alert to not ignore things like this.”

Lisa Norris, an English professor, said that, outside of an explicit threat that was rooted in reality, it would be impossible to have some kind of standard by which to judge whether a student’s work was so alarming as to warrant intervention.

“If the student seems abnormal in his behavior or affect and is writing about violence, then there could be something to worry about — particularly if the resolution of the story includes suicide or murder for major characters or otherwise ends in despair,” she said. “It is not necessarily the work alone that raises concern, but the work plus the student’s affect and behavior.”

In Mr. Cho’s case, she was alarmed before he had written a word.

When he signed up for the 10-person workshop she taught this year, Professor Norris was worried that he simply would not communicate, and in September she reached out to one of her superiors, Mary Ann Lewis, the associate dean at the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. She said Ms. Lewis was helpful but had no information about prior problems, including his hospitalization at a mental health facility in 2005. Ms. Lewis said she had no comment on the conversation.

But Mr. Cho’s bizarre behavior was evident to students, faculty and police going back to 2005.

“Nobody took too much notice of him except for that’s the kinda weird quiet kid who never talks,” said Steven Davis, 23, a senior who was in a drama class with him. “Until we read his work. And then it was like whoa, something is off.”

One woman, an English major who was in a contemporary British fiction class with Mr. Cho in the fall of 2005 and who asked not to be identified, said he sent her unsolicited electronic messages after seeing her in class and then looking her up on the Facebook Web site.

Mr. Cho, she said, also stalked another girl in the class, scaring her so badly that she went to the police that December.

That matches the campus police account of a woman who came to them in December 2005, part of a series of events that culminated with Mr. Cho being held for psychiatric evaluation and later released.

She said Mr. Cho knew things about her family that would be difficult to know without serious effort. For instance, he knew what sports her siblings played in high school.

Beyond that, he simply acted strange. On the first day of class the teacher asked everyone to stand up and introduce themselves.

“When it was his turn, he didn’t stand up and he said his name was Question Mark,” she said.

Professor Lucinda Roy, who was the head of the English Department in the fall of 2005, chose to deal with Mr. Cho by removing him from a group class and tutoring him. She also passed along his writing, which she described as “angry,” to both the Virgnia Tech police and the university counseling service.

Prof. Edward Falco, who last semester had him in a playwrighting class, did not make the other students read or critique two of Mr. Cho’s plays that contained violent images and profane language. But he alerted other faculty members, and learned that they, too, had been concerned.

After the shooting Monday, Professor Falco’s students began sending him messages about how they felt guilty for not doing or saying something earlier. Professor Falco responded in an e-mail message, hoping to help put their minds at ease.

“There was violence in Cho’s writing — but there is a huge difference between writing about violence and behaving violently,” he wrote. “We could not have known what he would do.”

    Anger of Killer Was on Exhibit in His Writings, NYT, 20.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20english.html?hp

Media dilemma deepens

over gunman video

Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:54PM EDT
Reuters
By Michele Gershberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Broadcast of a video diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman has reopened the debate over media use of vile or disturbing material that goes back decades to the likes of Son of Sam and the Zodiac killer.

Gunman Cho Seung-Hui sent the footage to NBC News in the midst of his rampage on Monday during which he killed 33 people including himself, the worst shooting attack in modern U.S. history.

NBC aired the footage on Wednesday evening and was quickly followed by rivals ABC and CBS. But those networks distanced themselves from the decision on Thursday and said they would limit future broadcasts of the video. NBC itself said it would use restraint.

Some media experts labeled the move as an effort to improve NBC ratings and questioned whether giving 23-year-old Cho an outlet for hate-filled rants served the public interest.

"It was a very bad decision," said Paul Levinson, chairman of the communication and media studies department at Fordham University. "He's not a public official, he's not a terrorist we are pursuing as part of our government policy. He's just an individual psycho."

Others said the video provided a window on Cho's motives that could help in future cases, however painful the images may be to victims and their families.

"They aired valuable new information. One of the questions was the why?" said Judy Muller, a former ABC News correspondent and journalism professor at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

"It was not even a close call -- it was a news judgment that was right," Muller said.

U.S. media are facing a barrage of such tough choices with the ease of spreading violent or gruesome images on Internet forums like video sharing site YouTube and elsewhere.

Cameras embedded in cell phones have turned every witness to an event into a potential broadcaster. Some experts wonder whether viewers can expect to see a deadly attack broadcast live one day by its perpetrators.

"It's balancing truth and harm," said Bob Steele, who teaches journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute in Florida. "In situations like this you cannot prevent all harm."

PUBLIC BEHEADINGS, SON OF SAM

The ethical breach comes when networks replay the footage to drive ratings, experts said. By taking that step, they run the risk of alienating the same advertisers they seek to attract.

"Advertisers all have different thresholds of what's suitable or not," said Brad Adgate, research director at media buyer Horizon Media.

Some advertisers build it into their contracts not to have commercial messages appear next to news of war or disaster, but not every situation can be anticipated, he said.

Recent cases include video of Saddam Hussein's hanging in December and the beheading of Nick Berg, an American kidnapped by al Qaeda in 2004.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the San Francisco Chronicle stirred controversy by publishing letters from the infamous Zodiac killer.

In a 1977 case, a killer later identified as David Berkowitz, or "Son of Sam," sent a hand-written letter to columnist Jimmy Breslin of the New York Daily News. The newspaper consulted with police before publishing excerpts.

"Son of Sam was a much better writer than this guy," Breslin said on Thursday. "This guy writes drivel."

But he defended the broadcasts as part of an unstoppable, modern news flow.

Levinson said there were some useful parallels to be drawn between Cho, a native of South Korea who reportedly had been deemed mentally ill by a Virginia court, and the infamous urban serial killers.

"They are close cousins," he said. "Part of their psychological make-up is to get publicity and they do want to manipulate the media."

NBC is majority-owned by General Electric Co . CBS is part of CBS Corp. and ABC is owned by Walt Disney Co .

(Additional reporting by Gina Keating in Los Angeles and Paul Thomasch in New York)

    Media dilemma deepens over gunman video, R, 19.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1944056920070420

Family of Virginia gunman

under police protection

Thu Apr 19, 2007
9:39PM EDT
Reuters

SEOUL (Reuters) - The parents and sister of the gunman who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech university and then himself, are under police protection, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said on Friday.

The parents of Cho Seung-Hui, 23, who have lived in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, as well as his sister are being protected by police, the official cited a South Korean consul in the United States as saying.

The family left South Korea about 15 years ago.

    Family of Virginia gunman under police protection, R, 19.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSEO165820070420

Shooting shows gaps

in mental health safety net

Thu Apr 19, 2007
8:46PM EDT
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Mental health professionals complain their hands are tied in two ways when they try to help people like Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui -- a lack of funding for mental health services in general, and laws that makes it tough to treat people against their will.

They say the 23-year-old student's shooting rampage sheds new light on flaws in the U.S. mental health system.

"Our mental health system failed this young man," said Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher at Indiana University School of Medicine in Bloomington, Indiana.

Cho drew the attention of campus police in late 2005 amid complaints that he was annoying women students. He spent some time in a psychiatric hospital because of worries he was suicidal.

"Funding for mental health services in the United States has dropped in half over the past 25 years," Dr. Christopher Flynn, director of Virginia Tech's Thomas Cook Counseling Center, told a news conference.

"We have seen, every time there's a cut in public health funding, the first people that are cut are mental health providers, and we do our entire system a disservice by continuing to do that."

Dr. Steven Sharfstein, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, said the problems are both financial and legal.

"What was a red flag for me is that he was seen in a mental health facility and held for one day. That is a symptom of the dysfunction of our mental health system," said Sharfstein, who is president of Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore.

"If someone isn't readily seen as imminently dangerous, there is no time and money set aside to do a more in-depth and effective diagnosis. He may have been hiding a paranoid psychosis that with a few days of observation might have come out."

PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS

The National Alliance on Mental Illness in a 2006 report gave the U.S. mental health system the below-average grade of "D".

"Untreated mental health is the nation's No. 1 public health crisis," Michael Fitzpatrick, the group's executive director, said in a telephone interview.

"In recent years, states like the Commonwealth of Virginia have systematically reduced their funding for mental health services," he added.

"The reality is that in many communities, it is impossible to get mental health services unless you have been arrested," Fitzpatrick said.

Even if treatment is available, patients often are too sick to believe they need treatment. And unless a patient presents an imminent threat, many states prohibit involuntary treatment.

"Unfortunately, we live in a society that says as long as you are not a danger to yourself or someone else you can be as psychotic as you want to be," Taylor said.

Exceptions include states such as New York, which allow court-ordered treatment called assisted outpatient treatment for patients who cannot recognize their own need for care.

New York's law is named in memory of Kendra Webdale, a 32-year-old Buffalo woman pushed to her death in front of a subway train in 1999 by a man with severe mental illness who had a history of avoiding treatment.

Mental health advocates fear the shooting might produce a backlash against people with mental illness.

"Studies have shown that it is incredibly rare for someone with a mental illness to commit gross acts of violence, especially on such a scale as the Virginia Tech shootings," the U.S. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association said in a statement.

    Shooting shows gaps in mental health safety net, R, 20.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1944150620070420

Networks limit use of gunman video

Thu Apr 19, 2007
5:55PM EDT
Reuters
By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. television networks limited broadcasts of a video manifesto by the Virginia Tech killer on Thursday after heavy coverage drew criticism from police and victims' families.

NBC News, which received the manifesto in the mail on Wednesday, said it had acted responsibly in showing the images and rants of gunman Cho Seung-Hui. But NBC and rival networks said they would use restraint in the future.

The images dominated U.S. news coverage on Wednesday evening, two days after Cho killed 32 people then himself in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

"We had planned to speak to some family members of victims this morning but they canceled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images," said NBC's "Today" morning program co-host Meredith Vieira.

Police investigating the shootings in Blacksburg, Virginia, were also critical. "We're rather disappointed in the editorial decision to broadcast these disturbing images," state police chief Col. Steve Flaherty said.

"The world has endured a view of life that few of us would or should ever have to endure," he said.

Cho, a 23-year-old student, mailed photographs of himself posing with his guns and video railing against rich kids and debauchery. The package was mailed to NBC after he killed his first two victims on Monday morning but before he cut down 30 more in classrooms.

Common Sense Media, which monitors media impact on children, said it had received many calls about the broadcasts from anxious parents. "This is really gruesome and scary stuff," organization head Jim Steyer told Reuters. "People have said could they have used a bit more discretion."

Experts also said the images could resonate with potential copycats envisioning a deadly sequel.

THE 'MIND OF A KILLER'

NBC acknowledged the images were probably devastating to the victims' families. But NBC News President Steve Capus defended the decision to air them.

"This is I think as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer, and I thought that it needed to be released," Capus said on cable channel MSNBC.

NBC said it contacted authorities when it received the material on Wednesday and used it only after "careful consideration."

NBC, which let other news outlets use some of the images, said in a statement its news division would limit use of the video to "no more than 10 percent of air time."

ABC News cut back to showing still excerpts from the video or muting the audio, but left video images on its Web site.

"Once you've seen it, its repetition is little more than pornography once that first news cycle is passed," Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News, said.

CBS Corp. unit CBS News said it would use the images "only when necessary to tell the story."

"I would be surprised to see much usage of it," spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said

Fox News said "we see no reason to continue assaulting the public with these disturbing and demented images," but it would reserve the right to use them again as needed. Fox is a News Corp unit.

Images from the manifesto were also scarce on Time Warner Inc's CNN on Thursday and a network spokeswoman said it would use the material "very judiciously."

Flaherty said the material turned out to be of little value to investigators.

NBC is owned by General Electric Co. ABC is owned by Walt Disney Co..

(Additional reporting by Michele Gershberg

and Jeremy Pelofsky)

    Networks limit use of gunman video, R, 19.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1939822820070419

Gunman's media image

could prompt copycats: experts

Thu Apr 19, 2007
5:52PM EDT
Reuters
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virginia Tech university gunman Cho Seung-Hui lived for years in turbulent isolation, but died an American media sensation that could inspire deadly sequels among others driven by anger and a thirst for recognition, experts say.

Three days after Cho killed 32 others and himself in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, media images of the 23-year-old student posing with his weapons and ranting into a video camera dominated television screens and newspapers across the country in a grim media extravaganza.

Footage and photos, released by NBC from a self-made media package Cho mailed to the television network between rounds of shootings, shocked viewers worldwide and stirred objections from the victims' families and other critics.

But experts on violence were most worried that the images could inspire copycats from among a relatively small number psychologically weakened young people, who often grapple with depression or mental illness in a media-dominated society that is criticized for glamorizing high-profile violence.

"The copycat phenomenon feeds on attention and publicity, particularly when the publicity is excessive. When the publicity stops, so does the copycat effect," said Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University in Boston.

"These killers are romanticized and glorified by the media," he added. "Suddenly, they become the celebrities that they so much wanted to be."

Sometimes violent action inspires copycat threats rather than actual shootings.

"Wall-to-wall media coverage could certainly be a factor in some of the copycat threats," said FBI spokesman Richard Kolko, when asked about the phenomenon. He said such threats have occurred over the past two days in Minnesota, California and Texas.

Experts said Cho himself appeared to be a copycat killer inspired by both real-life killers and violent movies.

Cho referred to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in a diatribe that itself reminded some experts of the videotaped messages of Middle Eastern suicide bombers.

Postings on Internet film sites also noted a similarity between Cho's poses and scenes from the bloody 2003 South Korean film, "Oldboy." Cho immigrated from South Korea to the United States as a child.

Other observers suggested parallels with the 1976 movie, "Taxi Driver," in which the main character, a troubled Vietnam veteran, goes on a shooting rampage.

Alan Lipman, director of the Georgetown Center for the Study of Violence, said the images released by NBC are likely to resonate most with young men like Cho who live in severe psychological isolation bounded by anger and delusion, often after long periods as the butt of teasing and bullying.

"There's this small group of people who'll see him standing there, with those two guns pointing out, and feel a sense of power and control over their own highly disordered and disturbed lives," Lipman said.

Mass shootings at U.S. schools and universities hit the national stage in the late 1990s and became regular events until the September 11 attacks shifted a large part of media attention to worries about terrorism, experts said.

Shootings in schools tends to occur as the school year ends, when academic pressure is highest and the approaching summer vacation threatens to allow perceived injuries to escape retribution.

The shooters sometimes imagine themselves part of a fraternity of oppressed people who use violence to mete out justice. Lipman said many are simply inspired by earlier violence as a way to address their own problems.

Despite criticism of NBC's decision to release sections of Cho's media package, some experts said it might have been worse if the network had tried to keep the material under wraps.

"I don't think it's good. But I think if they withheld it, and eventually someone knew they had it, there'd have been a clamor and that would have made it even more sensational," said Bill Woodward of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

    Gunman's media image could prompt copycats: experts, R, 19.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1941599520070419

Tech rant reminiscent of Columbine

19.4.2007
USA Today
By Patrick O'Driscoll

LITTLETON, Colo. — Angry video, photos and writings by Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung Hui have stunned families of the Columbine High School massacre through eerie parallels to footage and words left by the Colorado killers eight years ago Friday.

"It's very hard to watch because it is so reminiscent," said Tom Mauser, 55, whose son Daniel was among 12 students and a teacher killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. In his contempt-filled rants, repeatedly broadcast Wednesday and Thursday, Cho referred to "martyrs like Eric and Dylan." Like them, he posed in dark garb and gloves, a backwards cap and ammo-filled vest and brandished the guns he used on Monday to kill at least 30 people and injure 28 others before killing himself.

Columbine surveillance videos showed similar figures as Harris and Klebold stalked the halls of their suburban Denver school. They wounded 24 others before killing themselves in the deadliest high school shootings in U.S. history.

"This shooter's tapes, they echo the 'basement tapes,' " said former Columbine student Brooks Brown, referring to home videos Harris and Klebold secretly made in the weeks before their rampage. The tapes were shown once to families and news media eight months after the killings and then sealed. The teens showed off their arsenal of guns, bullets and homemade bombs. They also recorded chilling goodbyes.

Columbine is closed today, as it has been every anniversary since the assault. On Thursday, flags at the school flew at half-staff, and the marquee sign outside the main entrance bore this message: "A time to remember, a time to hope."

Harris and Klebold left voluminous, profanity-filled writings and images. They blamed bullies and assailed the campus culture. Cho, too, condemned his schoolmates' "debaucheries," branding them "snobs" and "brats" obsessed with luxuries.

"He behaved the same, talked the same, did the menacing poses," said Brown, 26, a one-time friend of Harris whom the killer threatened a year before the attack. "It shows he has really internalized a lot of the pain, similar to Eric and Dylan."

Brian Rohrbough, 48, whose son Daniel also died at Columbine, said the similarities are why "I've been fighting for seven years to get the 'basement tapes' and all the other material released. How much blood is enough?"

Noting the link to Columbine's anniversary, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter asked residents to join a silent tribute today for the Virginia Tech victims. "The people of Colorado will stand in solemn silence on the anniversary of that dreadful day with the people of Virginia as they grieve," Ritter said.

    Tech rant reminiscent of Columbine, UT, 19.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-19-vt-columbine_N.htm

NBC faces backlash

for airing VT gunman video

19.4.2007
USA Today
By William M. Welch

Relatives of victims of the Virginia Tech shooting canceled plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of images of shooter Cho Seung Hui, NBC Today show host Meredith Vieira said Thursday.
On the program, Vieira said the decision to air the information "was not taken lightly" and caused the relatives to cancel their plans. Minutes before Cho gunned down 30 people in a Virginia Tech building, he mailed a hate-filled package of video and photos to NBC, sending what amounted to a deranged final message aired after his death.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the package was sent by overnight delivery but apparently had the wrong ZIP code and wasn't opened until Wednesday, NBC said. The envelope was checked in at the Blacksburg post office at 9:01 a.m. Monday, about 40 minutes before he walked into an engineering building at the university and shot professors, students and himself.

In a diatribe contained in clips on a video CD, Cho lashed out at unnamed people for forcing him to kill. In photos, he is seen in various menacing poses with handguns. The material did little to explain why he committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, but you decided to spill my blood," he said. "You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option … Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

Col. Steve Flaherty, head of the Virginia State Police, disclosed the existence of the package Wednesday. Thursday, he characterized the package as of marginal value to police, saying they were already aware of most of the facts it contained.

He also questioned whether it should have been widely broadcast by the media.

"A lot of folks saw images that are really very disturbing," Flaherty said. "I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it."

NBC News defended its decision. "We did not rush the material onto air, but instead consulted with local authorities, who have since publicly acknowledged our appropriate handling of the matter. Beginning this morning, we have limited our usage of the video across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10% of our airtime." the network said in a statement.

"We have covered this story – and our unique role in it – with extreme sensitivity, underscored by our devoted efforts to remember and honor the victims and heroes of this tragic incident. We are committed to nothing less," the statement added.

" In this case, I think NBC was clearly trying to exercise restraint last night," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "What happens today, on cable and elsewhere, worries me, and is a difficult question because of the time they have to fill. websites are also a worry, since they tend to be more graphic than TV."

"I suspect no news organization will suffer for demonstrating restraint," Rosenstiel said.

The package was apparently mailed after the first shootings that left two dead in a dormitory. Flaherty says the investigation has not confirmed Cho was the dorm killer.

Photos show Cho waving a claw hammer, putting a knife to his own neck and gun to his own head, and pointing guns at the camera. NBC said Cho is seen in the video turning the camera off and on.

He denounced rich students with Mercedes cars and money.

"All your debaucheries weren't enough," he said. "I didn't have to do this. I could've left. I could've fled. But no. I will no longer run.

"You have vandalized my heart," he said. "Thanks to you I die, like Jesus Christ."

If the package was indeed mailed between the first attack and the second, that would help explain where Cho was and what he did during that two-hour window.

Also Thursday, Virginia Tech officials said they would award degrees posthumously to the victims of Monday's rampage.

Police also said Wednesday that officers responded twice in the fall of 2005 to complaints by female students of unwanted approaches by Cho Seung Hui, the gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre, and that he was once sent to a mental health agency after displaying suicidal tendencies.

Chief Wendell Flinchum, of the Virginia Tech police department, said neither woman pressed charges against Cho, nor were they among the victims of the shooting spree that left 33 people dead.

Flinchum said Cho was taken to a mental health agency in December 2005, after the second stalking incident, after police got a call from an acquaintance saying Cho was displaying suicidal tendencies.

He said officers, on that occasion, spoke with Cho "at length" and that he voluntarily accompanied them to the police station. Flinchum said a temporary detention order was then issued to send him to a local mental health agency.

In the initial incident, in November 2005, Flinchum said police were called after Cho had made contact with a female student by phone and in person.

"The student declined to press charges and referred to Cho's contact with her as annoying," he said. Flinchum said police spoke to Cho and referred the case to the university disciplinary office.

In the second incident, Flinchum said, Cho had sent an online instant message to a different female student. She did not accuse Cho of making any threats, Flinchum said, but said she did not want to have any further contact with him.

Flinchum said he knew of no other police incidents involving Cho until the deadly shootings Monday, first at a girl's dorm room and then a classroom building across campus.

Thirty-two people were shot to death before the gunman killed himself. State Police have said the same gun was used in both shootings, but they said Wednesday said they still weren't confident that it was the same gunman.

Contributing: Peter Johnson, Matt Kelley, The Associated Press

    NBC faces backlash for airing VT gunman video, UT, 19.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-19-virginia-tech-video_N.htm

Va. Tech

Stunned by Images of Gunman

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:30 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Restaurant patrons cringed and mothers turned their children away from the television as the video came up of an armed Cho Seung-Hui delivering a snarling, venomous tirade about rich ''brats'' and their ''hedonistic needs.''

The self-made video and photos of Cho pointing guns as if he were imitating a movie poster were mailed to NBC on the morning of the Virginia Tech massacre. A Postal Service time stamp reads 9:01 a.m. -- between the two attacks that left 33 people dead.

''This is it. This is where it all ends,'' Cho says in one videotape, in which he appears to be more melancholy than angry. ''What a life it was. Some life.''

Cho, 23, speaks in a harsh monotone in other videotaped rants, but it isn't clear to whom he is speaking.

''You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,'' he says in one, with a snarl on his lips. ''But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.''

NBC said the package contained a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement, 28 video clips and 43 photos.

On NBC's ''Today'' show Thursday, host Meredith Vieira said the decision to air the information ''was not taken lightly.'' Some victims' relatives canceled their plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of the images, she said.

''I saw his picture on TV, and when I did I just got chills,'' said Kristy Venning, a junior from Franklin County, Va. ''There's really no words. It shows he put so much thought into this and I think it's sick.''

The package helped explain one of the biggest mysteries about the massacre: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.

''Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats,'' says Cho, a South Korean immigrant whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. ''Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.''

A dormitory neighbor of the first two victims, Ryan Clark, 22, and Emily Hilscher, 19, described on ABC's ''Good Morning America'' what she saw that morning in Ambler Johnson Hall.

''I heard a really loud female voice scream. I opened my door and that's when I saw the blood and the footprints, the sneaker-prints, leading in a trail from her room,'' Molly Donahue said.

That's when she saw Clark, a resident assistant in the dorm, on the floor against a door, she said. A friend later told her he was dead. Donahue she said has since tried to return to the dorm but felt physically ill and is still terrified.

''I got to the point where I can't be alone,'' she said.

Authorities on Thursday disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho had been accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.

The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.

Some of the pictures in the video package show him smiling; others show him frowning and snarling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backward, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holding a gun to his temple.

He refers to ''martyrs like Eric and Dylan'' -- a reference to the teenage killers in the Columbine High School massacre.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the package was sent by overnight delivery but apparently had the wrong ZIP code and wasn't opened until Wednesday, NBC said.

An alert postal employee brought the package to NBC's attention after noticing the Blacksburg return address and a name similar to the words reportedly found scrawled in red ink on Cho's arm after the bloodbath, ''Ismail Ax,'' NBC said.

Capus said that the network notified the FBI around noon, but held off reporting on it at the FBI's request, so that the bureau could look at it first. NBC finally broke the story just before police announced the development at 4:30 p.m.

It was clear Cho videotaped himself, Capus said, because he could be seen leaning in to shut off the camera.

State Police Spokeswoman Corinne Geller cautioned that, while the package was mailed between the two shootings, police have not inspected the footage and have yet to establish exactly when the images were made.

Cho repeatedly suggests he was picked on or otherwise hurt.

''You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience,'' he says, apparently reading from his manifesto. ''You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.''

A law enforcement official said Cho's letter also refers in the same sentence to President Bush and John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed last year to having killed child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media.

Earlier Wednesday, authorities disclosed that in November and December 2005, two women complained to campus police that they had received calls and computer messages from Cho. But the women considered the messages ''annoying,'' not threatening, and neither pressed charges, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Neither woman was among the victims in the massacre, police said.

After the second complaint about Cho's behavior, the university obtained a temporary detention order and took Cho away because an acquaintance reported he might be suicidal, authorities said. Police did not identify the acquaintance.

On Dec. 13, 2005, a magistrate ordered Cho to undergo an evaluation at Carilion St. Albans, a private psychiatric hospital. The magistrate signed the order after an initial evaluation found probable cause that Cho was a danger to himself or others as a result of mental illness.

The next day, according to court records, doctors at Carilion conducted further examination and a special justice, Paul M. Barnett, approved outpatient treatment.

A medical examination conducted Dec. 14 reported that that Cho's ''affect is flat. ... He denies suicidal ideations. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are normal.''

The court papers indicate that Barnett checked a box that said Cho ''presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness.'' Barnett did not check the box that would indicate a danger to others.

It is unclear how long Cho stayed at Carilion, though court papers indicate he was free to leave as of Dec. 14. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said Cho had been continually enrolled at Tech and never took a leave of absence.

A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans would not comment.

Though the incidents with the two women did not result in criminal charges, police referred Cho to the university's disciplinary system, Flinchum said. But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president of student affairs, would not comment on any disciplinary proceedings, saying federal law protects students' medical privacy even after death.

Some students refused to second-guess the university.

''Who would've woken up in the morning and said, `Maybe this student who's just troubled is really going to do something this horrific?''' said Elizabeth Hart, a communications major and a spokeswoman for the student government.

One of the first Virginia Tech officials to recognize Cho's problems was award-winning poet Nikki Giovanni, who kicked him out of her introduction to creative writing class in late 2005.

Students in Giovanni's class had told their professor that Cho was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with his cell phone. Female students refused to come to class. She said she considered him ''mean'' and ''a bully.''

Lucinda Roy, professor of English at Virginia Tech, said that she, too, relayed her concerns to campus police and various other college units after Cho displayed antisocial behavior in her class and handed in disturbing writing assignments.

But she said authorities ''hit a wall'' in terms of what they could do ''with a student on campus unless he'd made a very overt threat to himself or others.'' Cho resisted her repeated suggestion that he undergo counseling, Roy said.

Questions lingered over whether campus police should have issued an immediate campus-wide warning of a killer on the loose and locked down the campus after the first burst of gunfire.

Police said that after the first shooting, in which two students were killed, they believed that it was a domestic dispute, and that the gunman had fled the campus. Police went looking for a young man, Karl David Thornhill, who had once shot guns at a firing range with the roommate of one of the victims. But police said Thornhill is no longer under suspicion.

Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed, Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey and Justin Pope in Blacksburg, Va., Matt Barakat in Richmond, Va., Colleen Long and Tom Hays in New York, and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.

    Va. Tech Stunned by Images of Gunman, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.html

Campus Community

Reacts to Cho's Words

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:06 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The chilling images of the gunman who was responsible for the massacre at Virginia Tech silenced crowds near campus as they played on television screens.

When the video of Cho Seung-Hui brandishing weapons, gripping a hammer and reciting his angry, violent manifesto aired Wednesday night on ''NBC Nightly News,'' some stared grimly at the screens. Many shook their heads. Others cried.

''Seeing those pictures -- that just makes it more real,'' said Laura Sink, 22, an elementary education major, as tears rolled down her face. She was gathered with about 50 others at a restaurant just steps away from the campus where 32 people and Cho were killed Monday.

Most public places on Virginia Tech's campus were already quiet, because so many students have left for home. But a few gathered around a TV at a student center coffee shop.

Heather Brennan, a master's student who watched the report in the campus student center, said, ''It's just as he planned. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and he did it.''

At Rivermill, a downtown restaurant, one patron objected strongly when the restaurant turned its television to NBC because she didn't want her 9-year-old daughter to see it.

''We turn her face away from the TV'' to shield her as much as possible from news of the shootings, said Teresa McCartny of Blacksburg, her voice rising.

David F. Kibler, a professor of civil engineering who knew eight of the victims well, said he didn't see news footage of the items in the package sent to NBC -- and didn't want to. But he said it was more proof that Cho was disturbed.

''It's clear that he murdered 32 people in cold blood. There's not much more to it than that,'' Kibler said. ''It's difficult to explain this to anyone, especially to students who are trying to return to their studies.''

Associated Press Writers Allen Breed, Justin Pope and Sue Lindsey in Blacksburg and Zinie Chen Sampson in Richmond contributed to this report.

    Campus Community Reacts to Cho's Words, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Video-Reaction.html

McCain Says

He Backs No Gun Control

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:31 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain declared Wednesday he believes in ''no gun control,'' making the strongest affirmation of support for gun rights in the GOP field since the Virginia Tech massacre.

The Arizona senator said in Summerville, S.C., that the country needs better ways to identify dangerous people like the gunman who killed 32 people and himself in the Blacksburg, Va., rampage. But he opposed weakening gun rights and, when asked whether ammunition clips sold to the public should be limited in size, said, ''I don't think that's necessary at all.''

GOP rival Rudy Giuliani, too, voiced his support for the Second Amendment on Wednesday, but not in such absolute terms. Once an advocate of strong federal gun controls, the former New York mayor said ''this tragedy does not alter the Second Amendment'' while indicating he favors the right of states to pass their own restrictions.

Other candidates in both parties have stayed largely silent on the issue in the immediate aftermath of the killings, except to express their sorrow.

McCain has opposed many gun controls in the Senate over the years but broke from most of his party -- and his past -- in supporting legislation to require background checks for buyers at gun shows. In one such vote, he relished taking a position at odds with the National Rifle Association.

In a speech Wednesday to a crowd of 400, McCain was unequivocal in support of the right to bear arms.

''I do not believe we should tamper with the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,'' he said. A woman shouted that George Washington's troops used muskets, not automatic weapons.

''I hope that we can find better ways of identifying people such as this sick young man so that we can prevent them from not only taking action with guns but with knives or with anything else that will harm their fellow citizens,'' McCain said.

McCain reiterated that later with reporters.

''I strongly support the Second Amendment and I believe the Second Amendment ought to be preserved -- which means no gun control,'' McCain said.

The candidates' silence and discomfort may become insupportable once the nation finds its voice in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech murders.

Democrats have been deliberately muted for months on an issue that, by their own reckoning, contributed to and perhaps sealed their defeat in the 2000 presidential election. That's when Al Gore's call for gun registration cost him votes in rural America and dulled the party's appetite for taking on the gun lobby.

Top Republicans in the race are trying to close ranks with their party's conservative base on a variety of issues, making gun control an unusually sensitive one for them, too, thanks to their liberal views in the past.

With facts still unfolding, the killer was described as a creepy loner who had been accused of stalking two women, wrote violent schoolwork, been sent to mental health counseling for suspected suicidal tendencies, and scared some fellow students out of coming to class -- yet did not have a criminal record that might have stopped him from buying his guns.

Giuliani's emphasis on state-by-state solutions to gun control in the GOP primaries contrasts with his past enthusiasm for a federal mandate to register handgun owners -- an even stiffer requirement than registering guns.

Giuliani, as New York mayor and former Senate prospect, and Republican Mitt Romney, as Massachusetts governor and as a Senate candidate in the 1990s, supported the federal ban on assault-type weapons, background checks on gun purchases and other restrictions reviled by many gun-rights advocates.

The other New Yorker in this race, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also supported proposals for state-issued photo gun licenses, as well as a national registry for handgun sales, in positions laid out for crime-weary New Yorkers in 2000.

In this campaign, candidates in both parties who've ever taken a shot at a prey are playing up their hunting credentials. Others are highlighting their allegiance to the constitutional right to bear arms or avoiding the question altogether.

Democratic candidate John Edwards, despite recently highlighting his boyhood outings hunting birds, rabbits and deer as well as his respect for gun ownership rights, backed his party's main gun control measures when he was in the Senate.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, as a state lawmaker in the 1990s, supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tougher state restrictions on firearms.

Mass shootings have often been the catalyst for legislative action on gun control, with mixed results.

And with Democrats controlling Congress partly on the strength of new members from rural parts of the country, few lawmakers were expecting the Virginia Tech assault to revive the most far-reaching gun-control proposals of the past, such as national licensing or registration.

In 1999, after the Columbine High School killings in Colorado left 15 dead, lawmakers unsuccessfully introduced dozens of bills to require mandatory child safety locks on new handguns, ban ''Saturday night specials,'' increase the minimum age for gun purchases and require background checks on weapons bought at gun shows.

A month after the Columbine shootings, then-Vice President Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to advance a juvenile crime bill that included gun show restrictions. But the bill died in negotiations with the House.

The Virginia Tech senior and South Korean native identified as the Blacksburg gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was a legal permanent resident of the U.S., meaning he could legally buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony. The campus killings were carried out with 9 mm and .22-caliber handguns.

Associated Press Writer Jim Davenport

in Summerville, S.C., contributed to this report.

    McCain Says He Backs No Gun Control, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Gun-Control-2008.html

Names of Victims at Virginia Tech

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:28 a.m. ET
The New York Times

A list of the victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech:

Killed:

-- Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., according to his mother, Lynnette Alameddine.

-- Christopher James Bishop, 35, according to Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany, where he helped run an exchange program.

-- Brian Bluhm, 25, a civil engineering graduate student, according to an announcement by the Detroit Tigers and friends. He had previously lived in Iowa, Detroit and Louisville, Ky.

-- Ryan Clark, 22, of Martinez, Ga., biology and English major, according to Columbia County Coroner Vernon Collins.

-- Austin Cloyd, an international studies major from Blacksburg, Va., according to Terry Harter, senior pastor at First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., where Cloyd and her family lived before moving to Blacksburg.

-- Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor, according to her husband, Jerzy Nowak, the head of the horticulture department at Virginia Tech.

-- Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, killed in his French class, according to his mother, Betty Cueva, of Peru.

-- Kevin Granata, age unknown, engineering science and mechanics professor, according to Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

-- Matthew G. Gwaltney, 24, of Chester, Va., a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering, according to his father and stepmother, Greg and Linda Gwaltney.

-- Caitlin Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to Minisink Valley, N.Y., school officials who spoke with Hammaren's family.

-- Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, of Bellefonte, Pa., according to Penn State University, his alma mater and his father's employer.

-- Rachael Hill, 18, of Glen Allen, Va., according to her father, Guy Hill.

-- Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman from Woodville, according to Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.

-- Jarrett L. Lane, 22, of Narrows, Va., according to Riffe's Funeral Service Inc. in Narrows, Va.

-- Matthew J. La Porte, 20, a sophomore from Dumont, N.J., according to Dumont Police Chief Brian Venezio.

-- Henry J. Lee, also known as Henh Ly, 20, a first-year student majoring in computer engineering from Roanoke, Va., according to Oakey's Funeral Service in Roanoke.

-- Liviu Librescu, 76, engineering science and mathematics lecturer, according to Puri.

-- G.V. Loganathan, 51, civil and environmental engineering professor, according to his brother G.V. Palanivel.

-- Partahi Lombantoruan, 34, of Indonesia, civil engineering doctoral student, according to Kristiarto Legowo, a spokesman for the foreign ministry.

-- Lauren McCain, 20, of Hampton, Va., international studies major, according to a statement from the family.

-- Daniel O'Neil, 22, of Rhode Island, according to close friend Steve Craveiro and according to Eric Cardenas of Connecticut College, where O'Neil's father, Bill, is director of major gifts.

-- Juan Ramon Ortiz, a 26-year-old graduate student in engineering from Bayamon, Puerto Rico, according to his wife, Liselle Vega Cortes.

-- Minal Panchal, 26, a first-year building-science student from Mumbai, India, according to foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna.

-- Erin Peterson, 18, of Chantilly, Va., an international studies major, according to her father, Grafton Peterson.

-- Michael Pohle, 23, of Flemington, N.J., according to officials at his high school, Hunterdon Central High.

-- Julia Pryde, age unknown, a graduate student from Middletown, N.J., according to Virginia Tech professor Saied Mostaghimi, chairman of the biological systems and engineering department.

-- Mary Karen Read, 19, of Annandale, Va. according to her aunt, Karen Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.

-- Reema J. Samaha, 18, a freshman from Centreville, Va., according to her family.

-- Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, of Zagazig, Egypt, a doctoral student in civil engineering, according to the university.

-- Leslie Sherman, a sophomore history and international studies student from Springfield, Va., according to her grandmother Gerry Adams.

-- Maxine Turner, 22, a senior majoring in chemical engineering from Vienna, Va., according to her father, Paul Turner.

-- Nicole White, 20, a junior majoring in international studies from Smithfield, Va., according to a family statement released by the Suffolk, Va., Police Department.

    Names of Victims at Virginia Tech, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Names.html

A Look at Some Virginia Tech Victims

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:21 a.m. ET
The New York Times

--------

Caitlin Hammaren

Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., was a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to officials at her former school district.

''She was just one of the most outstanding young individuals that I've had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator,'' said John P. Latini, principal of Minisink Valley High School, where she graduated in 2005. ''Caitlin was a leader among our students.''

Minisink Valley students and teachers shared their grief Tuesday at a counseling center set up in the school, Latini said.

------

Jeremy Herbstritt

Herbstritt loved to chat, so much so that high school classmates voted him ''Most Talkative.''

''Talkie, talkie, talkie, everybody likes to talk,'' read the description in the Bellefonte High School yearbook of the 1998 graduate. Below was a picture of Herbstritt, with a sly grin, talking on a pay phone.

Herbstritt, 27, had two undergraduate degrees from Penn State, one in biochemistry and molecular biology from 2003, and another in civil engineering from 2006.

He grew up on a small farm just outside the central Pennsylvania borough of Bellefonte, where his father, Michael, raised cattle and sheep.

His career goal was to be a civil engineer, and he talked of getting into environmental work after school.

''He liked to work on machinery, take a lot of stuff apart and fixed it,'' said his grandfather Thomas Herbstritt, 77, of St. Marys. ''He was a studious kid.''

------

Rachael Hill

Hill was a freshman studying biology at Virginia Tech after graduating from Grove Avenue Christian School in Henrico County.

Hill, 18 and an only child, was popular and funny, had a penchant for shoes and was competitive on the volleyball court.

''Rachael was a very bright, articulate, intelligent, beautiful, confident, poised young woman. She had a tremendous future in front of her,'' said Clay Fogler, administrator for the Grove Avenue school. ''Obviously, the Lord had other plans for her.''

Her father, Guy Hill, said the family was too distraught to talk about Hill on Tuesday, but relatives were planning to have memorial events later in the week. ''We just need some time here,'' he said tearfully.

------

Emily Jane Hilscher

Hilscher, a freshman majoring in animal and poultry sciences, was known around her hometown as an animal lover.

''She worked at a veterinarian's office and cared about them her whole life,'' said Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.

Hilscher, 19, of Woodville, was a freshman who lived on the same dorm floor as victim Ryan Clark, McCarthy said.

A friend, Will Nachless, also 19, said Hilscher ''was always very friendly. Before I even knew her, I thought she was very outgoing, friendly and helpful, and she was great in chemistry.''

------

Jarrett Lee Lane

Lane, 22, was a senior civil engineering student who was valedictorian of his high school class in tiny Narrows, Va., just 30 miles from Virginia Tech.

His high school put up a memorial to Lane that included pictures, musical instruments and his athletic jerseys.

Lane played the trombone, ran track and played football and basketball at Narrows High School. ''We're just kind of binding together as a family,'' Principal Robert Stump said.

Lane's brother-in-law Daniel Farrell called Lane fun-loving and ''full of spirit.''

''He had a caring heart and was a friend to everyone he met,'' Farrell said. ''We are leaning on God's grace in these trying hours.''

------

Matthew J. La Porte

La Porte, 20, a sophomore from Dumont, N.J., was attending Virginia Tech on an Air Force ROTC scholarship and belonged to the school's Corps of Cadets.

La Porte, who was considering majoring in political science, was a graduate of the Carson Long Military Institute in New Bloomfield, Pa. He credited the academy with turning his life around.

''I know that Carson Long was my second chance,'' he said during a 2005 graduation speech that was printed in the school yearbook.

On Tuesday, the school posted a memorial photograph of La Porte in his school uniform on its Web site.

''Matthew was an exemplary student at Carson Long whose love of music and fellow cadets were an inspiration to all on campus,'' the school said in a statement.

According to his profile on a music Web site, La Porte's favorite artists were Meshuggah, Metallica, Soundgarden, Creed and Live.

------

Henry J. Lee

Lee, also known as Henh Ly, was the ninth of 10 siblings whose family fled to the United States from Vietnam, arriving in Roanoke in 1994. Friends described the diminutive Lee, a 20-year-old freshman computer engineering major, as a serious student who wasn't necessarily a serious person.

A Virginia Tech classmate who lived in Lee's hall, Nathan Spady, described Lee as ''an extremely bubbly guy, always ready to go.''

Friends continued to post hundreds of messages and remembrances on Lee's Facebook page since he was shot to death, knowing he would never get to view them.

''Remember how you used to freak out when I hugged you all the time?'' one read. ''I'm not so sorry for that anymore.''

William Fleming High School planned a memorial service for Lee on Sunday. Lee was the school's salutatorian in 2006, and brought many in the audience to tears with his story about his family's journey to America, principal Susan Lawyer Willis said.

------

Liviu Librescu

Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was known for his research, but his son said the Holocaust survivor will be remembered as a hero for protecting students as the gunman tried to enter his classroom.

Librescu taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and had an international reputation for his work in aeronautical engineering.

''His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures,'' said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

After surviving the Nazi killings, Librescu escaped from Communist Romania and made his way to the United States. Monday's killings coincided with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Librescu's son, Joe, said his father's students sent e-mails detailing how the professor saved their lives by closing the doorway of his classroom against the approaching gunman.

''My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,'' Joe Librescu said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. ''Students started opening windows and jumping out.''

------

G.V. Loganathan

Loganathan was born in the southern India city of Chennai and had been a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.

Loganathan, 51, won several awards for excellence in teaching, had served on the faculty senate and was an adviser to about 75 undergraduate students.

''We all feel like we have had an electric shock. We do not know what to do,'' his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern India state of Tamil Nadu. ''He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force.''

------

Partahi Lumbantoruan

Lumbantoruan's family in Indonesia said they sold off property and cars to pay his tuition and that his goal was to become a teacher in the United States.

Lumbantoruan, a 34-year-old doctoral student, had been studying civil engineering at Virginia Tech for three years, said his father, Tohom Lumbantoruan, a 66-year-old retired army officer.

''We tried everything to completely finance his studies in the United States,'' he said. ''We only wanted him to succeed in his studies, but ... he met a tragic fate.''

His stepmother, Sugiyarti, said he had called almost daily to talk to the family. In their last conversation he had asked for the latest news on Indonesian politics.

''Why can people bring guns to campus?'' she asked, weeping. ''How is it possible that so many innocent people could be killed? How could it happen?'' Like many Indonesians she goes by one name.

An aunt, 53-year-old Christina Panjaitan, said her nephew was hardworking, intelligent and never complained. ''He told me he wanted to teach in America,'' she said.

Family members were planning a public burial in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

------

Lauren McCain

On her MySpace page, McCain listed ''the love of my life'' as Jesus Christ.

Her family said the 20-year-old international studies major became a Christian some time ago.

''Her life since that time has been filled with His love that continued to overflow to touch everyone who knew her,'' the family said in a statement.

Her uncle, Jeff Elliott, told The Oklahoman newspaper that she was an avid reader, was learning German and had almost mastered Latin. She was home-schooled, he said, and had worked at a department store for about a year to save money for college.

She spent several years of her childhood in Oklahoma but her father's Navy career also took the family to Florida, Texas and then to Virginia.

    A Look at Some Virginia Tech Victims, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Victim-Vignettes.html

U.S. Shooter Troubled Parents As Kid

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:56 a.m. ET
The New York Times

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The shooter in the Virginia Tech massacre had troubled his parents as a child because of speech difficulties, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Cho Seung-hui left South Korea with his family in 1992 to seek a better life in the United States, Cho's grandfather told the Dong-a Ilbo daily. Cho killed himself and 32 other students at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

Relatives said they had minimal contact with the family after they left South Korea.

''How could he have done such a thing if he had any sympathy for his parents, who went all the way to another country because they couldn't make ends meet and endured hardships,'' Cho's maternal grandfather, identified only by his last name Kim, was quoted as saying.

The 81-year-old Kim said Cho ''troubled his parents a lot when he was young because he couldn't speak well, but was well-behaved,'' the report said.

Kim said he had little communication with Cho's family after they left for the U.S.

Cho's uncle -- his mother's younger brother -- also told the newspaper that he was unaware of how Cho's family was doing.

''I don't even know my sister's phone number,'' the uncle said, adding he last talked to Cho's mother in October, the report said.

''Before she emigrated in 1992, she told me she was leaving for her childrens' education. Since she emigrated, I haven't seen her for nearly 15 years,'' the uncle -- also identified by just his last name Kim -- was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, South Koreans mourned the deaths of those killed in the Virginia Tech shootings at a special church service Thursday, some fighting back tears from the guilt that a fellow South Korean was responsible for the massacre.

About 130 people gathered at Myeongdong Cathedral in central Seoul, casting their heads low as they sang sad hymns and prayed for the souls of those killed. A small table adorned with white flowers, candles and a U.S. flag was set up in the center of the chapel in memory of the victims.

''As a mother myself, my heart really aches as if it happened to my own children,'' said Bang Myung-lan, a 48-year-old housewife, holding back tears. ''As a Korean, I am deeply sorry for the deceased.''

''Among the 32 killed were bright students who could have contributed greatly to society, and it's a big loss for all of us,'' Cardinal Nicolas Cheong Jin-suk told parishioners. ''As a South Korean, I can't help feeling apologetic about how a Korean man caused such a shocking incident.''

The cardinal said everyone should work together to prevent a recurrence of ''such an unfortunate event.''

''It is beyond my understanding how such a thing can occur -- especially to think a Korean is responsible for this,'' said 68-year-old Lee Chun-ja after the service. ''It really tears my heart. Something like this should never happen again.''

    U.S. Shooter Troubled Parents As Kid, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Virginia-Tech-SKorea.html

NBC Gets 'Manifesto' From Va. Killer

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:17 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- Even before it was opened, the oversized letter sent from Cho Seung-Hui to NBC News attracted attention. The postal worker who brought it to NBC's Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday pointed out the return address of Blacksburg, Virginia.

Inside was what NBC anchor Brian Williams described as a multi-media manifesto, with video, pictures and writing from the murderer of 32 people just before he went on his killing spree at Virginia Tech. Cho mailed it at 9:01 a.m. Monday, between murders.

It was mass murder for the YouTube generation, a chilling document from a man who said little in life but clearly wanted people to know his grievances in death. And it started a frantic day for a news organization that, for the second time in a week, suddenly found itself at the center of the nation's biggest news story.

The package was addressed to 30 Rockefeller Ave., mistaking the Plaza for a street. Incorrect zip codes were written twice and crossed out -- the failure to settle on the right one delaying the letter's arrival by a day.

NBC security opened the envelope, a policy they have taken with suspicious packages ever since anthrax was delivered to anchor Tom Brokaw shortly after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. They handled it with gloved hands, and quickly made copies of what they found.

At noon, NBC News President Steve Capus was called out of a news meeting by security chief Brian Patton and told what had been delivered.

''At first I wondered if it was real, but when you look at it and see all the pictures you realize that it is,'' he said.

The package contained a DVD and a 23-page printout of a computer file that mixed rambling, profane messages with 29 pictures of the killer. Eleven photos showed him aiming a gun at the camera.

One photograph showed 30 hollow-point bullets, with the message written underneath: ''All the s--- you gave me right back at you with hollow points.''

''I recoiled in horror,'' Capus said. ''It was chilling.''

Through NBC's Justice Department correspondent, Pete Williams, NBC reached out to authorities. A representative of the FBI's New York office came to NBC to get the originals, and NBC was asked not to say anything about it publicly until investigators could examine it, a request Capus thought was appropriate. The first public word of what NBC had wasn't released until a news conference in Blacksburg around 4:30 p.m. EDT.

''If we wanted to do something competitive, we would have popped it on the air immediately,'' Capus said.

Authorities still hadn't fully examined Cho's DVD and it wasn't until after 6 p.m. that NBC had an official OK to show some of his filmed message. NBC's ''Nightly News'' aired at 6:30 p.m. Except for one still picture aired earlier on MSNBC, that broadcast was the first to show extensive details of what NBC received.

''We are sensitive to how all of this will be seen by those affected,'' said NBC anchor Brian Williams. ''We know we are in effect airing the words of a murderer.''

NBC's evening-news competitors, ABC's ''World News'' and the ''CBS Evening News,'' managed to swiftly air portions of what NBC released only minutes after it came on the air.

''They seem to have acted honorably,'' said ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider. ''They turned the information over to the authorities swiftly and they reported it out.''

Some competitive anger flashed at the 4:30 news conference when Col. Steve Flaherty of the Virginia State Police announced that the package had been received by NBC, offered a brief description, and abruptly left the room. Reporters in the packed conference hall shouted, ''C'mon,'' ''What?'' and ''No questions?'' as authorities filed out silently.

''There are a lot of questions,'' one reporter shouted.

For both NBC and Capus, it was another turn in the media spotlight after his announcement last week that MSNBC would no longer simulcast Don Imus' radio show following racist and sexist remarks Imus made about the Rutgers women's basketball team. CBS Radio soon followed suit by firing Imus.

    NBC Gets 'Manifesto' From Va. Killer, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Virginia-Tech-NBC.html


 

"You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option.

The decision was yours.

Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05        NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

Professor Had Expelled

Gunman From Class

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:17 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The mood in the basketball arena was defeated, funereal. Nikki Giovanni seemed an unlikely source of strength for a Virginia Tech campus reeling from the depravity of one of its own.

Tiny, almost elfin, her delivery blunted by the loss of a lung, Giovanni brought the crowd at the memorial service to its feet and whipped mourners into an almost evangelical fervor with her words: ''We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech.''

Nearly two years earlier, Giovanni had stood up to Cho Seung-Hui before he drenched the campus in blood. Her comments Tuesday showed that the man who had killed 32 students and teachers had not killed the school's spirit.

''We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid,'' the 63-year-old poet with the close-cropped, platinum hair told the grieving crowd. ''We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.''

In September 2005, Cho was enrolled in Giovanni's introduction to creative writing class. From the beginning, he began building a wall between himself and the rest of the class.

He wore sunglasses to class and pulled his maroon cap down low over his forehead. When she tried to get him to participate in class discussion, his answer was silence.

''Sometimes, students try to intimidate you,'' Giovanni told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. ''And I just assumed that he was trying to assert himself.''

But then female students began complaining about Cho.

About five weeks into the semester, students told Giovanni that Cho was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with his cell phone. She told him to stop, but the damage was already done.

Female students refused to come to class, submitting their work by computer instead. As for Cho, he was not adding anything to the classroom atmosphere, only detracting.

Police asked Giovanni not to disclose the exact content or nature of Cho's poetry. But she said it was not violent like other writings that have been circulating.

It was more invasive.

''Violent is like, `I'm going to do this,''' said Giovanni, a three-time NAACP Image Award winner who is sometimes called ''the princess of black poetry.'' This was more like a personal violation, as if Cho were objectifying his subjects, ''doing thing to your body parts.''

''It's not like, `I'll rip your heart out,''' she recalled. ''It's that, `Your bra is torn,and I'm looking at your flesh.'''

His work had no meter or structure or rhyme scheme. To Giovanni, it was simply ''a tirade.''

''There was no writing. I wasn't teaching him anything, and he didn't want to learn anything,'' she said. ''And I finally realized either I was going to lose my class, or Mr. Cho had to leave.''

Giovanni wrote a letter to then-department head Lucinda Roy, who removed Cho.

Roy alerted student affairs, the dean's office, even the campus police, but each said there was nothing they could do if Cho had made no overt threats against himself or others. So Roy took him on as a kind of personal tutor.

''At first he would hardly say anything, and I was lucky to get, say, in 30 minutes, four or five monosyllabic answers from him,'' she said. ''But bit by bit, he began to tell me things.''

During their hourlong sessions, Roy encouraged Cho to express himself in writing. She would compose poems with him, contributing to the works herself and taking dictation from him.

''I tried to keep him focused on things that were outside the self a little bit,'' said Roy, who has been at Virginia Tech for 22 years. ''Because he seemed to be running inside circles in a maze when he was talking about himself.''

He was ''very guarded'' when it came to his family. But she got him to open up about his feelings of isolation.

''You seem so lonely,'' she told him once. ''Do you have any friends?''

''I am lonely,'' he replied. ''I don't have any friends.''

Suitemates and others have said Cho rejected their overtures of friendship. Roy sensed that Cho's isolation might be largely self-imposed.

To her, it was as if he were two people.

''He was actually quite arrogant and could be quite obnoxious, and was also deeply, it seemed, insecure,'' she said.

But when she wrote to Cho about his behavior in Giovanni's class, Roy received what she described as ''a pretty strident response.''

''It was a vigorous defense of the self,'' she said. ''He clearly felt that he was in the right and that the professor was in the wrong. It was the kind of tone that I would never have used as an undergraduate at a faculty member.''

She felt he fancied himself a loner, but she wasn't sure what underlay that feeling.

''I mean, if you see yourself as a loner, sometimes that means you feel very isolated and insecure and inferior. Or it can mean that you feel quite superior to others, because you've distanced yourself. And I think he went from one extreme to another.''

When the semester ended, so did Roy's and Cho's collaboration. She went on leave and thought he had graduated.

When she and Giovanni learned of the shootings and heard a description of the gunman, they immediately thought of Cho.

Roy wonders now whether things would have turned out differently had she continued their sessions. But Giovanni sees no reason for people who had interactions with Cho to beat themselves up.

''I know that there's a tendency to think that everybody can get counseling or can have a bowl of tomato soup and everything is going to be all right,'' she said. ''But I think that evil exists, and I think that he was a mean person.''

Giovanni encountered Cho only once after she removed him from class. She was walking down a campus path and noticed him coming toward her. They maintained eye contact until passing each other.

Giovanni, who had survived lung cancer, was determined she would not blink first.

''I was not going to look away as if I were afraid,'' she said. ''To me he was a bully, and I had no fear of this child.''

    Professor Had Expelled Gunman From Class, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Poet-Professor.html


 

"I didn’t have to do this.

I could have left, I could have fled, but no, I will no longer run.

If not for me, for my children, for my brothers and sisters

. . . I did it for them."

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05        NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

Students saddened, shocked

by killer's video

Thu Apr 19, 2007 3:15AM EDT
By Andrea Hopkins
The New York Times

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Students expressed disgust and disbelief at photos and a rage-filled video diatribe sent to a television network by the gunman who massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech university.

Half-a-dozen Virginia Tech students gathered silently around a bank of televisions in the student center late on Wednesday watching images of Cho Seung-Hui posing with his guns and video of him ranting against rich kids and debauchery.

The package received by NBC News on Wednesday carried a postmark showing Cho mailed his rambling manifesto after he killed his first two victims on Monday morning but before he went on to cut down 30 more people in classrooms.

"That's crazy. He kills two people and then goes to the post office and then he's ready for round two? It's creepy," said graduate student Nick Jeremiah, 34.

The images and long monologue suffused with paranoia and feelings of persecution painted a different picture of Cho, a 23-year-old student who has been described by teachers and other students as silent and withdrawn.

"He just goes on and on -- that's got to be more than he's spoken, ever," Jeremiah said. "I thought, 'well, he does talk.'"

Devin Cornwall, 19, who watched the video in a dormitory room with two friends, said the gunman's hatred for rich children made no sense.

"To me, that doesn't personify any Tech student I know. I always think of us as a blue-collar place," Cornwall said.

In the video and an 1,800-word document, Cho railed against wealth and debauchery, portrayed himself as a defender of the weak and voiced admiration for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and tortured my conscience," said Cho, speaking directly to the camera and occasionally looking down to read his message.

"You thought it was a pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

'MENTALLY ILL'

The messages added to an already chilling portrait of Cho from roommates and teachers who described him as a disturbed loner. Cho had been accused of stalking female students and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in 2005 because of worries he was suicidal. A Virginia court order issued at the time declared him "mentally ill" and said he presented "an imminent danger to self or others," ABC News reported.

The shooting has rekindled debate over U.S. gun laws, the most lenient in the Western world. News of Cho's past contacts with police and mental health specialists raised further questions over whether anyone could have picked up warning signs.

University officials and police have been criticized for taking too long to alert students to the danger after Cho killed his first two victims in a dormitory just after 7 a.m.

CNN quoted from a search warrant affidavit on Wednesday that showed police suspected a different man of the first murders. The network said police had been told by a student that the boyfriend of murdered Emily Hilscher had recently taken her to a shooting range, and assumed he was the main suspect. They were interviewing him outside the campus when Cho began his classroom rampage.

On the sprawling rural campus in southwestern Virginia, students were beginning to look ahead to Monday, when classes will resume.

"It's going to be weird being back in class. We're still going to feel uneasy in big lecture halls, or crossing the drill field," said industrial design student Phil Padilla, 20.

    Students saddened, shocked by killer's video, R, 19.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1631133620070419?src=041907_0314_TOPSTORY_gunman_forced_to_kill

"Do you know what it feels like to be spit on your face

and have trash shoved down your throat?

Do you know what it feels like to dig your own grave?"

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05        NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

Schools Review Safety

After Va. Massacre

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:19 a.m. ET
The New York Times

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- Cell phone text messages. Loudspeakers on towers. Cameras that detect suspicious activity. Colleges and universities are considering these and other measures in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, seeking to improve how they get the word out about emergencies to thousands of students across sprawling campuses.

The University of Washington in Seattle is weighing whether to use warning sirens. Clemson University in South Carolina recently installed a similar system for weather-related emergencies and now may expand its use.

''You're going to see a nationwide re-evaluation of how to respond to incidents like this,'' said Jeff Newton, police chief at the University of Toledo.

Chuck Green, director of public safety at the University of Iowa, said school officials were discussing a new outdoor warning system just a day before the Blacksburg shootings. The technology would allow for live voice as well as prerecorded messaging.

''We'd like the option to hit one button to reach large numbers of people at one time,'' he said.

Virginia Tech officials did not send an e-mail warning about a gunman on campus until two hours after the first slayings, drawing criticism that they waited too long and relied on e-mail accounts that students often ignore.

''Would a blast e-mail have been the most effective tool in notifying people of Monday's events?'' asked John Holden, a spokesman for DePaul University in Chicago. ''Some of the coverage I'm seeing suggests that old-fashioned emergency alarms or broadcast announcements would probably have been more effective.''

At many schools, officials want to send text messages to cell phones and digital devices as a faster, more reliable alternative to e-mail.

''We have to find a way to get to students,'' said Terry Robb, who is overseeing security changes at the University of Missouri.

The University of Memphis plans to build a system that will act as a schoolwide intercom. Scheduled to be in place by this fall, the system will consist of speakers mounted on three or four tall poles.

At Johns Hopkins University, officials installed more than 100 ''smart'' cameras after two off-campus slayings. The cameras are linked to computers that detect suspicious situations, such as someone climbing a fence or falling down, and alert not only campus security but also Baltimore city police.

Using text messages would require students to provide personal cell phone numbers -- an intrusion that many colleges and universities have until now been reluctant to pursue, said Howard Udell, chief executive officer of Saf-T-Net AlertNow, a Raleigh, N.C., company that specializes in campus security.

Cell phone numbers ''have to be as vital as your Social Security number,'' he said. ''I don't think it's been a priority.''

The Virginia Tech massacre could bring about widespread safety reforms at colleges and universities, much as the Columbine shootings in Colorado led to security improvements at primary and secondary schools, Udell said.

''We're going to use lessons learned from Virginia Tech's tragedy as much as we can,'' said Auburn University spokeswoman Deedie Dowdle.

Text-message alert systems are already in place at some schools, including Penn State University, which started its program in the fall. The system has transmitted 20 emergency messages since its start, ranging from traffic closures to weather-related cancellations or delays.

At the University of Minnesota, 101 of the university's 270 buildings have electronic access devices. A control center can selectively lock and unlock doors, send emergency e-mail and phone messages, and trigger audio tones and messages. Video cameras monitor 871 locations around the university and radio networks link the university with police.

Despite the widespread safety reviews, nothing short of a total lockdown would ensure the safety of campus communities, said Maj. Frank Knight, assistant chief of police at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.

''Stopping an individual with a weapon from getting on campus is nearly impossible,'' he said. ''We can't ever guarantee the security of the campus 100 percent.''

At Birmingham-Southern, a small private school in Alabama, campus police also use less sophisticated methods: cars equipped with public-address systems and even runners carrying messages.

Campus Police Chief Randy Youngblood said officers used car-mounted loudspeakers during storms in recent years, and the system has been effective on the small campus.

Associated Press writers Doug Whiteman in Columbus, Ohio; Ben Greene in Baltimore; Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C.; Michael Tarm in Chicago; and Nafeesa Syeed in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

    Schools Review Safety After Va. Massacre, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Virginia-Tech-Campus-Alerts.html

"You just loved crucifying me.

You loved inducing cancer in my head,

terrorizing my heart and ripping my soul all the time."

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05        NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

"You have vandalized my heart,

raped my soul and torched my conscience.

You thought it was one pathetic,

bored life you were extinguishing."

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05        NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

"Do you know what it feels like

to be humiliated and impaled upon a cross

and left to bleed to death for your amusement?

You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life."

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05        NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

"Did you want to inject as much misery in our lives as you can,

just because you can?

You had everything you wanted.

Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats,

your golden necklaces weren’t enough,

you snobs, your trust fund wasn’t enough ..."

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05        NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

"When the time came I did it, I had to."

NBC News

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05

NYT        19.4.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp


 

Officials Knew

Troubled State of Killer in ’05

April 19, 2007
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN and MARC SANTORA

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 18 — Campus authorities were aware 17 months ago of the troubled mental state of the student who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, an imbalance graphically on display in vengeful videos and a manifesto he mailed to NBC News in the time between the two sets of shootings.

“You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience,” the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, said in one video mailed shortly before the shooting at a classroom and his suicide. “Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.”

NBC, which received the package on Wednesday and quickly turned it over to the authorities, broadcast video excerpts on “The NBC Nightly News.”

The hostility in the videos was foreshadowed in 2005, when Mr. Cho’s sullen and aggressive behavior culminated in an unsuccessful effort by the campus police to have him involuntarily committed to a mental institution in December.

For all the interventions by the police and faculty members, Mr. Cho was allowed to remain on campus and live with other students. There is no evidence that the police monitored him and no indication that the authorities or fellow students were aware of any incident that pushed him to his rampage.

Despite Mr. Cho’s time in the mental health system, when an English professor was disturbed by his writings last fall and contacted the associate dean of students, the dean told the professor that there was no record of any problems and that nothing could be done, said the instructor, Lisa Norris.

The quest to have him committed, documented in court papers, was made after a female student complained of unwelcome telephone calls and in-person communication from Mr. Cho on Nov. 27, 2005. The woman declined to press charges, and the campus police referred the case to the disciplinary system of the university, Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Mr. Cho’s disciplinary record was not released because of privacy laws. The associate vice president for student affairs, Edward F. D. Spencer, said it would not be unusual if no disciplinary action had been taken in such a case. On Dec. 12, a second woman asked the police to put a stop to Mr. Cho’s instant messages to her. She, too, declined to press charges.

The police said Mr. Cho did not threaten the women, who described the efforts at contact as “annoying.” But later on the day of the second complaint, an unidentified acquaintance of Mr. Cho notified the police that he might be suicidal.

Mr. Cho went voluntarily to the Police Department, which referred him to a mental health agency off campus, Chief Flinchum said. A counselor recommended involuntary commitment, and a judge signed an order saying that he “presents an imminent danger to self or others” and sent him to Carilion St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital in Radford for an evaluation.

“Affect is flat and mood is depressed,” a doctor there wrote. “He denies suicidal ideations. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are sound.”

The doctor determined that Mr. Cho was mentally ill, but not an imminent danger, and the judge declined to commit him, instead ordering outpatient treatment.

Officials said they did not know whether Mr. Cho had received subsequent counseling.

In Virginia, the examining doctor or psychologist has to convince a local magistrate that the person “as a result of mental illness is in imminent danger of harming himself or others, or is substantially unable to care for himself,” said Richard J. Bonnie, director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

Mr. Bonnie said that it was not a simple matter to force people into treatment against their will and that lawyers, patients’ advocates and psychiatrists had debated the question for decades.

The hospitalization occurred after a trouble-filled semester for Mr. Cho. In October 2005, a professor of creative writing, the poet Nikki Giovanni, refused to let him stay in her class because his writing was “intimidating” and he frightened other students.

Classmates reported that Mr. Cho was taking photographs of women under the desks. Lucinda H. Roy, chairwoman of the English department at the time, tried to intervene, but she, too, was disturbed by his response. Professor Roy said the reaction was “very arrogant” with an “underlying tone of anger.”

Much about what Mr. Cho did after leaving the hospital remains uncertain. Professor Roy said that she had no contact with him after that date and that she believed he had graduated.

Last August, Mr. Cho’s parents helped move him to a dormitory room he shared with Joe Aust, 19, for his senior year.

His writings grew increasingly unhinged. He submitted two plays to Prof. Edward C. Falco’s class that had so much profanity and violent imagery that the other students refused to read and analyze his work. Professor Falco said he was so concerned that he spoke with several faculty members who had taught Mr. Cho.

Ms. Norris, who taught Mr. Cho in a 10-student creative writing workshop last fall, was disturbed enough by his writings that she contacted the associate dean of students, Mary Ann Lewis. Ms. Norris said the faculty was instructed to report problem students to Ms. Lewis.

“You go to her to find out if there are any other complaints about a student,” Ms. Norris said, adding that Ms. Lewis had said she had no record of any problem with Mr. Cho despite his long and troubled history at the university.

“I do not know why she would not have that information,” she said. “I just know that she did not have it.”

Ms. Lewis, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, said Wednesday night that she would not comment on Ms. Norris’s statement.

Mr. Cho was allowed to remain in the seminar but was placed off to the side, where, Ms. Norris said, he did not speak. She did not share his writings with the class. As the weeks passed, she added, she noticed a slight change in his writing. Instead of focusing on children, as he had in the past, his last story was about adults.

And then he stopped going to class.

“If I had known anything else I could have done, by god, I would have done it,” Ms. Norris said.

Carolyn D. Rude, chairwoman of the English department, said faculty members were pro-active, even attending seminars on helping students in distress, a skill particularly applicable in an English department, where creative writing teachers had intimate glimpses into their students’ troubles and temperaments.

But, Professor Rude said, there was only so much that faculty members, administrators and even the campus police could do if no crime had been committed.

“There were reports, and urgent ones, more than once,” she said. “All we can do is notice and report. We don’t have the powers of the counselors or the justice system. But we do have the responsibility to let students do their coursework.”

Investigators have not determined Mr. Cho’s motive or whether he had a connection to any victims, said Col. W. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the state police.

The package mailed to NBC, a composite portrait of Mr. Cho as a pistol-wielding moralist who decried his audience’s hedonistic taste for vodka and cognac, did not immediately seem to offer concrete clues. It brimmed with recriminations and a sense of persecution, and referred to the killers at Columbine High School in Colorado as martyrs.

“You had a hundred billion chances and ways to avoid today, but you decided to spill my blood,” Mr. Cho said in a video. “You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option.”

The package included 29 photographs, 27 short videos and an 1,800-word diatribe in which Mr. Cho expresses a desire to get even, though it does not say with whom, according to the NBC News program. In two photos, he looks like a typical smiling college student. In 11, he aims one or two handguns at the camera, posing as if in an action movie.

Several postings on Internet film sites noticed a similarity between the poses and scenes from “Oldboy,” a violent 2004 South Korean film.

As he prepared for the shooting, Mr. Cho filled out paperwork to buy handguns, rented a van and bought the cargo pants and vest that he wore. He appeared to have made the photos and videos by himself, a law enforcement official said.

“This kid, over a period of two and half to three weeks, there was a process where he was working himself up to this and he stayed for one night at a hotel in the general area, and that’s where he took the pictures of the gun," said the official, who insisted on anonymity. “And we’re assuming he made the video there.”

Mr. Cho mailed the package using Express Mail at 9:01 a.m., two hours after the first shootings, from the post office at 118 North Main Street, about a mile from his dorm room on campus, a spokesman for the Postal Service said.

Mr. Cho apparently returned to his room after the first shootings to assemble the package, which seemed to have been put together over six days, NBC News reported. The return address was “A. Ishmael,” similar to the cryptic phrase “Ismael Ax” that was found written on his arm.

Officials Knew Troubled State of Killer in ’05, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19gunman.html?hp

Laws Limit Options

When a Student Is Mentally Ill

April 19, 2007
The New York Times
By TAMAR LEWIN

Federal privacy and antidiscrimination laws restrict how universities can deal with students who have mental health problems.

For the most part, universities cannot tell parents about their children’s problems without the student’s consent. They cannot release any information in a student’s medical record without consent. And they cannot put students on involuntary medical leave, just because they develop a serious mental illness.

Nor is knowing when to worry about student behavior, and what action to take, always so clear.

“They can’t really kick someone out because they’re writing papers about weird topics, even if they seem withdrawn and hostile,” said Dr. Richard Kadison, chief of mental health services at Harvard University. “Most state laws are pretty clear: you can only bring students to hospitals if there is imminent risk to themselves or someone else, so universities are in a bit of a bind that way.”

But, he said, some schools do mandate limited amounts of treatment in certain circumstances.

“At the University of Missouri, if someone makes a suicide attempt, they mandate four counseling sessions, for example,” said Dr. Kadison, an author of “College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What To Do About It.”

Universities can find themselves in a double bind. On the one hand, they may be liable if they fail to prevent a suicide or murder. After the death in 2000 of Elizabeth H. Shin, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had written several suicide notes and used the university counseling service before setting herself on fire, the Massachusetts Superior Court allowed her parents, who had not been told of her deterioration, to sue administrators for $27.7 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.

On the other hand, universities may be held liable if they do take action to remove a potentially suicidal student. In August, the City University of New York agreed to pay $65,000 to a student who sued after being barred from her dormitory room at Hunter College because she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt.

Also last year, George Washington University reached a confidential settlement in a case charging that it had violated antidiscrimination laws by suspending Jordan Nott, a student who had sought hospitalization for depression.

“This is a very, very difficult and gray area, when you take action to remove the student from the campus environment, versus when you encourage the student to use the resources available on campus,” said Ada Meloy, director of legal and regulatory affairs at the American Council on Education. “In an emergency, you can share certain information, but it’s not clear what’s an emergency.”

Ms. Meloy estimated that situations complicated enough to involve a university’s lawyers arise, on average, about twice a semester at large universities.

While shootings like the one at Virginia Tech are extremely rare, suicides, threats and serious mental-health problems are not. Last year, the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment, covering nearly 95,000 students at 117 campuses, found that 9 percent of students had seriously considered suicide in the previous year, and 1 in 100 had attempted it.

So mental health experts emphasize that, whatever a college’s concerns about liability, the goal of campus policies should be to maximize the likelihood that those who need mental-health treatment will get it.

“What we really need to do is encourage students to seek mental health treatment if they need it, to remove any barriers to their getting help, destigmatize it, and make it safe, so they know there won’t be negative consequences,” said Karen Bower, a lawyer at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, who represented Mr. Nott.

With the Virginia Tech killings, many universities are planning to remind faculty members of their protocols. “We’re actually going to go ahead and have the counseling service here do a session for all our instructors and faculty on what to look for, what the procedures are, and what the counseling center can do,” said Shannon Miller, chairwoman of the English department at Temple University.

At Harvard, Dr. Kadison said, dormitory resident assistants watch for signs of trouble, and are usually the first to become aware of worrisome behavior — and to call a dean.

“The dean might insist that they get an evaluation to make sure they’re healthy enough to live in a dorm,” he said. “If it’s not thought that they’re in any immediate danger, they can take or not take the recommendation.”

Last month, Virginia passed a law, the first in the nation, prohibiting public colleges and universities from expelling or punishing students solely for attempting suicide or seeking mental-health treatment for suicidal thoughts.

“In one sense, the new law doesn’t cover new territory, because discrimination against people with mental health problems is already prohibited,” said Dana L. Fleming, a lawyer in Manchester, N.H., who is an expert on education law. “But in another sense, it’s ground-breaking since it’s the first time we’ve seen states focus on student suicides and come up with some code of conduct for schools.”

College counseling services nationwide are seeing more use.

“We’re seeing more students in our service consistently every year,” said Alejandro Martinez, director for counseling and psychological services at Stanford University, which sees about 10 percent of the student body each year. “Certainly more students are experiencing mental illness, including depression.

“But there’s also been a cultural shift,” Mr. Martinez said, “in that more students are willing to get help.”

College officials say that a growing number of students arrive on campus with a history of mental-health problems and a prescription for psychotropic drugs. But screening for such problems would be illegal, admissions officers say.

“We’re restricted by the disabilities act from asking,” said Rick Shaw, Stanford’s admissions director. “We do ask a question, as most institutions do, about whether a student has been suspended or expelled from school, and if they have been, we ask them to write an explanation of it.”

Federal laws also restrict what universities can reveal. Generally, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, Ferpa, passed in 1974, makes it illegal to disclose a student’s records to family members without the student’s authorization.

“Colleges can disclose a student’s private records if they believe there’s a health and safety emergency, but that health and safety exception hasn’t been much tested in the courts, so it’s left to be figured out case by case,” Ms. Fleming said.

And the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act prohibits the release of medical records. “The interaction of all these laws does not make things easy,” she said.

    Laws Limit Options When a Student Is Mentally Ill, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19protocol.html?hp

N.C. Student Makes Threats,

Shoots Self

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:00 a.m. ET
The New York Times

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A teenager shot and killed himself Wednesday shortly after pointing a handgun at two other students in a high school parking lot, police said.

Schools in Huntersville were locked down after the 16-year-old, whose name wasn't released, made threatening gestures in a parking lot at North Mecklenburg High School, police said.

The student, who attended the school, turned the gun on himself when police confronted him at a gas station, said Capt. Michael Kee of the Huntersville Police Department. He later died, said Tahira Stalbert, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Police alerted four schools after the student left the high school's campus, Kee said.

''We put every school in the area on immediate lockdown in light of everything that's gone on in the world lately,'' Kee said, referring to the fatal shootings of 33 people at Virginia Tech. ''We erred on the side of caution.''

The student, who was shot in the head, was taken to Carolinas Medical Center, Kee said.

School officials planned to have counselors available to North Mecklenburg students Thursday, Stalbert said. The school also will have a larger security presence, she said.

Families in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district were to receive automated phone messages about the situation, Stalbert said.

In Eugene, Ore., police arrested a 15-year-old Willamette High School sophomore on assorted charges Wednesday after a homemade bomb detonated in a hallway trash can. Police said damage was limited to the container.

    N.C. Student Makes Threats, Shoots Self, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-NC-School-Shooting.html

Mom, Boyfriend,

Worker Shot in NYC Home

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:44 a.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A gunman killed his mother, her boyfriend and a home health care worker before fatally shooting himself, police said Wednesday.

The mother called police just before noon, saying ''something terrible was going to happen,'' said Assistant Chief Michael Collins, a police spokesman. When officers arrived moments later, they discovered the bodies at the two-story house in Queens where the family lived.

The 44-year-old mother; her 47-year-old live-in boyfriend, who had been using a wheelchair after a recent stroke; and another woman, who was a home attendant, had been shot in the face, police said.

A 21-year-old man who had recently arrived from Jamaica to help care for his uncle told police a shot grazed his leg, causing him to fall into a closet, where he played dead. He later slipped out a window to safety.

The 20-year-old shooter was found with a gunshot wound to the head and a semiautomatic pistol nearby on the second floor, police said.

Police said that last fall they had taken the suspected gunman to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after he argued with his mother. On Monday, officers responded to two calls from the home, one at 3 a.m. and one at 3 p.m., reporting that the pair were fighting again but didn't arrest anyone because there was no evidence of violence, police said.

Associated Press writer Tom Hays contributed to this report.

    Mom, Boyfriend, Worker Shot in NYC Home, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-NYC-Shooting.html

Corky Trinidad        The Honolulu Star-Bulletin        Cagle        18 April 2007

Va. Tech gunman

sent material to NBC

18.4.2007
USA Today
By William M. Welch

Minutes before Cho Seung Hui gunned down 30 people in a Virginia Tech building, he mailed a hate-filled package of video and photos to NBC, sending what amounted to a deranged final message aired after his death.
The images and words of Cho were received Wednesday at NBC headquarters in New York. The envelope was checked in at the Blacksburg post office at 9:01 a.m. Monday, about 40 minutes before he walked into an engineering building at the university and shot professors, students and himself.

In a diatribe contained in clips on a video CD, Cho lashed out at unnamed people for forcing him to kill. In photos, he is seen in various menacing poses with handguns. The material did little to explain why he committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, but you decided to spill my blood," he said. "You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option … Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

Col. Steve Flaherty, head of the Virginia State Police, disclosed the existence of the package Wednesday.

The package was apparently mailed after the first shootings that left two dead in a dormitory. Flaherty says the investigation has not confirmed Cho was the dorm killer.

Photos show Cho waving a claw hammer, putting a knife to his own neck and gun to his own head, and pointing guns at the camera. NBC said Cho is seen in the video turning the camera off and on.

He denounced rich students with Mercedes cars and money.

"All your debaucheries weren't enough," he said. "I didn't have to do this. I could've left. I could've fled. But no. I will no longer run.

"You have vandalized my heart," he said. "Thanks to you I die, like Jesus Christ."

If the package was indeed mailed between the first attack and the second, that would help explain where Cho was and what he did during that two-hour window.

Police also said Wednesday that officers responded twice in the fall of 2005 to complaints by female students of unwanted approaches by Cho Seung Hui, the gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre, and that he was once sent to a mental health agency after displaying suicidal tendencies.

Chief Wendell Flinchum, of the Virginia Tech police department, said neither woman pressed charges against Cho, nor were they among the victims of the shooting spree that left 33 people dead.

Flinchum said Cho was taken to a mental health agency in December 2005, after the second stalking incident, after police got a call from an acquaintance saying Cho was displaying suicidal tendencies.

He said officers, on that occasion, spoke with Cho "at length" and that he voluntarily accompanied them to the police station. Flinchum said a temporary detention order was then issued to send him to a local mental health agency.

In the initial incident, in November 2005, Flinchum said police were called after Cho had made contact with a female student by phone and in person.

"The student declined to press charges and referred to Cho's contact with her as annoying," he said. Flinchum said police spoke to Cho and referred the case to the university disciplinary office.

In the second incident, Flinchum said, Cho had sent an Instant Message to a different female student. She did not accuse Cho of making any threats, Flinchum said, but said she did not want to have any further contact with him.

Flinchum said he knew of no other police incidents involving Cho until the deadly shootings Monday, first at a girl's dorm room and then a classroom building across campus.

Thirty-two people were shot to death before the gunman killed himself. State Police have said the same gun was used in both shootings, but they said Wednesday said they still weren't confident that it was the same gunman.

Campus police on Wednesday applied for search warrants for all of Cho's medical records from the Schiffert Health Center on campus and New River Community Services in Blacksburg. "It is reasonable to believe that the medical records may provide evidence of motive, intent and designs," investigators wrote in the documents.

Virginia Tech students still on edge got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president's office.

The threat targeted the university president but was unfounded, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum. The building quickly reopened, but students were rattled.

"They were just screaming, 'Get off the sidewalks,'" said Terryn Wingler-Petty, a junior from Wisconsin. "They seemed very confused about what was going on. They were just trying to get people organized."

One officer was seen escorting a crying young woman out of Burruss Hall, telling her, "It's OK. It's OK."

Contributing: Peter Johnson, Matt Kelley, The Associated Press

    Va. Tech gunman sent material to NBC, UT, 18.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-18-virginia-tech_N.htm

Don Wright        The Palm Beach Post, FL        Cagle        18 April 2007

Gun control

faces uphill struggle in Congress

Wed Apr 18, 2007 7:00PM EDT
Reuters
By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The massacre at Virginia Tech has ignited fresh talk in the Democratic-led U.S. Congress about tightening America's gun laws but it is doubtful enough lawmakers will tackle the politically charged issue.

With so many Americans in love with their guns and defensive of their right under the Constitution to keep and bear arms, politicians are reluctant to take on gun owners or the powerful gun lobby.

"It'd be foolish politically for Democrats to do it," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. "There's little chance of anything meaningful."

Guns are an integral part of America's often-violent culture. Americans are among the world's most heavily armed people, and the country has among the highest murder rates.

There are an estimated 250 million privately owned guns in the United States, which has a population of about 300 million. About 30,000 people a year die from gun wounds, about evenly split between murders and suicides.

Polls show Americans favor tougher gun laws. But gun-rights groups have helped stop such action by rallying their members, many of them hunters, against it.

Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America said the shootings that left 33 people dead, including the assailant, at Virginia Tech on Monday showed gun bans are the problem, not the solution.

"Isn't it interesting that Utah and Oregon are the only two states that allow faculty to carry guns. And isn't it interesting that you haven't read about any school or university shootings in Utah and Oregon," Pratt said.

Gun lobbies have helped defeat Democratic candidates pushing gun control.

In 1994, after a Democratic Congress imposed a ban on assault weapons, Republicans won control of the legislature, capturing the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. As a result, many Democrats have backed off in recent years.

STRICTER LAWS NOT PROMISED

Democrats regained control of Congress in last year's elections with many campaign promises, but none were for stricter gun laws.

Some Democrats even ran on a gun-rights platform.

Regardless, shortly after shots rang out at Virginia Tech, Democratic gun-control advocates called for action.

"I believe this will reignite the dormant effort to pass common-sense gun regulations," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat, said, "The unfortunate situation in Virginia could have been avoided if congressional leaders stood up to the gun lobby."

The House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee announced it would hold a hearing on college campus safety next week. "We must start now to learn what we can do to prevent things like this from happening in the future," said Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat.

A number of gun-control bills have been offered in this Congress but none have gotten very far. They include measures to expand background checks, reduce the number of bullets allowed in an ammunition clip and reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

"I'm skeptical," said Rep. Marion Berry, a moderate Arkansas Democrat. Liberal Connecticut Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro said: "I suspect there isn't much appetite" for it.

Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence voiced hope, however, that the Virginia Tech tragedy would force lawmakers to answer tough questions and take tough action.

Helmke said, "People are again asking: 'What are we doing about gun violence? Why is it so easy to get a weapon? Why does this keep happening in our country?'"

But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said, "I hope there's not a rush to do anything. We need to take a deep breath."

(Additional reporting by Donna Smith

and Kevin Drawbaugh)

Gun control faces uphill struggle in Congress, R, 19.4.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1828018620070418