Virginia Tech Shooting
This shooting is a tragedy, and already the fingers have started pointing by society. Here is everything you need to know about the shooting at Virginia Tech in a matter of three sentences. A Virginia Tech Senior from South Korea is responsible, his name is Cho Seung-Hui, he is 23 years old, and he was known as a loner. He possessed two weapons (handguns) which he scraped the serial numbers off of and used to kill at least 30 people (I’ve read 32 exactly). There were two separate attacks, the first was in a dorm at 7:15 AM where he killed two people, and the second was in Norish Hall two hours later where he rampaged through four different classrooms and a stairwell, committing suicide in one of the classrooms after killing around 30.
The New Deadliest Shooting in US History
History was made yesterday with this shooting. Everyone remembers the Columbine shooting (April 20th, 1999) which left some 12 people dead, but this trumps it. Columbine wasn’t even the worst in history, with the Texas massacre in 1991, where in Killeen (no pun intended) Texas a guy by the name of George Hennard ran his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and killed 23 people, then himself.
I really do not think this Cho Seung-Hui guy really had any intention of setting a record, but nonetheless it occurred. The first fingers have already started to be pointed though at the University, as it took two hours before mass emails were sent out regarding the first dorm shooting, and by that time the second had already begun.
A Ruthless Attack
So what kind of people were killed? Was there any connection with who was shot and who was not? I don’t think so. 75 year old Liviu Librescu was an killed when he tried to stop the gunman from entering his classroom, a 51 year old Indian born lecturer was shot in the head, and tons of students were among the dead.
Something obviously was not going on right in this guy’s head, and sadly it took him 30+ people deaths before he could just call it quits.
The Fingers Begin to Point
So now that the shooting has passed, and the media is all over the tragedy, opinions and fingers are being pointed all over the place. The first major question is the lack of information being shared with the rest of the university after the first shooting happened. Let’s do some simple math here, first shooting occurs over the course of lets say 20 minutes, and by this point someone has already been notified. Immediately thereafter the gunman had already left and went who knows where for the next hour plus. Regardless, I would be willing to be that by no later than 8 AM (45 minutes after the first shooting in the dorms), the University staff KNEW WHAT HAPPENED. Now, do you need to get mass emails approved before sending them out? I don’t know, apparently University President Charles Steger said it was difficult to get the word out to 11,000 people on campus and driving around. But the first email didn’t even go out until 9:26 AM, and had almost no information: “A shooting incident occured at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.” This makes it sound like all was said and done, no other warnings, no nothing.
The second major issue that is now being debated and will continue to be debated even more heavily is the question of guns and who is allowed to get what. Why was this deranged student even allowed to purchase a weapon in the first place? Apparently a law enforcement official said Cho had receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. It will be interesting to see how this one turns out, because on one hand you have the fact that this Cho guy bought pistols and tons of ammunition, but on the other hand, how the heck was the salesman supposed to know he was going to go on a mass shooting spree? On-top of that, if Cho checked out and was legally allowed to purchase the weapons, what could the salesperson do anyways?
Closure and Memorials Begin
Today there is a memorial service planned at the University at 2:00 PM, and President Bush apparently is planning on attending (the photo to your left is of Haiyan Cheng praying at a vigil for the Virginia Tech Shooting victums). This will be the first of many though as this shooting has just begun to take its toll on the local people.
And closure wise, what do you tell the students who were in the hall during the shooting jumping out of windows to get away? I sure as heck wouldn’t want to go back in that Hall after that, and it is obvious that there is going to be needed more help for these students than just a few prayer services.
If anything understanding more about why this occurred and possibly getting a better glimpse into the mind of Cho Seung-Hui will help. But until we really know more about what exactly happened, the fingers will continue to be pointed.
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I would debate the following:
1. The university would never have guessed the first murder would EVER have led to a massacre. It just doesn’t happen in DC, much less a rural, southwest Virginia town a few hours away. Granted, there is the precedent in Texas, Columbine and a few other locations, but I want one person to step forward and say they thought this could happen on the scale it did, just based on the first killing.
2. How is a sprawling campus to notify all its faculty, staff and students in such a short time? They can send emails, but I’m sure they didn’t want to start a mass panic. They don’t have a campus-wide PA system that would reach all listeners. They would have to get on the radio stations to contact commuter students, and have to hope those students are all listen to the radio and not their CDs.
I don’t have an answer for what could have been done differently, but I don’t think the school could have done more with communications unless they truly had evidence the first killing would lead to a massacre. However, someone is going to have to get blamed, and I’m sure the university is first in line.
There is a really great article on this site about how students on facebook have created group memorials for the V-Tech victims. It’s so nice to see such wonderful support. What a terrible tragedy.
This is certainly a horrible tragedy.
What really scares me is that for the next few weeks this is going to be all over the media and everyone will be panicking about how unsafe our schools/malls/jobs are. Terrorists might realize this is their best way to completely F with our heads and make us feel unsafe.
How hard is it to get a student visa? or to just get someone into the country for another reason?
We need to take time to love on those that are not at the top of the social chain. We may never truly know the motive behind such horrific actions that the killer uses to justify his or her means. However when the downtrodden and socially uncool are are excepted I believe a major motive is removed.
The Virginia Tech tragedy brings to mind a similar school shooting in 1979 California. 16 year old Brenda Spencer wounded nine and killed two in a shooting spree at an elementary school. She said, “I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun,” “It was just like shooting ducks in a pond,” and “(The children) looked like a herd of cows standing around, it was really easy pickings.”
sad.