VA - Virginia Tech Shooting, 32 murdered, 23 injured, 16 April 2007

[Albert18]

I think what they are saying is that the police and the admin knew two people had been murdered and until it was proven otherwise, they should have assumed the killer had NOT left the campus. In other words, spread out across campus, call for reinforcements and assume the worst until you know otherwise.

After all, how often do two people get killed in one of the dorms. Couldn't they take it up a notch just for a few hours.

 

[reb]

Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days 'said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game published by Microsoft, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns.'

THANK YOU!! ...of COURSE he was!!!

 

[Toby]

He probably watched the Godfather once too many times. Numbers appear on several different parts of weapons; it would have been a great deal of work to file them down to the point of visual transparency. And, like others have stated, it would not prevent officials from obtaining those numbers due to metal deformation

 

[reb]

i agree... it WAS more of a cry for help than a homework assignement. i always believed that even if you don't want 'help'.. (or don't think you want help).. your subconscious mind does thing like this to get attention. but wow, nova,, you assign work like this for your students? geez, i'm not that old and even I'M in disbelief about how times have changed. i'm not a major prude about cussing, but i do believe there is a time and a place for it. when i see endlessly repetitive cussing (in something like this first play)..,. i think of 2 things: extreme anger (obviously).., and just plain laziness. as in, are those really the only words you can think of??

also i agree with whoever said they were shocked to hear he was an english MAJOR-- and about to graduate!!!! wow, is this the best he could do? how were his grades i wonder.... not so good? it DOES sound like it was written by a teenager.. my first thought was that it sounded pretty juvenile.. for a 23-year old university english major. i wonder if he was stuck in his teeage years, mentally. i am also expecting to hear his grades were marginal... possibly even academic probation. it's a common thing for people to snap when they see everything crashing down around them,, and they are at risk for disapointing their parents (or some other source of extreme pressure/expectations)...

 

[JBean]

I have lojack on my car. When it is moved I get an email ,a text message, phone calls at my home and on my cell ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Just a message but nonetheless I am notified when something is up.
Seems as though implementing this technology in a campus over the entire student body would be the most efficient way to get the word out over a wide area that something is up.
It could have made all the difference.

 

[Nova]

But since this English professor felt he was so disturbed that she worked with him one-on-one for six months and reported her worries to a higher authority -

So it appears. I'm assuming she saw more than these 2 playlets.

could they require that he get counseling if he wanted to stay in school? surely other people "noticed" behaviors that might be disturbing?

If he's over 18 can a college require counseling? Probably not.

I don't know the policies at Va Tech. Where I taught, if a student did certain things, the department could require that he see a counselor as a condition of remaining. But it took more than a subjective impression that he was withdrawn. A student would have to disrupt a class, miss a lot of work or something like that. I certainly could not have required a kid to see a counselor based on his creative writing. (Of course, I could "suggest" anything I wanted to suggest.)

 

[reb]

this breaks my heart. wasn't the holocaust enough???

 

[reb]

cool idea. of course the reality of that scenario (if officials HAD warned everyone immediately).. is there would have been an ENORMOUS traffic jam of people all trying to escape at once, in a panic.

 

[Nova]

when i read the plays what disturbed me most was that this was written by a college student. the language, grammar, style, etc, sounded more like something a middle/high school student would write. i almost doubt his intelligence to do something like this on his own if this really was recent work. an english major? geeze

I didn't think it was so bad, not for someone who speaks English as a second language. When it comes to playwriting, one is supposed to be writing as one's characters would speak. If your characters aren't educated (and your play is naturalistic), then you don't write with very elevated diction.

It DID strike me as the sort of thing I would expect from an undergrad in a general (meaning required of and open to everybody), introductory class. I would expect greater ability from someone who had written plays before; those efforts would not have gotten the writer into a class where I was allowed to select the students.

But do we know when those plays were written? We have them because there was a on-line element to the course and another student had saved them. For all we know, these were some of Cho's first efforts and they date from several years ago, no?

 

[IrishMist]

I didn't think it was so bad, not for someone who speaks English as a second language. When it comes to playwriting, one is supposed to be writing as one's characters would speak. If your characters aren't educated (and your play is naturalistic), then you don't write with very elevated diction.

It DID strike me as the sort of thing I would expect from an undergrad in a general (meaning required of and open to everybody), introductory class. I would expect greater ability from someone who had written plays before; those efforts would not have gotten the writer into a class where I was allowed to select the students.

But do we know when those plays were written? We have them because there was a on-line element to the course and another student had saved them. For all we know, these were some of Cho's first efforts and they date from several years ago, no?

Excellent point, Nova, and one I hadn't even considered.

 

[Nova]

i agree... it WAS more of a cry for help than a homework assignement. i always believed that even if you don't want 'help'.. (or don't think you want help).. your subconscious mind does thing like this to get attention. but wow, nova,, you assign work like this for your students?

I was teaching students who were - by their own choice - training to be artists. I felt they should be comfortable with all sorts of language; in the theater, words are the "paints" used to cover the "canvas."

I was also charged with teaching them to think and discuss ideas. Again, I thought they should have every possible word to use in those endeavors.

With freshmen, I always worked the "F" word somewhere into the first lecture. There would then be a stunned silence, to which I replied, "Yep, you're not in high school any more." It served notice that not only words, but topics and concepts that were forbidden in h.s. were welcome in my class.

That's not to say I swore AT them. Ever. That would have been abusive (and counterproductive).

Not all professors would agree with me. Some think it very important that a teacher model standards of decorum and professionalism. Frankly, those things are less important to me than thinking and language.

 

[Toby]

It takes time to "lock down" a campus, or a small town. It is unrealistic to imagine the VT admin calling for a lockdown and having the campus "immediately being locked down"....and "safe."

 

[Nova]

Excellent point, Nova, and one I hadn't even considered.

Maybe my view is skewed because I read a number of comments about how bad the grammar was before I read the play. I expected worse.

 

[JBean]

cool idea. of course the reality of that scenario (if officials HAD warned everyone immediately).. is there would have been an ENORMOUS traffic jam of people all trying to escape at once, in a panic.

The reality is if they called for a lockdown the first thing people would do would be to try and leave campus.It is instinct, IMO.
but I think people need the option to make up their own minds.They must know what is going on.
I do not think the technology to send out mass text messages is a very big deal..Cingular does it all the time lol.

 

[Floh]

i disagree 100% with you guys who are saying those violent video games are no big deal-- they are SICK. at least, much of what i have seen is really sick. it's all about shooting and killing, and shooting to kill as many people as you possibly can. and you're going to tell me that's not going to do something negative, on some level, to a kid's mind? if they spend HOURS doing this every day?? sorry, i do not buy it. just because it's so common now, and your kids do it, their kids do it, everyone else's kids do it.. does NOT make it OK or healthy. we as a nation are in serious denial about this and one of these days we are going to have to WAKE UP. NO.. video games do not "make you a killer" (duh, and double-duh). i never said that and if you think i'm saying that then you are missing the point entirely. i am saying there is a definite correlation to these psycho young people who go on shooting rampages and the violent video games. for those who are already mentally unstable, and anti-social, it's just going to exacerbate their problems, their disassociation with reality, their violent tendencies, their distorted sense of reality, 'good vs. evil' mentality.. AND it significantly reduces their time spent gaining important REAL-LIFE SOCIAL SKILLS.. which is so crucial especially at a young age. so.. no, there's nothing you can say to convince me that letting your kids play hours upon hours of these violent games is a good thing. parents just let their kids do it because we are such a permissive society, and 'all the kids do it'.. so nobodfy wants to be the 'bad uncool parent' who says NO to these games.

anyway.. we don't know yet is there was a correlation with this guy and obsessive gaming.. but just wait, i'm sure it will come out... once they review his computer. he fits the typical profile exactly.

:clap: :clap: :clap:

.

 

[reportertype]

I agree with Toby. The logistics of closing down even a small campus would be a nightmare. Most college police forces are small and wouldn't have the manpower to effectively patrol the entire campus to make sure no one enters or leaves, etc. It would take time to get outside LE there. It's VERY hard to get the message out and make it happen in a short time when you're dealing with that many people.

 

[concernedperson]

Maybe my view is skewed because I read a number of comments about how bad the grammar was before I read the play. I expected worse.

I wasn't as shocked as some. I thought the premise indicated a disturbed individual but I wondered about some sort of child abuse vs.the makings of a mass murderer. I do believe there is an enabler figured into this. Of course, that in itself could indicate a poor impulse control and the propensity to "get" back. It all falls back on the perp for his actions as he was in control of his behavior.

I believe too many times the enabler works on the emotional aspects and if the perp is too weak then we could see what happened. In closed family walls we would never see anything to prevent this kind of thing from happening. The only answer is to talk about it and to hope that an individual would seek help.

He does seem to be somewhat schizophrenic but that could have gone on for a long time. In any case, he was cognizant enough to plan and execute many people.

To blame faculty and/or students is wrong. This behavior starts at home.

 

[angelmom]

And let's be honest here. How many campus security officers do you think there are on duty at 7:30 on a Monday morning? Enough to block every entrance to the school AND secure the scene until police arrive AND look for the shooter AND make sure nothing else happens while everyone's attention is on that dorm? No. Not even close. The local police probably didn't even have enough people to do all of that.

How do you go about locking down an entire campus like that? They had no idea where the shooter was. Even if there was a faster way to tell everyone to stay put or go home or whatever (and I'd like to know how people think that would be done) where do you tell them to go? Back to the dorms? What if the shooter was hiding in a dorm? A different dorm or the same one. They had no way of knowing, and they were going on their best info at the time.

I just don't understand what these critics really think could have been done. I believe that if the campus had been locked down and the shooter had been trapped with a group of students and even one of them had been harmed, they would have been blamed for that too.

When are we as a society going to realize that a person who is willing to die can get away with many horrific acts before he can be stopped. No security, no barriers, no screenings will stop them all. The finger pointing does no good, especially when the victims are still warm.

If we "locked down" an area every time there was a murder, nothing would ever get done.

 

[Floh]

I feel the comments about English being his second language are not taking into consideration he'd been in the states since he was 8. this means 15 years - formative years - using English. i've been in Germany 8 years and started learning German at the age of 38/39. i believe i would be able to pull the second language card. should i turn out to be a mass murderer in the future and any of my writings in German (i've never even attempted creative writing in German because it would be a joke) be put under the microscope to find out the workings of my mind, then it could be said, if my writings were somewhat questionable as to the state of my mind, "German was her second language".

and remember his sister? the one who graduated Princeton? i would imagine her to be older than him and she hasn't found her second language English to be any hinderance.

i do think those playlets were written some years ago, though. very immature.

 

[capps]

I was teaching students who were - by their own choice - training to be artists. I felt they should be comfortable with all sorts of language; in the theater, words are the "paints" used to cover the "canvas."

I was also charged with teaching them to think and discuss ideas. Again, I thought they should have every possible word to use in those endeavors.

With freshmen, I always worked the "F" word somewhere into the first lecture. There would then be a stunned silence, to which I replied, "Yep, you're not in high school any more." It served notice that not only words, but topics and concepts that were forbidden in h.s. were welcome in my class.

That's not to say I swore AT them. Ever. That would have been abusive (and counterproductive).

Not all professors would agree with me. Some think it very important that a teacher model standards of decorum and professionalism. Frankly, those things are less important to me than thinking and language.

I suppose I would be one of those professors that would disagree with you.

How about lecturing students to think out of the box,and teaching them "Yep,you're not in high school anymore,there are ways to express your thoughts,without resorting to the F word.If it must be used,it should be rarely." I think that would help students to think more creatively.