College visit turns into close call with shooting
By Paul Gately GateHouse Media Wed Apr 18, 2007, 11:55 AM EDT BOURNE - A Cataumet mother and daughter found themselves in the building adjacent to where a 23-year-old student went on a shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va. Monday. Ellen Mattingly Driscoll of Cataumet and her daughter Marianna, a Bishop Stang High School student, were on the Virginia Tech campus checking in with the admissions office prior to touring the campus. Mother and daughter were unaware of the first shootings earlier in the morning. "It was business as usual on campus until the second shooting began even after the first had occurred," Ellen Driscoll said. "Surprisingly there wasn't a big police presence after the first shooting." "We were in admissions when we started hearing popping," she said. "We didn't think too much of it. A woman leading the tour, who was trying to sell the campus to parents, finally said: 'Oh, there's someone out there with a weapon.' We didn't think about what might be happening. But within minutes we heard volleys of shots. There were two loud volleys. Then there was lots of screaming. Then shouts of 'get out!'" The Driscolls were moved to the center of the admissions building where there were no windows. They were not allowed to leave until noon. Ellen Driscoll said VT is "a lovely campus and truly beautiful school," but she said her thoughts about the college were decidedly different while heading to her car at noon than they were earlier in the morning when she and her daughter had crossed the drill field for what was expected to be a routine admissions briefing and tour. -- Original Source: The Upper Cape Codder http://www.townonline.com/bourne/homepage/x1849893534 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
It was 7am on Monday. Another week was starting at Virginia Tech. Then the first shots rang out. Within hours, 32 people lay dead and America was left trying to make sense of the carnage. Paul Harris reports from Blacksburg. Sunday April 22, 2007 The Observer A group of Amish men, all in black, shuffled towards the chapel at one end of the enormous sports field that dominates the centre of Virginia Tech's campus. They had come to pay their respects after a tragedy they knew all too well. It was only last year that a killer struck their community, shooting dead five young girls in a tiny Amish school. Now they had driven many long hours from their Pennsylvania farms to southern Virginia, to offer solace to another American community devastated by a mass killing. They spoke in hushed tones to the Reverend Kelly Sisson, one of the pastors of Glade Church in Blacksburg. Then they entered the comforting dark interior to pray and to mourn the dead of Virginia Tech. 'They understand what has happened to us in a way few others do,' Sisson said. Everyone is trying to understand what happened at Blacksburg last week. Impromptu memorials have sprung up on the sports field, covering the grass in flickering candles, pictures of the dead, and flowers. Students, friends and family have written messages, sad, desperate, noble. They speak of loss and love. They vow to remember lives brutally cut short on what should have been just another Monday morning. But, although there was nothing ordinary about last Monday, there was a dreadful familiarity to it. Cho Seung-hui's bloody rampage cost the lives of 32 of his fellow students and staff. It was the worst mass shooting in American history, but far from the only one. There is almost a ritual to such attacks: the fleeing students, the wailing sirens, the mourning survivors, the suicide of the gunman - Cho shot himself in the face. Columbine, the Amish school, Virginia Tech, all are now names that haunt the popular imagination. Yet no one pretends last week's rite won't happen again, somewhere else in America on some other seemingly ordinary day. For now it is Blacksburg's tragedy that has the attention of the world. What Cho did last week is well known. In two separate attacks, he shot his victims methodically, without any outward show of emotion. It was an assault he had planned for weeks: buying guns, training physically and preparing a 'manifesto' of his beliefs in writing, pictures and video. But the real question is not how Cho killed so many. It is why. And that is a much more difficult issue. What could have caused him to hate so much? If he was ill, should it have been spotted? Why did he pick the targets that he did? These questions could shake the strongest faith. Sisson shook her head at the thought of them: 'I am determined to not give easy answers. Cliches are cheap and we are still waking up to this.' Then she thought of Cho. 'He was in great pain. Great brokenness,' she said. A faint smile of incomprehension hovered around her lips. She was close to tears. The first sign something was wrong last Monday was a scream and 'popping' sounds in the West Ambler Johnston dorm building. It was just after 7am: many students slept through the noise. Those who emerged bleary-eyed into the corridors found a dreadful scene. Two bodies lay near Room 4040, in the open space near the lifts. There was no sign of an attacker. The killer had disappeared, leaving a trail of bloody footprints down a hallway. By the time Cho claimed his first victim, he had already been planning his attack for weeks, possibly months. Not that anyone knew it. Cho was a solitary figure on campus, even among the five students with which he shared a 'suite', Room 2121. He spoke rarely and shunned human contact. His only visitors were his parents. 'He never showed any interest in having conversations with anybody. He seemed like a shy person. He never spoke a word when he was around any of us in the suite,' said one room-mate, Karan Grewal. In the past few weeks, Cho's routines seem to have shifted. He started going to the gym, beefing up his slight frame. He cut his hair short. He started waking up earlier, rising at 5.30am. He began taking night-time bike rides, disappearing for hours to roam the campus paths. These were the superficial changes. Unknown to anyone but himself, Cho was plotting mass murder. Nineteen days before he began shooting, he took a road-trip, renting a car and staying a night in a nearby hotel in Christiansburg. It was on this trip that he would film some of his rambling, hate-laden last testament. It is likely that he also used the privacy to take pictures of himself posing with his guns, a knife and a hammer. He also began drafting manuscripts blaming the outside world and decrying the lifestyles of his fellow students. Cho prepared in private. But police are checking to see if he had mentioned or hinted at his plans, whether by phone or email. He certainly had to buy his guns in public. Tragically, it is neither difficult nor unusual for a 23-year-old student legally to buy powerful weapons in Virginia. On 9 February, Cho purchased a Walther P22 pistol from a pawn shop on Main Street in Blacksburg. He then waited just over a month - in order to comply with Virginia state law - before buying a second weapon. On 16 March, he picked out a Glock semi-automatic from Roanoke Firearms, in a town about 30 miles away. With each purchase Cho filled out the correct forms and passed a background check. No one asked what a 23-year-old English student could possibly want with two powerful hand-guns. What the sellers did not know was that Cho had once spent a night in a mental hospital in 2005. Nor does Virginia law deem it necessary that anyone divulge such information. Yet it represented, perhaps, the biggest sign Cho was not an ordinary young man, but had at least once been through a very troubled passage in his life. There were other signs, albeit less definite. In two separate incidents, young women on campus had complained to police he was bothering them with unwanted advances, in person, on the phone or via text messaging. Last autumn, one of Cho's teachers, poet Nikki Giovanni, had become so disturbed by the violent imagery in Cho's work that she insisted he be removed from her class. 'I am not allowed to say what he was writing,' she explained 'But it was not bad poetry. It was intimidating. What I wanted was him out of my class.' He had also been taking pictures of his fellow students, many of whom had stopped attending class to avoid him. At the same time, Cho - in a rare remark to a dorm mate - said he might kill himself after the police spoke to him about pestering girls. The student reported the remark and Cho was sent for an overnight evaluation at the Carilion St Albans Psychiatric Hospital - the 2005 visit. 'Affect is flat and mood is depressed,' a Carilion doctor wrote, but noted that Cho's 'insight and judgment are sound' and that he had denied suicidal intentions. The next day, a judge, following the doctor's advice that Cho was mentally ill but posed no immediate danger, ordered him to take outpatient treatment. That was probably the greatest opportunity that presented itself to stop or help Cho. After that, he resumed his solitary existence, a phantom presence at Virginia Tech. Perhaps it was also the moment that Cho's deep resentment came to fruition. His stalking - though disturbing - was at least an attempt to reach out to other human beings. That grasp for contact had ended with the police and a stay in a mental hospital. It is not too great a stretch to imagine Cho's warped rage at such rejection. Perhaps, almost 17 months ago, the first thoughts of revenge began to take shape. At just after 5am on Monday, Karan Grewal bumped into his flatmate, Cho. Grewal had stayed up all night to finish an assignment and he had been to the bathroom before going, finally, to sleep. Cho looked normal, Grewal thought. Two hours later Cho killed Emily Hilscher, 18, and Ryan Clark, 23, at Ambler Johnston. Why he chose them - or that building - is not known. But investigators have strong suspicions that Cho may have had some form of contact with Hilscher, and have since been scouring her computer and phone looking for evidence. Cho's whereabouts immediately after the attack are unknown. Perhaps he returned to his dorm room; perhaps not. What is certain is that he eventually walked across campus to the post office in Blacksburg, a 15-minute stroll away on Main Street. The post office was busy with people rushing to beat the national tax deadline and Cho did not stand out among the crowd. He was posting a package - wrongly addressed - to NBC News in New York. It contained his 'manifesto'. He finally mailed his package at 9.01am, after a clerk noticed that he had put the wrong postal code on it. Then he made his way back to the campus. Cho - despite having murdered two fellow students - was still anonymous; the campus was still mostly normal. Unknown to Cho, police and university officials had gone down a disastrous blind alley in their reaction to the Ambler Johnston shootings. When police broke the news to one of Hilscher's room-mates that her friend was dead, she told them that Hilscher's new boyfriend, Karl Thornhill, loved guns and had recently taken them shooting. At 8.25am, university and police officials held a meeting and decided they faced a 'domestic'. Thornhill was tracked down in his car and pulled off the road. It was decided not to lock down the campus. They believed the gunman had fled, or that they had already caught him. Some time before 9.40am, Cho walked into Norris Hall, on the other side of the sports field from Ambler Johnston. Once inside, he closed the doors with metal chains. He wandered the corridors, even poking his head into the German class in Room 207. Students inside assumed he was lost and late for a lecture. Cho shut the door and resumed his wandering. He may have been dealing with last-minute regrets, mulling whether it was too late to turn back. More likely he was selecting his first target. He choose Room 206, where Professor Give Loganathan was giving a hydrology class. Cho simply walked in and started shooting. Aiming his two guns methodically around the class, he shot people repeatedly, wordlessly and without any hurry. Only four people survived in Room 207, by playing dead or being shielded by the bodies of their dead friends. Then Cho walked out. Yesterday, Loganathan was buried. In other classes, the popping sounds were greeted with confusion and fear. Some appeared to know exactly what they were; others thought it was noise from a nearby construction site. Cho walked into Room 207. He fired a bullet into the head of the German teacher, James Bishop, a well-liked 35-year-old. Cho then stood at the front of the class, killing students in the first rows and then moving to the rear. He fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. Students fell dead or wounded. Others cowered behind desks. He went next into the French class in Room 211. Alarmed by the initial bangs, the teacher, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, had asked her class in disbelief: 'That's not what I think it is?' It was. She told her students to get to the back of the class and began putting desks against the door. It was heroism on her part. But it was not enough. Cho barged in, shot her dead and then worked his way through her class. Cho then returned to Room 207. By then, students had blocked the door. Cho tried to force and shoot his way through. But, fighting for their lives, the students - some gravely wounded - held him off this time. It was the same in a computer class. Those students also fought off Cho, even though he fired at the door. There were many acts of heroism. Some staunched their friends' wounds and tied tourniquets around shattered limbs. Many blockaded doors despite having been shot. By now students and staff were fleeing through windows. As Cho walked from room to room, trying to find more people to shoot, he killed Kevin Granata, a biomechanics teacher who had served in the US armed forces. Granata had rushed downstairs and confronted Cho. He shot him dead. Then Cho tried to get into Room 204, where Professor Liviu Librescu was giving an engineering class. Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor, had been urging his students to flee out of the windows. Most of them did. As Cho tried to enter the room, the ageing teacher flung himself against the door, buying vital time for more students to leave. But Librescu could not hold him off forever. Cho murdered him and entered the room. By now, it was almost over. Cho had fired more than 200 rounds, reloading an estimated 15 times. The police arrived, eventually smashing open the chained doors. Bodies lay everywhere in slicks of blood. Cho had shot many of them repeatedly in his determination to kill. Armed police moved from room to room, ordering wounded survivors to hold up their hands to show they had no weapons. Cho knew the end was near. He put one of his guns to his head and pulled the trigger. The shot almost tore off his face. When police found him, his guns at his side, they knew he was dead. 'Shooter down! Black tag!' they screamed. Cho's killing spree was over. The story of the horror he left behind had barely begun. When Cho's identity was first released, it came as no surprise to a few who had had contact with the loner. It confirmed their worst fears. But to most, the reaction was simply: who? Gradually, piece by piece, a picture of Cho's life has emerged. It is a disturbing one. Just as his time on campus was marked by solitude and anger, so was his school and childhood. Cho seemed to have been born in a personal mental prison from which he either could not escape or chose not to. The one true surprise was that this perpetrator of such an American crime originally came from many thousands of miles away. Cho was born in South Korea. His parents ran a small, second-hand book store in Seoul, the capital, and lived in a cramped apartment. They had been a reluctant husband and wife. Cho's father was from a poor southern family, while his mother's kin were landowners from the north, dispossessed during the Korean War. The marriage was arranged against the wife-to-be's wishes, but she had little choice. The family struggled to build a life and eventually moved to America at the invitation of relatives. They arrived in 1992, hoping for the best for their two children. They worked hard, in a laundry and a restaurant. And, like so many determined immigrants, they made it. They lived in a pleasant Washington DC suburb. Cho's sister, Sun, went to Princeton. But there was one cloud on this heart-warming story of success: Cho himself. Back in South Korea, the family had noticed his deep, sullen silences as an infant. His grandfather worried he might be mute; his mother thought he was mentally ill. A committed Christian, she tried to involve her church in reaching out to the boy after his silences grew worse on the move to America. She prayed for him regularly. It did not make for a happy teenage existence. Clearly depressed and struggling with English, Cho became a target for bullies at Westfield High School in nearby Chantilly. Once, after refusing to read aloud in an English class, Cho was forced to speak. When he did, students laughed at his strange voice and told him to 'go back to China'. He was teased as the 'trombone kid' for his habit of walking to school alone carrying his musical instrument. He rarely spoke, playing solitary basketball in his home's quiet cul-de-sac and ignoring the hellos of his neighbours. Things got worse in college. His fellow students remember reaching out to him at the start of class or when they moved into a dorm with him. He was invited to dine with them at local restaurants. But Cho showed little interest in talking. He would ignore them or answer in one-word replies. It was the same in class: Cho sat at the back, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap. In one now notorious incident, when he filled out a sign-in sheet at the start of a literature class, he refused to write his name. Instead he put a question mark. In campus banter, Cho had turned from the 'trombone kid' to the 'question mark kid'. It became his totem. One of the girls he stalked awoke one morning to find a large question mark written on her room's message board. Undoubtedly Cho's stone-like facade hid a mind in deep distress. A few signs broke the surface. Once, at a party, Cho revealed to room-mates that he had a girlfriend, presumably imaginary. She was called Jelly, he said. She was a model and she called him Spanky. It was a brief and bizarre glimpse into Cho's inner world. Another incident occurred after he had been reprimanded for bothering a girl student. In a quiet moment, he told one room-mate that he had wanted to look in her eyes and see if she was as 'cool' as he thought. But he had been disappointed. He had gone to her dorm room and seen only 'promiscuity'. Such insights were few and far between. Some students joked about him being a possible college shooter. One teacher had a codeword she could use when teaching him if she became fearful for herself. It sounds dramatic, but she never used it. Cho continued to keep to himself. He wore sunglasses in class. He had no friends. His room had no pictures or posters. He often just stared blankly at the walls or ceiling. He slept with the light on and never shut his door. He was a walking void. The silence Cho maintained in life was broken after his death. The package he sent to NBC contained 29 photographs, 27 short videos and an 1,800-word diatribe. In the clips, Cho is hard-eyed, his voice a tense, controlled staccato of rage. He speaks quickly but clearly. He is no longer silent. The pent-up emotions of his damaged psyche boil to the surface. Cho finally revealed himself. Cho was severely mentally ill: no sane person murders 32 people. But such sicknesses vary greatly. Cho was no serial killer. He was not a sociopath. In fact, experts say, Cho's rampage was a form of suicide. He killed because he considered himself the victim; those he killed he saw as villains. 'This was revenge. He wanted to kill himself, but first he was going to take others with him, people he saw as persecuting him,' said Professor Jack Levin, an expert on mass murderers at Northeastern University in Boston. Certainly that was what emerged from Cho's own words. He felt himself utterly victimised. 'You have vandalised my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people,' he said. 'You' was the world as a whole, especially the students who he felt ignored him. He claimed he had not chosen to kill but had been forced into it. The coming massacre, he warned, was not his fault. 'You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, 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.' Such transference of blame is rare among serial killers, for whom blame or guilt are alien concepts. 'It is a very elaborate blaming system. These people come from a sense of powerlessness,' said Gregg McCrary, a former FBI profiler. Cho also railed against what he saw as hedonism and materialism all around, perhaps revealing a deep resentment of his poorer background. 'Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats,' he cried 'Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac weren't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfil your hedonistic needs.' It was the product of a diseased mind, but the words strike a tone horribly familiar to those who had shared creative writing classes with Cho. In poetry and drama classes, Cho had consistently produced work whose violence, sexual imagery and anger had upset classmates and teachers. One former student, Ian MacFarlane, had kept copies of Cho's two plays and posted them on-line. They are deeply disturbing. One, Richard McBeef, deals with a young man confronting his step-father about murder and child abuse. The second - Mr Brownstone - has three students describing their desire to kill a sadistic teacher. Reading the plays is not easy. They are violent, profane and obsessed with scatological sex. They are not like reading the mind of a deranged 23-year-old: they are like reading the mind of a deranged 13-year-old. MacFarlane said he had thought of what he would do if Cho were ever to bring a gun to class. 'I was that freaked about him,' he said. As people struggle to understand Cho, many experts think the specifics are not important. It is the tone of persecution and victimhood that matter. 'He is clearly clinically depressed, probably delusional, and has been so for a very long period of time,' said Levin. There are other tantalising clues the meaning of which may never be known. Cho was found with the words 'Ismail Ax' in red ink on his arm. The return address on the NBC package was 'A. Ishmael'. It is impossible to know what that means, but suggestions have varied from the Bible to the Koran to Moby Dick to a Turkish hip hop artist. One literary reference Cho used was obvious. He quoted Romeo and Juliet. 'My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,' he wrote. Cho picked out the words about forbidden love and turned them against his own identity. It was morbidly fitting. He had denied his own name in class. His last act in life was to blast off his own face. Cho Seung-hui did not exist in a vacuum. His actions sprang from the gun-drenched culture of America where buying a rifle can be as easy as buying groceries. The shop where Cho bought his Glock is Roanoke Firearms, standing on a busy road about half an hour's drive from Blacksburg. A bumper sticker on one wall declares, 'Buy A Gun For America'. America is a highly armed society. Gun rights groups argue that citizens have to be able to defend themselves. Yet it is also easy for deranged people to obtain powerful firearms. The statistics speak for themselves. There are 200 million privately held guns in America. Each year, they cause roughly 30,000 deaths and 300,000 gun-related assaults. Cho's massacre is just a drop in a very bloody pool. 'It is long overdue for us to take some commonsense actions to prevent tragedies like this from continuing to occur,' said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. That such steps have not been taken yet is the result of the power of the National Rifle Association and the popular worship of gun use it encourages. The NRA is one of the most effective lobbying groups in American politics. It is motivated by a desire to protect the right of any American to own, carry and use firearms. It has an annual budget of $180m and 3.8 million members. The NRA also contributes about nine times more money to politicians' campaign coffers than gun control groups. Even now, even after Cho and his two hours of carnage, few politicians dare speak out against gun rights, despite the fact that Congress is now controlled by the Democrats. In fact, the one thing that seems certain in a post-Cho America is that another such massacre will happen again, and that it may possibly be even worse, as each perpetrator attempts to 'beat' the last. Already a spate of copycat incidents have occurred across the country. In Houston, a man killed a hostage and himself at the Nasa space centre. In Florida, a teenager was arrested after threatening in an email to kill 100 people. Near Seattle, another high school student was arrested while in possession of three loaded guns. Classes in a Nevada university were cancelled after a man sent a text message saying: 'The Korean is my hero.' The saturation media coverage, and especially the controversial broadcast of Cho's videos, will provide an anti-hero for some disturbed youth. Somewhere in America, in some school or college, a future Cho may already be allowing themselves to think along the same lines: loneliness, victimhood, revenge and suicide - and all on a world stage. They will not find it hard to find guns with which to kill. 'We are in trouble. This is not the end of it,' said Levin. But, just as Cho's actions reveal the dark heart of an American society at home with firearms, it also reveals the other country, the emotional America, the America of positives. The America of his victims. The roll call of the dead speaks of a land of variety and opportunity. The dead should not be defined by dying at Cho's hands, but by their own lives and deeds. They came from everywhere. There was Minal Panchal from Mumbai, a graduate student in architecture. There was Juan Ortiz Ortiz from Puerto Rico, who loved to dance salsa and played the timbales. There was Waleed Shaalan, 32, from Egypt, who leaves behind a widow and three fatherless children. Professor Librescu had escaped the Nazis and Romanian communism only to give up his life for his students. There were also young American women, full of hope and prospects - girls like Hilscher, whose small frame led her to name herself 'Pixie'. Or Reema Samaha, 18, who loved dancing and planned to spend the summer in France, working at a children's camp. Or Austin Cloyd, 18, the daughter of a Virginia Tech professor, who went on Christian mission trips in the Appalachian mountains, repairing the roofs and plumbing of the poorest of the poor. Or Erin Peterson, 18, a star basketball player who was as gentle off court as she was ferocious on it. They were also young men such as Jarrett Lan, 28, who was about to graduate in civil engineering and had been a four-sport athlete at his high school. Or Henry Lee, who had come to the US from China barely able to speak English. He belonged to an internet socialising group called 'My name is Henry Lee' with other people sharing his name. In a recent online post, he had joked about having a convention. 'We wouldn't need name tags,' he wrote. Cho's victims spanned a vast spectrum of life. They were young, middle-aged, elderly. They were students and professors. They were men and women. They were biologists, engineers and linguists. They were black, white, Middle Eastern, Jewish and Asian. They were Christian. Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. They were American and foreign-born. They had all started that terrible Monday in the expectation that their lives would continue. Cho cut them short, suddenly and inexplicably, leaving behind unimaginable grief for husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children, colleagues and friends. But Cho also ensured they were honoured in their deaths. Their lives were celebrated by a mourning nation. Amid all the tributes springing up on campus, the tone is one of happy remembrance as well as grief. Perhaps one example among the thousands can stand for them all. It was written to Reema Samaha: 'Reema, wherever you are, I know that your smile and your dancing is joyous.' Cho's own family are in hiding under police protection. They are also shattered and despairing. Late last Friday, Cho's sister, Sun, released a statement for the family as a whole. It mentioned each victim by name. '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,' Sun said. 'My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.' There is still a long way, a marathon, for this college, town and country to travel on the road to recovery. And incredibly many are determined to take Cho along with them. There is very little anger at Cho on campus, just disbelief and despair. He is not hated: he is pitied by many who wonder how someone can commit such evil, and slaughter 32 fellow human beings. Steven Dellinger, 20, stood on a rise in front of the main memorial. He thought about Cho all the time, he said. 'I just wish someone had got to him. If only he had been able to have a friend who could have helped him out.' Behind Dellinger, a row of stone blocks - a memorial - has been laid out in a semi-circle, hugging a cluster of candles and messages. Each unmarked stone is topped with a flower and a Virginia Tech pennant. They represent the dead. There are 33 stones. Cho, whose lonely life turned his mind in ways one can hardly imagine, finally has company. On Guardian Unlimited Full coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings Gun violence in the US Gun violence in Britain Full US coverage Related articles Virginia massacre gunman named Unofficial list of shooting victims emerges Massacre on campus Q&A: US gun laws World news guide North American Media Media CNN New York Times Washington Post Government Virginia state government portal US government portal White House Senate House of Representatives -- Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007. Original Source: Guardian Unlimited / EducationGuardian.co.uk http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2063553,00.html
In consideration of the fee of GBP 0.00 ("the Fee") Guardian News & Media Limited ("GNM") grants the Licensee the right to: publish on its website for 10 years. Contact info: Eve Thompson; permissions.syndication@guardian.co.uk
A teddy bear and an angel are placed outside the War Memorial Chapel. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468803318/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0
Paul Trum http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468803318/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0
These warnings are posted everywhere on campus buildings to ward off the media from attending class when the students returned. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468776222/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0
Paul Trum http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468776222/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0
Students from the law school at Texas Tech University sent a signed message board to Virginia Tech to express their support and condolences. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468762863/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0
Permission: Paul Trumble http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468762863/
Flowers are laid at the War Memorial Chapel to mourn the victims. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468810625/in/set-72157600109935601/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0
Permission: Paul Trumble http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468810625/in/set-72157600109935601/
Items are laid outside of Norris Hall in remembrance. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468800615/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0
Permission: Paul Trumble http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468800615/
Sometimes I can be really eloquent. Giving a toast at a wedding, a briefing at work; I can really hit the post. I've been wanting to write about how I feel here for two days. But I haven't, stopped by disbelief, the taxes I couldn't bring myself to finish on Monday, and the belief that I wouldn't adequately be able to put together words to explain what Blacksburg and Tech have meant to me. That picture, http://farm1.static.flickr.com/5/6929893_3276db6dfb_m.jpg, is of a couple of my old room mates Jeff (in glasses) and Donnie tailgating at the Tech - USC game in August of 2004. I graduated from Virginia Tech in 1986, with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies. 20 plus years later, we are still close friends. Probably closer than we were in school. We vacation together, are godparents to each others kids, and watch football obviously. Blacksburg is a special place. When you're there, you might not realize how special. It's beautiful, peaceful and even knows how to have a good time. I have idyllic (and therefore heavily filtered) memories of my time at school. I think that's why all of my old room mates and I are still such good friends. When you leave Blacksburg, you realize that the real world isn't so beatiful, isn't so peaceful, isn't so special. And you reach out and hold on to whatever can give you a little of that Blacksburg feeling again. After 20 years you'll still see most of the alumni I know dressed pretty much like the kids you've been watching on TV this week. Virginia Tech Sweatshirts and Hats are ubiguitous. Returning to Blacksburg, was to drink in that atmosphere, to rejuvenate the energy that the real world has sapped from you. Coming around the 460 bypass and seeing the mountains rise up beyond campus elated me. A burger at Mike's, a pitcher at Hokie House, a walk across campus returned me to the man of my youth. And now that bastard has let so much of the real world into Blacksburg, where it doesn't belong and isn't welcome. It's amazing the lasting ties that we have to Tech. One old college friend is an agronomy professor there now. I spent Monday morning exchanging emails with him as he was locked in his office. Today I can't help but think about all the students that I met at his tailgate last Fall. Jeff, I'm sure, knew Dr. Librescu. Three or four of the victims so far have been international studies majors. The statistical improbability of that I can't explain. I graduated in a class of 6,000 with only 12 other international studies majors. Soon the news vans will leave, hopefully the TV movie vans won't come right behind them, and we can all hope that the ugliness of the real world ebbs back out of town. God bless the victims, the heroes, the students, everyone. Ut Prosim. posted by Paulie @ 07:02 April 18, 2007 Permalink: http://paultrumble.blogspot.com/2007/04/where-do-we-go-now-sometimes-i-can-be.html
Chinese woman cited for rescuing US campus students
A Chinese woman assistant professor, or rather a doctoral student at the college of engineering at Virginia Tech, has shed a light onto the campus shooting rampage on April 16, which claimed a toll of 33 lives (including that of the gunman himself). In the past two days, a wise Chinese middle-age lady has been featured in American media, and her name is Haiyan Cheng, who, calm and composed, rescued the lives of students in her class at an extremely precarious situation. When her story was released and publicized, many Americans admired her courage from their bottom of hearts, "Really great, the Chinese." April 16 was a murky day at Virginia Tech when Seung-hui Cho, a young South Korean student, drenched the university compass in bloodbath. In Classroom 206, when students of civil engineering were having their lesson, their professor fell in blood. In Room 207, a German lesson was in session, 10 of a dozen students were shot and killed, in Room 211, a French lesson was in session, there were about 15 casualties out of the 20 students at the class and their professor was massacred ï¿½ï¿½ Meanwhile, in Room 205, the whole class still retained intact as Haiyan Cheng, the assistant professior, was filling in for the professor, who was away at a conference. Cheng, now in her late 30s and the mother of one daughter, came to the United States from the city of Hohhot, northern China in 1998. She obtained a Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Michigan Technological University and a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Windsor, Canada. She is now working on her PH.D at the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech and concurrently serves as an assistant professor. Cheng arrived at the campus oft Virginia Tech earlier as usual that day (April 16). Her class started at nine o"clock sharp am and went into her office to at 8:50 am to check her emails. When she went into her class at about 9 am, an unexpected tragedy occurred all of sudden shortly afterwards. In an interview with the "Washington Post", she recalled: "At 9:40 am, or 15 minutes before the end of my class, I heard the loud banging outside, very loud outside the classroom, but I could hardly tell where the banging came from, but one thing was certain that we were very close to the source of the banning. I mistook it as construction noise at first. Then came silence, a ten-minute silence, and more pops followed as I turned to the next subject..." A female student sitting at the front row was curious and rose to look around to see what was happening. Chen and that female student went to the door and peered out. It turned out that queer sounds came from Room 208, but no abnormity so far could be seen as its door kept closed. All of a sudden, they saw a man emerge from Room 208 across the hall. He was holding a gun, but it was pointed down. This gave her a start. At this moment, two boy students rushed out from corridors, and the gunman gunned down them immediately. two bullets flashing past Cheng's ears, and they quickly shut the door. "When coming back into the room, she told her students that the situation was in peril and then called every one to crawl onto the ground. One student from India, Zach Petkowicz, who was near the lectern "cowering behind it", realized the door was vulnerable, so proposed propping it up to stop the gunman from entering the room. There was a heavy rectangular table in the class, and she and several of her students pushed it against the door. When sporadic fire shots were heard, Cheng urged her students not to be scared but to hide themselves. No sooner had they fixed it in place than the gunman pushed hard from the outside. He forced it open about six inches, but no farther. He fired two shots through the door. In an e'mail to her friends, she said "we all crawled on the ground and felt very panic when heard the gunman change (cartridge) chargers. People inside the room used mobile phones to report the case to police. The gunman tried hard to open the doors several times but failed and then moved on. But sporadic fire shots did not end. Cheng and her students hid them in the room till they heard sounds of siren from outside the window. These startled students and Cheng stayed behind in the room till everything calmed down outside and heard knocks on the door. They finally verified when Cheng verified those knocked on the door was policeman. When the police were leaving, they told students it was safe then and other fellow policemen would soon arrive soon. And other police came one minute later, students lined up after them and escaped, Cheng acknowledged. Once outside the classroom, Haiyan Cheng saw used cartridges scattered on the ground, She urged her students to run away and not to step onto blood strains. When Cheng heard a female student sobing, she turned round to take her hand and lead her to safety along with other students. As soon as she escaped the danger, she emailed her husband and her research team about her safety. Despite praises lavished upon her, Cheng remained a low profile, saying her students had filled her with pride, and they did very well indeed. They worked together at the critical moment and made the correct decision. She said she felt extremely brtu sorry and appalled about such a tragedy, which posed a terrible nightmare for Virginia Tech. On the evening of April 16, Haiyan Cheng attended a funeral service at Blacksburg Church at the site of Virginia Tech, an Associated Press reporter took a photo of her praying for those who had died in the mass killings, which were used by a number of American media press units. On April 17, Cheng and her husband were shown attending another grand funeral service, The Washington Post carried her story in its websites, which was spread far and wide. People praised her "bravery" and the friend of one reporter referred to her as "the great hero of that classroom', and quite a few netizens said that she had won the honor for the Chinese, and foster their "positive image". Zheng, who however remained sober-minded, referred to herself as as simply "no hero". She said she was simple-minded, and what she was thinking about was only for survive. To be specific, they only did a correct thing, she said. -- Original Source: People's Daily Online, China http://english.people.com.cn/200704/23/eng20070423_368938.html
PD reporter Duan Congcong and PD special report to the UN Headquarters Hou Lingyu
Many Americans have once again been plunged into terror since a gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history, and a string of endless media reports, the gunman's cruel, merciless confessions and blood shed by 32 victims have further increased the fear of Americans. First of all, it is the fear of guns. As some American resolutely defend or safeguard their rights to own or possess guns conferred by the US constitution, other Americans cannot but have to live in a gloomy shadow at gun points. At present, 35 percent of the American families own their guns, with the existence of some 260 million guns (of which perhaps 60 million are handguns) in the United States. For scores of years, political rifts, rivals and even struggles centered on gun control have never ceased with the repeated occurrence of homicides or murder cases. As the National Rifle Association, or NRA, and other related organizations are so powerful that it was hardly possible for US Congress to pass a bill for the rigid control of guns. Secondly, it is the fear of people and, to be specific, the fear of alien immigrants. Right after the massacre at Virginia Tech, someone immediately came out to direct accusations against a student from the Chinese mainland in press and there was also a reference to a Pakistani. And all sorts of such conjectures and suspicions of Asian immigrants inundated all of sudden overnight in US media and society. Police identified the shooter in the campus killings as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior from South Korea who was in the English Department at Virginia Tech and lived on the campus. Then, the ambassador of the Republic of Korea (ROK) to the United States and ROK immigrant groups or societies openly and promptly made their apologies to the American people, and the ROK itself was, too, landed itself in a state of immense restlessness. Apparently, the South Korean immigrants in the U.S. and ROK residents have also felt terrified for the fear of being retaliated against or subjected to retributive punishment. The merging or integration of races in American society has all along a problem. There were repeated voices of "Go home, South Koreans" despite the fact that American media and general public have, in an overall way, retained a "politically correct" composure and quite a few people voiced sympathy for Cho Seung-Hui for the mental illness he had tormented with. In fact, ever since the 9/11 attacks of 2001 in the U.S., the Americans have always been living in terror imposed upon by terrorists. US strategist Zbigniew Brzenzinki censured or criticized the Bush administration for the erroneous policy it had implemented to generate fear in a recent article by capitalizing on a sense of terror among people wrought by 9/11 attacks in the U.S. The war on terror has created a culture of fear in America, he noted, adding that the Bush Administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact in American democracy, on America's psyche and on US standing in the world. "Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against the U.S.," warned Brzenzinski. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to Americans in a ringing phrase that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," which inspired American to cope with terror they endured correctly and thus brought a new style to the US presidency. To date, Americans seem to have been thrown into still greater terrors, though their country has been turned into the sole global superpower. -- Original Source:People's Daily Online, China http://english.people.com.cn/200705/08/eng20070508_372880.html
EEUU endurece sus leyes sobre armas tras la matanza de Virginia Tech
Creado por Periodista Digital 14.06.07 El asesinato de 32 personas por un estudiante desequilibrado el pasado mes de abril en la Universidad Politécnica de Virginia, en Estados Unidos, ha propiciado que por primera vez en 10 años el sacrosanto derecho a portar armas que impera en el país vaya a ser matizado con un control más estricto en los puntos de venta y del historial (psiquiátrico y delictivo) de los compradores. La nueva ley ha sido propuesta por la ultraconservadora Asociación Nacional del Rifle (NRA, en sus siglas inglesas) y aprobada por aclamación ayer en la Cámara de Representantes. Ahora espera el trámite final en el Senado. "Tal y como nos recordó el tiroteo de Virginia Tech, existe una urgente necesidad nacional de mejorar el sistema de antecedentes" para controlar a quién llegan las armas, señaló la presidenta de la Cámara, la demócrata Nancy Pelosi. Según el texto, los Estados que conforman EE UU se beneficiarán de importantes incentivos financieros para poner al día la base de datos sobre personas para las que está prohibido comprar un arma, en particular criminales y sujetos con problemas psiquiátricos. Además, los Estados serán multados si no ponen en marcha estas medidas. Sin embargo, y como una concesión a la NRA, la nueva legislación permitirá también que personas que hayan cometido "infracciones menores" sean eliminadas del fichero, así como que los veteranos de guerra con problemas mentales incluidos en el mismo tengan la posibilidad de limpiar el registro. Una matanza evitable En el caso de Cho Seung-Hui, el estudiante que mató a 32 personas en Virginia, éste nunca debía haber obtenido el permiso para comprar un arma, dado que tenía antedecentes de problemas psiquiátricos. Wayne La Pierre, vicepresidente de la NRA, ha precisado que la ley no "descalifica a nadie" que tenga la intención de comprar un arma legalmente, si no que, "al contrario, al contrario, da la oportunidad aquéllos que han sido descalificados de "limpiar su nombre". "Los dueños de armas no pierden nada en la ley, tal y como está formulada por el momento", ha recordado La Pierre a los más de cuatro millones de miembros de su asociación. -- Fuente Original: Periodista Digital.com http://blogs.periodistadigital.com/tizas.php/2007/06/14/virginia_tech_armas_seung_rifle_9933 Licencia de uso: Creative Commons Attribution 2.5.
DANIEL EL ESTUDIANTE PERUANO / DANIEL THE PERUVIAN STUDENT
Por Peruanista April 18, 2007 Esta tarde estuve leyendo la historia de Daniel Pérez Cueva, publicada en un diario local. Sentado en el tren de regreso a casa, no pude evitar conmoverme hasta casi llorar. La historia de este compatriota me resulta muy cercana, la historia de su familia, me es conocida por que es la historia de tantos inmigrantes, de mis amigos, mis alumnos, mis vecinos, es mi historia. Y me apena mucho. Una tragedia ha sepultado el esfuerzo de Daniel y de sus padres. Lo siento tanto por ellos. Ser inmigrante en EEUU no es fácil, como algunos podrían creen en Perú. La vida aquí no es un exilio dorado, pues aunque los estándares de calidad de vida son mejores, pero aquí todo cuesta obtener y cada día puede ser una lucha constante para muchos. La historia de Daniel y sus padres, es la historia de tantos peruanos en este país y en el mundo, tratando de encontrar un mejor futuro, que nuestra patria no nos pudo ofrecer lamentablemente. Y esto no es una queja inoportuna, sinó la realidad, aunque de lamentos no se puede vivir. Puedo ver a doña Betty Cuevas tratando de matricular a su hijo en la escuela secundaria, recién llegado de Perú. Tratando de conseguir los certificados de estudios de Lima, traduciéndolos, y vacunando a Daniel para que sea aceptado. Puedo ver a doña Betty trabajando en varios empleos, un full-time y un part-time como hacen tantos inmigrantes, para conseguir el dinero para la educación de sus hijos. Estoy seguro que los familiares en Lima celebraban cada éxito de Daniel, cada carta, llamada, cada noticia, habría sido motivos de orgullo para su padre, aún en la distancia. El sueño de Daniel se apaga, pero el fuego de su ejemplo sigue vivo en la memoria de su familia y amistades. Entre los peruanos inmigrantes, hay un sentimiento de pesar pero también de solidaridad. No solamente los Cueva-Pérez perdieron a un joven talentoso, sino también nuestra comunidad, nuestro primer país. Es tiempo para otros peruanos de continuar el sueño de alcanzar una mejor educación, que Daniel había comenzado. DANIEL THE PERUVIAN STUDENT Today I was reading the story about Daniel Pérez Cueva, published by a local newspaper. Riding the train back home, I couldn't avoid getting emotional, almost about to cry. The story of my compatriot seemed very close, his family's story sounds well known because it's the story of so many immigrants, of my friends, my students, my neighbors, it's my story. And I am very sad. A tragedy has buried the effort of Daniel and his parents. I am so sorry for them. Being an immigrant in the US is not that easy, as many in Peru might think. Life here is not like a golden exile, because even though life standards are better, but here every thing takes effort to obtain and every day can be a constant struggle for many. The story of Daniel and his parents, is the story of so many Peruvians in this country and the rest of the world, trying to find a brighter future, which sadly we couldn't find in our country. And this isn't an impertinent complain, but is reality, though we can't live out of complaints. I can see doña BettyCuevas trying to enroll his son in high school, right after his arrival from Peru. I can see her trying to get his school transcripts from Lima, translating them, getting Daniel vaccinated so he can be accepted. I can see doña Betty working in several jobs, a full-time and a part-time as many immigrants do so, in order to get the money for her children's education. I am sure that his relatives in Lima were celebrating each of Daniel's achievements, every letter and phone call, every news, they had to be a reason for his father to be proud, even if he was far away. Daniel's dream is extinguished, but the fire of his example is alive in his family and friend's memory. Among Peruvian immigrants, there is a sorrow feeling but also a solidarity response. The death of a talented young man is not only a lost for the Cueva-Pérez family, but also of our community, and our first country. It's time for other Peruvians to continue the effort of getting a better education, which Daniel had started. -- Fuente Original: Peruanista http://peruanista.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html Derechos Reservados: Cretive Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.
too much coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy
April 19, 2007 The amount of coverage has been staggering--dozens of stories per day in the top national newspapers, nightly broadcast news programs that are lengthened by half an hour, 24-hour repetitions of the same information on cable news, even a blow-by-blow account in the "Kid's Post" section of the Washington Post, which my 7-year-old reads. I first found out about the Blacksburg tragedy because a student TV news crew stopped me on the street to ask my opinion. This is a global phenomenon: Le Monde and the BBC also led with Cho Seung-hui's picture when I looked. It's a choice to devote so much space and time to those 33 deaths. Bombers killed 158 in US-occupied Baghdad on Wednesday. Nigeria, the biggest country in Africa, saw violence connected to its presidential vote. Comparisons are odious; they imply that one doesn't care about particular victims and that human lives can be counted and weighed. I do sympathize with the Blacksburg victims and their families. I sympathize because I have been told their stories in detail; but there are many other stories that I could have been told--other tragedies, or (for that matter) other narratives that are important but not tragic. Perhaps the Virginia Tech victims deserve sympathy from all of us, but I suspect they would prefer less attention. I find it hard to see how the deserve something they don't want. One reason to tell the Virginia Tech story in detail is to provide us with the information we might need to act as voters and members of various communities. For instance, I work at a university much like Virginia Tech and could agitate for new policies in my institution. But it is generally a bad idea to act on the basis of extremely rare events. There have been about 40 mass shootings in the USA. During the period when those crimes have occurred, something like half a billion total people have been alive in America. That means that 0.000008 percent of the population commits mass shootings. There cannot be a general circumstance that explains why someone does something so rare. The availability of weapons, mental illness, video games--none of these prevalent factors can "explain" something that in 99.999992 percent of cases does <im>not happen. (Bayes' theorem seems relevant here, but I cannot precisely say why.) It is foolish to use such rare events to make policy at any level--from federal laws to school rules. For instance, if lots of people carried concealed weapons, there is some chance that the next mass killer would be stopped after he had shot some of his victims. But millions of people would have to carry guns, and that would cause all kinds of other consequences. The day after the Blacksburg killings, two highly trained Secret Service officers were injured on the White House grounds because one of them accidentally discharged his gun. Imagine how many times such accidents would happen per year if most ordinary college students packed weapons in order to prevent the next Blacksburg. The last paragraph was a rebuttal to those who want to use Cho Seung-hui as an argument for carrying concealed weapons. But it would be equally mistaken to favor gun control because it might prevent mass shootings. Maybe gun control is a good idea, but not because it would somewhat lower the probability of staggeringly rare events. Its other consequences (both positive and negative) are much more significant. If obsessive coverage of a particular tragedy does not help us to govern ourselves or make wise policies, it does reduce our sense of security and trust. It reinforces our belief that "current events" and "public affairs" are mostly about senseless acts of violence. It plants the idea that one can become spectacularly famous by killing other people. These are not positive consequences. It is moving that some students have started a "reach out to a loner" campaign on the Internet. They are trying to respond constructively to something that they have been told is highly important. Imagine what they might accomplish if they turned their attention to the prison population, the high-school dropout problem, or even ordinary mental illness. Posted by peterlevine at April 19, 2007 8:40 PM -- Original Source: http://www.peterlevine.ws/mt/archives/2007/04/too-much-covera.html This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5
(This message was distributed to all faculty, staff and students April 27, 2007.) In the days following the Virginia Tech tragedy, our solidarity with and sympathy for the faculty, staff, students and families affected by the loss of lives on April 16, 2007 remains front and centre in our minds. Openness and access are features that define us as a university, and we cherish those attributes greatly. At the same time we are conscious that these features make us vulnerable to the behaviour of troubled or violent people. Our overall approach to providing a safe environment is therefore guided by the desire to maintain and nurture openness while doing all we can to prepare for, prevent, and respond to crisis situations. The events of Friday April 20 were a good test of our overall philosophy and systems with respect to both safety and security. Shortly before 5 pm, a report was received of a male with a rifle in the vicinity of the bowl. Saskatoon Police Services (SPS) and Campus Safety responded, conducted a sweep of buildings in the vicinity, and declared the incident over at 7 pm. The next day SPS concluded, based on the report of another eyewitness, that the rifle was actually a bike seat and post and declared the incident a false alarm. This incident demonstrated strengths in our systems, including effective coordination with SPS. It also highlighted some areas for improvement, including our ability to communicate with the entire campus when necessary. There are many dimensions to our approach to safety. Our department of Campus Safety maintains a 24-hour watch over the campus, with a team of security staff on duty and a video-surveillance system. The U of S works closely and cooperatively with Saskatoon's emergency service organizations, engaging in joint training initiatives. There are a number of additional safety measures in place including safety alert notices, the Safewalk program, campus emergency phones, and counseling and health services for staff and students and their families. We encourage all members of our campus community to always be alert of potentially unsafe situations, suspicious persons or activities, and report anything unusual without hesitation to 966-5555 immediately, at any time of the day or night. Shortly after the Virginia tragedy, Vice-President Richard Florizone launched an assessment of the University's safety practices, with recommendations to be developed before the new academic year. The University continually reviews and renews its overall safety measures; however, this specific assessment seeks to ensure that our approach is based on best practices and incorporates the lessons learned in recent events. The personal safety and security of our campus community is of the greatest importance, and in this regard, we welcome any and all suggestions. Please forward any comments you have to richard.florizone@usask.ca. Peter MacKinnon, President, University of Saskatchewan Richard Florizone VP Finance and Resources, University of Saskatchewan (Posted on April 27, 2007) -- Original Source: http://blogs.usask.ca/studentnews/archive/2007/04/message_on_safe.html Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5.
Now You Have Blood On Your Hands That Will Never Come Off
Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English at Virginia Tech, has completed his transformation from Clark Kent to, well, Rambo. Having killed and maimed over thirty people, in a calculated and merciless way, he has shown another facet of evil and pain to the world. Alone, bitter, unhappy and insane, his sad story reverberates on several levels. Is it better to have stricter gun control, or have more guns in the hands of law abiding people to protect themselves? Have privacy laws and rights for the mentaly disabled gone too far, or should involuntary committment for treatment be easier to order? Has community and the support of family been destroyed by the cheapening of our culture, or has the stigma of needing help become so great that those most in need shun it? There were heros at Virgina Tech - Professor Lucinda Roy, who tried so hard to get Mr. Cho the help he so badly needed; another Professor, Liviu Librescu, a 76 year old Holocaust survivor who gave his life offering his body as a shield for his students; during the aftermath the poet, Nikki Giovanni, leading students in a cheer to affirm that they will survive and be stronger - 'We are HOKIES!'. But there is one party who will not be a hero during all this, and that is the National Broadcasting Company news organization. After Mr. Cho shot his first two victims in his dormitory, he made a rambling videotape with his jeremiad on debauched rich students and how they had driven him to this action, shortly before he entered a classroom, chained the doors shut and killed thirty more people. This insane person took the time to film and mail his video between murders, and NBC chose to make it public. Poor Dylan Klebold - he never thought of making videos before killing his classmates at Columbine High School. Now, Mr. Cho has created a new item in the iconography of mass murder, one that we will surely see again. We have come a long way from the days when shooting Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster was a ticket to fifteen minutes of fame and becoming an answer on a Trivial Pursuit card. Now we present a news network with 27 videos, 43 photographs and an 1,800-word narration described as "multimedia manifesto" from a "uniquely sick mind." NBC was quick to turn the package over to the FBI, right after making copies for itself. Mr. Cho could be speaking to NBC when he observes, "You had 100 billion chances and ways to have avoided today, 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." By choosing to give this presentation the validation of a platform, NBC has sent our nation and our heritage just one more step down a dank and violent road. Update: From 'Below the Beltway', an informative tribute by Doug Mataconis about Prof. Liviu Librescu posted by Peter Porcupine at 9:07 PM -- Original Source: http://capecodporcupine.blogspot.com/2007/04/now-you-have-blood-on-your-hands-that.html Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License
Local colleges reflect on Va. Tech shootings
By Peter Reuell/Daily News staff The MetroWest Daily News Posted Apr 16, 2008 @ 12:35 AM ASHLAND — A year after the shooting massacre that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech, security remains a concern on local college campuses. On campuses from Framingham to Franklin, officials said, the aftershocks of the shooting - and a more recent incident at Northern Illinois University, which left five others dead - are still being felt. After the April 16, 2007, killings at Virginia Tech, many schools quickly re-evaluated their security plans, particularly their ability to communicate with faculty and staff in a crisis. At many, including Framingham State College, the solution was to install a system that allows administrators to send emergency messages by phone and computer to the entire campus at the touch of a button. "You learn from the incident, and it allows you to, perhaps, make changes in your own systems," said Framingham State spokesman Peter Chisholm. The school later this month plans to finish installing a siren that will alert students, faculty and staff to campuswide emergencies. "At every college or university campus in the country, I'm sure, the president and public safety administrators sat down and reviewed what they had in place, and what improvements they could make," Chisholm said. The incident that sparked those meetings happened a year ago today in Blacksburg, Va. Just after 7 a.m., disturbed Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed two students in a dormitory, then went on a shooting rampage in a classroom building, eventually killing 32 people and himself. At Massachusetts Bay Community College in Wellesley, administrators are close to installing a campuswide notification system similar to Framingham State's. They have held numerous meetings to review the school's crisis policies. "There's a method or protocol for just about every situation that could arise on campus," said Lisa Cascio, the school's director of communications and public affairs. "When something like this happens, every campus across the country feels vulnerable." Along with an emergency communications system, Franklin's Dean College officials rely on an emergency alarm, which alerts everyone on campus to emergencies. "We've trained everybody to know - students, faculty and staff - if you hear that alarm, that means check your text messages," said Pat Samson, director of public relations and communications. "I think incidents like these, it's not that it raised the priority. I think it refocused attention," she added. "We want to make sure everything is up to date. "I think it sharpens the focus. (Safety) is in the top three things, so it's always on the minds of the college's administrators, and the families and the students. When these events happen, things just come more sharply into focus." (Peter Reuell can be reached at 508-626-4428 or preuell@cnc.com.) Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic -- Original Source: http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x489723324
18 April, 2007 I was doing a bit of wandering in Second Life today, and came across a rather well-done memorial to the Virginia Tech tragedy in an area that's academically focused (it's staffed 50+ hours per week by volunteer reference librarians around the world... very cool). There is a wall featuring portraits of those lost, as well as a place for people to leave memorials/tributes. It's done with a good heart and worth checking out. It's another example of communities coming together virtually (lots of positive energy in Facebook, too). posted by phe at 18:29 -- Original Source: http://www.phework.com/2007/04/virginia-tech-memorial-in-second-life.html Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States.
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States
Emergency plan and safety measures information
By Philip Caruso The Department of Public Safety, in conjunction with the Milwaukee Police Department and other government emergency agencies, has an emergency plan and training in the event a major security issue should occur. MPD is training all officers for an active shooter situation. "There may be a situation when an officer can't wait for the SWAT team," MPD spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said. "We hope we never have to use it." Public Safety officers are trained to carry semi-automatic weapons, batons and pepper spray. The university purchases bulletproof vests for Public Safety officers that they are required to wear. Cameras have been placed around campus to aid in preventing crime. Emergency blue light phones, which immediately connect with Public Safety dispatch, are stationed around campus. IDs are required in order to enter residence halls and Raynor Library. "Students and faculty should take any threatening-type comments heard from a friend or acquaintance as a serious threat and should be reported immediately," Associate Director of DPS Capt. Russ Shaw said. -- Original Sourc:Marquette Tribune - April 19, 2007
"Sheaffer, Amanda" <amanda.sheaffer@marquette.edu>
Virginia Tech's vigilant professor of English is a true leader Philip French Sunday April 22, 2007 The Observer The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday April 29 2007 In the article below we said, when referring to Virginia Tech , that 'Edgar Allan Poe enrolled there in the 1820s'. He was, in fact, a student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The Agricultural and Mechanical College, Virginia (Virginia Tech) was established in 1872. --------------------------------------------- This has been an extraordinary week for Yolanda Cornelia 'Nikki' Giovanni, born in Knoxville, Tennessee 64 years ago, called by some 'the Princess of Black Poetry', up in the African-American literary pantheon with Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou. A poet, essayist and political activist since her teens, Nikki Giovanni was a friend in the 1960s of the revolutionary Communist academic Angela Davis and the gay black polemicist and novelist James Baldwin. More recently she went bravely, recklessly public as an admirer of the late, embattled rap star Tupac Shakur. Since 1987, Giovanni has been a professor of English at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, an enormous multicultural campus now universally known as Virginia Tech. Edgar Allan Poe, among the first American poets to win wide acclaim in Europe and a writer with a peculiar understanding of madness, enrolled at the university in the 1820s. At that time, Virginia was a slave state, and after the Civil War it retained educational segregation until the 1950s. When the Korean-born, American-raised Cho Seung-hui marched out last Monday across the Virginia Tech campus, killing as he went, we have his demented account of the aggressive, vengeful thoughts that went through his mind. We have a more lucid idea of what went through the mind of his teacher, Nikki Giovanni. Cho's stories, conduct in class and general demeanour had excited her concern, suspicion and fear, which she conveyed to the university authorities. Last week, Virginia Tech provided Giovanni with a proper platform to speak on behalf of the university, its faculty and student body. She delivered her brief, beautiful 'chant poem' at the university's memorial service, and it brought together a heterogeneous campus. Her fresh eloquence was in marked contrast to the event's principal speaker, President George W Bush. The term 'Hokie', by the way, suggests some ancient Indian tribe. It was in fact coined at Virginia Tech in the late 19th century as a communal cheer, a version of 'hooray' or 'yeah', and became the name of the college's sports teams. Nikki Giovanni's 'chant poem' We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of Aids, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007. -- Original Source: Guardian Unlimited http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2062610,00.html
Eve Thompson-Acting Permissions Executive:permissions.syndication@guardian.co.uk
VT Vigils Make Us Ignore Other Tragedies
Commentary By Philip Grant Dear Chancellor Drake, My most heartfelt sympathies are also with those affected by the terrible events of last week at Virginia Tech. I write to you nonetheless not merely to share my sympathies with you, but to express my anger. I am deeply disturbed by the message you have sent to the community of UC Irvine. My misgivings lie at two levels. Firstly, I do not understand why the victims of the massacre at Virginia Tech are alone deemed worthy of special e-mail messages from the chancellor of the university, of candlelight vigils and so on. Consider the following statistics: Wednesday, April 18, 2007, Baghdad, Iraq: 200 dead in six separate bombings. March 6, 2007, Hilla, Iraq: 90 dead in two bombings. Feb. 3, 2007, Baghdad, Iraq: 130 dead in a single bombing. Dec. 2, 2006, Baghdad, Iraq: 50 dead in a single bombing. Nov. 23, 2006, Baghdad, Iraq: 200 dead in a series of bombings. These are only the major "incidents" of losses of civilian life in Iraq in the eight months since I have been at UCI. I do not recall any e-mail messages inviting us to candlelight vigils on their behalf. I do not recall that they were even considered worthy of a single second of serious reflection on any of our parts. Perhaps we are overcome by a surfeit of suffering: Whether one Iraqi dies or 100 is all the same to us, since there are just too many deaths for us to comprehend. What need solidarity, therefore? Yet the "families and friends of the victims" of the more than 60,000 Iraqi civilians (Iraq Body Count, reported deaths only) or the 100,000 to 150,000 Iraqi civilians (Iraqi Ministry of Health), or the 655,000 Iraqi civilians ("The Lancet") that have been killed since the beginning of the war - could we but speak with them face to face - might have something to teach us concerning what it means to be confronted with suffering on an unimaginable scale. Perhaps we can no longer muster the humility required to look on them and listen in attentive silence. What happens to our sense of solidarity, our compassion, our shared humanity, when we turn our attention from Virginia to Iraq? No doubt: The candle-flame of our sympathies is quickly extinguished by the chill currents of the Atlantic. Secondly, I am astonished that I am being told that "our nation" is in "stunned sorrow," that "everyone at UCI and across the nation" is affected by this tragedy. I remember being very impressed during my TA training when I first came to UCI by the instructors who taught us of the importance of being sensitive as teachers to the great diversity of the UCI community, to the wonderful variety of origins and backgrounds of the people we would be teaching or with whom we would be interacting during our careers here. I hope I have taken this lesson to heart and that I practice it during every waking hour of my time here. Yet I find that the chancellor of the university is appealing to my sympathies as part of "our nation," and I do not know how to react, except with sorrow. I am not of your nation! If I were in a minority of one, then perhaps I would shrug my shoulders and let these words pass. But I am not: There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of students, staff, and faculty at UCI who are not of "our nation"; we are grateful for the opportunities we have here, and we strive as hard as anyone to contribute to this community. Have you forgotten this? Am I - are we - not part of this community too? May we not express our sympathies and solidarity for the victims of the Virginia massacre, not because we are members of "our nation," but because as human beings we know that those who died in Virginia had faces like us, because we can imagine ourselves as others who are like us? "We are, on a fundamental level, all members of one community," you write. Does this truly mean "all" of us, or only those of us who are part of "our nation"? The answer must be the first: "Our nation" has no role to play in how we commemorate and mourn this tragedy. Why is it, in this community that is so palpably diverse, in this country where people have as many origins as there are stars in the sky, that we have to resort to the exclusionary rhetoric of "our nation"? Why mourn those who died and commiserate with those who remain on the grounds that they too are part of "our nation," when we could instead speak in a spirit so much more generous and hospitable, so much more open and humane: We mourn those who died not because they were like us and of us, but because they were like us and yet different from us. Surely ethics starts not with ourselves, but with others. I remember only too vividly how, after Sept. 11, young people in Iran poured into the streets and held spontaneous candlelight vigils for those who died in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, without it ever occurring to them that they should only mourn those who were of "their nation." Strange thought! It is the "Axis of Evil" that teaches the "land of the free" respect for others, and not the other way round, whatever we might expect. We know what follows, and perhaps now at last, however obscurely, we begin to glimpse an answer - a troubling answer - to the question a very great man posed nearly two millennia ago: "What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?" I did not attend the candlelight vigil on Monday, April 23, not because I do not wish to express my solidarity with the victims of the massacre in Virginia, but because I cannot express my solidarity with them while excluding those who are not of "our nation," those who die like cattle in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere. However, from the time I went to bed that Monday night until the time I woke up on Wednesday morning, I abstained from all food and drink except tap water, as part of what the French call a "jeûne d'interpellation," an untranslatable phrase that means something like a fast designed to call people's attention to a problem. I wish to call our attention to the selectivity of our solidarity and compassion, to ask us all not to quench our candlelight in the sea but to bear it aloft in memory of all those who die a violent death anywhere, just as the young women and men of Iran have taught us. I am not expecting to change the world by this one tiny action; perhaps all I can hope for is to make people stop and reflect, if only for a second, on the fact that our community extends well beyond Virginia. Philip Grant is a graduate student in the department of anthropology. -- Original Source:New University - April 30, 2007