Another shooter incident at Va Tech???

[Jerome Scuggs]

i dunno, having a lockdown in a highschool would be easy. with a massive college campus, alot of the security ideas are pretty tough to effectively execute. i think that's already been said.

but guys, i don't think we should be arguing this. d1st0rt makes a very compelling point: shit happens. d1st0rt's point is all the more weighty because hey, he was there. i felt the same way when katrina fucked my state up: yeah it was bad, no, we probably couldn't have done anything anc chances are if we had fixed the levees, etc, something else would have fucked up.

i think that in terms of emergency response, there are two venues of action: pursue every minor event as if all shit was breaking loose, or wait and see if a minor event explodes and then pursue necessary action. the first is pretty much impossible, because nothing would ever get done. the second is the more pragmatic but has the miserable consequence of 'media scrutiny'. (of course the first would be attacked by the media as 'overbearing' or 'tyrannical' but whatever)

people blame these guys for not noticing "the signs" - the guy posted on blogs, etc. this happens everytime, but seriously - in the past year alone i've probably made plenty of 'death threats' and offhanded remarks ("show the world how Shreveport does columbine!"), but how many people actually go through with it? you just have to wait for that one in a million guy and try to react as best as possible.

when it comes down to it for me, i guess i can mourn the loss of the students. the school will more or less deal with the problem, it does not need the media on its back telling it what it should have done or what it should do now.

[Noah]

This reminds me when I had a drugfuelled asshole threatening to kill everyone he saw in the building next door.

I decided to not call the cops, due to the obviousness of his inabilty of doing anything at all, but if he had later shot one of my friends at my party, would I be to blame for not acting on the first possible sign of danger?

This episode ended with him going home alone later that night, without any drama, with the cops involved, that could have been excalted into something else.

Second guessing decisions and analyzing what could have been done leads to nothing at all. Because we have the take decisions on what's most likely where we are in the moment.

[Facetious]

My concern is not that someone needs to be blamed, but that people are going to overlook the real problem (campus police are not equipped to handle a murder investigation) and try to solve the problem by adding more ill-equipped campus police officers to the payroll.

In terms of locking down the school, etc, I can see what people are saying about hindsight being 20/20. Had they shut down the school and only 10-15 people had died, people would be just as upset and would have claimed that people would have been safer in classrooms. Personally, I can't imagine a worse situation than students being trapped in a classroom with a gunman with rather weak pistols, but you guys can hypothesize all you want and I can't really prove you wrong. My view is that had anyone been at the shooter's back, they might have been able to throw something at him or tackle him in order to contain him, and had each student not been kept from running by the classroom walls, he would not have been able to shoot each person multiple times. If you disagree, there's not much else I can say.

What there is no excuse for is that the students were not informed in a timely fashion. An e-mail alerting students to the second incident was sent out 10 minutes after that incident occurred. The administration was capable of responding quickly via e-mail, and they decided it was better to A) spend a half-hour waiting for all the administrators to be able to meet, B ) wait for an official briefing by the police, and then C) continue to meet for another half an hour to discuss the wording of the e-mail. What I strongly suspect will come out is that the administration was advised by the police that it was not a dangerous situation, and as a result, the focus on sending the e-mail was to avoid panic rather than to make sure students were aware that there may have been a gunman on campus. The administration said they "wanted to have all the facts" before they sent out the e-mail but had the police not provided faulty information to them, "having all the facts" would not have taken precedence over the safety of their students. I know that if there was a gunman in my extremely safe neighborhood, and the police waited to "have all the facts" before informing me, and I left my door unlocked because I didn't know what was going on, I would not be thanking them for waiting 2 hours to inform me that there was some kind of danger.

edit:

I decided to not call the cops, due to the obviousness of his inabilty of doing anything at all, but if he had later shot one of my friends at my party, would I be to blame for not acting on the first possible sign of danger?

No, but if the police were made aware of the situation, and decided to leave and do background checks on the guy "to get all the facts" before they decided to inform the residents that there was a crazy person on the loose, it would be terribly negligent.

[Epinephrine]

What really sucks is the psychology of it all. So this guy did it all with handguns, and reports say that it happened over 10-20 minutes, and he even took time to reload and so on.

If in just one of those classrooms, the people would have just rushed the guy, maybe only 2-3 people would have died. But because of basic human psychology (no one wants to be that guy who dies), everyone dies.

I don't really have a point, but just some thoughts.



As for the e-mail not getting out... it's not as big a deal as it is. How many people actually read their e-mail before going to class in the morning? By the time people who were in the know actually knew what was going on, even if they sent out an e-mail right away it would have taken too long. As for locking down the school, I don't see how that could physically be possible. It's not like a military facility or something. There aren't lots of people going around with walkie-talkies or whatever that can do such a lockdown. At most they have a few people running building to building putting up signs and locking doors, but if the shooter saw that, he would have just went into an unlocked building and did the same thing.

[Fit of Rage]

Why didn't they just use a megaphone to warn everyone going to class that morning by driving around and saying "Get to a safe location" ie back to your apartment/dorm room and lock your doors?

[Kolar]

This reminds me when I had a drugfuelled asshole threatening to kill everyone he saw in the building next door.

I decided to not call the cops, due to the obviousness of his inabilty of doing anything at all, but if he had later shot one of my friends at my party, would I be to blame for not acting on the first possible sign of danger?

This episode ended with him going home alone later that night, without any drama, with the cops involved, that could have been excalted into something else.

Second guessing decisions and analyzing what could have been done leads to nothing at all. Because we have the take decisions on what's most likely where we are in the moment.

No Noah, you would not be at fault for using your judgment deciding not to get the police involved because the situation was not physical. Short of him getting into a car the drunk can walk it off and go home, unless you believe he will harm himself or others leave it be. The police and school administration have a responsibility to protect their students, unlike you to your peers. When you have no indication whether or not a suspect has left the premise you still assume he HAS NOT LEFT and That he will likely kill again, the closest people too him as well are at risk. Sitting on yours hands making assumptions killed 32 people and changed to lives of many more.


Second guessing decisions and analyzing them is human and it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY when 32 people are dead on your watch. It seems asking for competency and responsible leadership in those you place your life in is a "Euro" concept to our American visitors.

[Facetious]

Students heard the gunfire and thought it was construction. Had just one student in every classroom happened to check their e-mail before class, they would have had time to barricade the doors. The reason I discussed a "lockdown" initially was that people were insinuating that the students were left in class because the administration thought it safer. My point was that if they were leaving the students in class for their safety, they should have been trying to lock the doors and posting as many police outside the buildings as possible. With police in every common area between buildings, a student checking multiple doors to see if they were locked certainly would have aroused suspicion. I maintain the right thing to do given the information they had was to cancel school in order to prevent as many students from congregating in large groups as possible.

With that said, I'm done discussing this. I feel it's stupid to absolve the police from blame just because something sad happened, but at the same time, the real tragedy is that so many innocent people died for such stupid reasons and that's what this thread really should be about. Sorry for distracting from that.

edit: President Bush was talking during the moment of silence. Classy.

[Facetious]

In my above post I guess I meant "sorry from distracting from essentially unrelated gun discussion"...

[MirrorriM]

The reason this is such a media-frenzy is because things like this dont happen often. Mass murders, especially school ones, are not common in the scope of things so when something like this happens it creates a panic. A couple months from now it will fade away, unless some new "evidence" comes out about the innerworkings of the shooter's mind. But slowly it fades...

My point is that this tragedy causes so much debate because it was so unpredictable. People argue about how predictable it actually was, but in essence no one can predict whether or not someone is going to be violent against others. Psychologists have been trying to come up with an effective method for years. There have been studies on "violent" mental patients released from the institution and out of 500 people only 5 became violent in the following 5 years. Only 5 out of 500 were violent, but that doesnt mean it's okay, but it's still impossible to predict.

For both sides arguing though about what should have been done and the people stating that we should remember the families, I think the most important thing to get out of this is learning how to not let something like this happen again. If one of my family members was killed I'd want to know that people learned from this incident. At the time there was not enough resources to stop this guy effectively, but hopefully in the future we will figure out exactly what needs to be done.

[Facetious]

I moved all the gun discussion to here: http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthread.php?t=29903

This just doesn't seem the place to bicker about gun laws (since that discussion had long moved past gun laws in relation to VT)

[404 Not Found]

I may get flack for noting this, but WTF is with Bush? God forbid this man could actually talk from his heart for oncein his f'n life in the VT ceremony being held.

What bothers me about his speech, is that whoever writes for Bush, writes at an education level higher than Bush's own. I do not think its solely Bush not being able to read aloud.

All in all, the ceremony was touching until I listened to chimp boy give his pre-written, by some white house staff writer, address to the students, faculty and families of VT.

Personally I would have got up and walked out on Bush...brownie points he's seeking since he basically ignored the Katrina victums.

Yeh yeh yeh...we all know I hate Bush...but shit, this President is a Yale grad and cannot even talk from his heart...every speech is always pre-written...this was a time for a speech from the heart and not a Rove like spin.

I just was annoyed with chimp man.

I need to go back and watch to hear how many times he said "compassion". Was suprised he didnt try and lik this to Al-Queda.

[Squeezer]

I moved all the gun discussion to here: http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthread.php?t=29903

This just doesn't seem the place to bicker about gun laws (since that discussion had long moved past gun laws in relation to VT)

Sorry, I was typing and posted before you posted. If you could move my above post, I'd appreciate it.

Oh, and I just realized I have yet to comment on the victims. This morning, I was asked by the paper what I thought about the Va. Tech. shootings. I stated that I hope right now people are more concerned about the victims at this moment. While I may be posting about gun issues right now, I want to make it clear that right now should be a time of mourning and thought, not of action. Sure, there needs to be necessary discussion in congress, and laws should be considered. But right now, the most important thing is to think about the families and victims of this attack, all of whom a grieving very much.

What a sad, sad day.

[CrvenBan]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...071vtech9.html


"APRIL 17--The college student responsible for yesterday's Virginia Tech slaughter was referred last year to counseling after professors became concerned about the violent nature of his writings, as evidenced in a one-act play obtained by The Smoking Gun. The play by Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, was submitted last year as part of a short story writing class. Entitled "Richard McBeef," Cho's bizarre play features a 13-year-old boy who accuses his stepfather of pedophilia and murdering his father. A copy of the killer's play can be found below. The teenager talks of killing the older man and, at one point, the child's mother brandishes a chain saw at the stepfather. The play ends with the man striking the child with "a deadly blow." (10 pages)"



I can't verify if this is false or not. The play is on the link

[Galleleo]

Media always blows this shit out of proportion when this happens, they dig into the whole life off the guy to grasp at a straw to be able to say: Hey there were signs, wtf man..

Can you look at the shit that comes out of Hollywood? Should we lock the guy who wrote Saw up in a cell cause of his work? I mean.. come on.

[Doc Flabby]

Media always blows this shit out of proportion when this happens, they dig into the whole life off the guy to grasp at a straw to be able to say: Hey there were signs, wtf man..

Can you look at the shit that comes out of Hollywood? Should we lock the guy who wrote Saw up in a cell cause of his work? I mean.. come on.

Basically he was a normal guy and them one day flipped and became a psycho and killed lots of people because he had easy access to weapons