The School Shooting Thread - Page 9

How is it than I'm in a knot when you're the one who's looking to immediately blame someone beyond the guy with the guns?

How about something much more important?
http://www.vt.edu/tragedy/memorial_fund.php

Personally, I'd feel much better giving directly to a family rather than to the university.

Nice dodge. You didn't answer the argument question though(again).

It's worth mentioning that the funds raised will go towards grief counseling, memorials, communication expenses, comfort expenses and incidental needs of the victims. (I took that out of the e-mail I received that had the link). Still, there might be places you'd prefer to put your money, and I understand that.

No one is saying we should shift the blame off of the shooter. All we're questioning is some of the conclusions and steps taken by the campus police. There's not much we can do about Cho Sheung-Hui right now, but there are things that can be done so that campuses are safer places. That's all we're talking about.

And I'm sorry, but those VT officials at the press conference sounded like a bunch of incompetents, and deserve to be called on it even if their actions aren't directly to blame for what happened.

What am I dodging?

It seems you think it's improper to blame both the shooter and the security team for what happened, while we don't. Each bears different blame.

double post

Similar to what I asked earlier.
Edit: post 397

Wait, we have someone to blame that I think we can all get behind:
Goddamn Collective Soul....

I wonder if the jumpers listened to "The World I Know".

Actually, I don't think it's improper to blame security for anything they do wrong. You're just all reaching and judging in hindsight. Was it a bad idea for this kid to not have been given help? Sure. It's also a bad idea that he wasn't swallowed or aborted but I'm not going to blame his parents for that. There's millions of people in this country. Not all of them are able to get help before they need it...but many of them do. There's just not any way to stop these kinds of things.

As for locking down the college, you're just being unrealistic. It's a terrible tragedy, but don't let it make you stupid, because then Cho Sheung-Hui continues to win - and we can't let the terrorists win.

Murders happen every day. The world continues. There was absolutely NO REASON to assume that this kid would continue killing. None. When someone is murdered in an apartment building, they don't shut down the complex, they interview witnesses and then try to solve a crime.

Also...cops are often dumb and out of shape. Campus police even moreso. Before this happened, do you think parents would have been willing to spend more in tuition on security if it was proposed by VT (I'm sure they will now)? Hell no, so why don't we blame them? How trained do you think campus cops are in murder investigation? Do you really think that's the university's fault?

I'm trapped in a prison of pure logic!!

Based on what security said they knew as of 8:00 am on the day of the attack, they assumed far too much and did far too little.

You're right, knowing that two people were killed in an apparent domestic argument, they should have called in SWAT.

The assumptions are made because that's what happens in investigations. Killers usually flee the area. Their thinking wasn't "He's still in the house!!!" but rather "He's long gone by now". That's how these things usually work.

Isn't there a different expectation of security on a college campus than in an apartment building though?

If there is a reasonable suspicion that the killer is in a specific, tight geographic area, you lock it down until you either find him or you conclude he's not there. I've seen it happen dozens of times on T.V. and once personally. That's how these things usually work.

Yeah, it's worse at a college because they're not even real cops - they weren't good enough for real policework, so they become campus police.

What's the reasonable suspicion? Since you were in on the interviews, you must know.

The reasonable suspicion is that the shootings just happened and they knew nothing to indicate that he might have left. Their assertion that this was a lover's quarrel was baseless, all they knew was that two people were killed early in the morning. Until you have reason to conclude that the deranged guy who was just here is now far away, you assume he's still close.

When in doubt, lockdown.

After twenty to thirty-odd dealings with campus police during my college days (professionally, not personally), I am inclined to agree 100%.

I think I'm getting the problem...you don't really get the whole thing. This is campus police we're talking about. They don't have the ability to lock down an entire fucking campus. As one reporter put it last night, we're talking about an area 3 times the size of central park, and you really think it's reasonable to expect campus fucking police to set up lockdown procedures? Again, I ask, who's paying for these campus security squads of Green Berets?

Also, it takes 2 minutes to run far enough away from a crime to be outside of close range. In under 15 minutes someone on foot could be 2 miles away. If they have a car, that's even more. Half an hour after the shooting? Forget it.

Campus police did what campus police could do. It would have been great if one of the cops was an ex-Navy chef who could smell spree killing in the air and stop the massacre, but it doesn't work that way.

VA Tech was locked down by campus police last year because there was a murder suspect in the vicinity.

Stop fucking patronizing me.

There's a CNN article where campus officials say they did lock down the dorm where the first shooting happened:
There's also a package that Cho mailed to NBC between the first and second shootings that NBC says is "disturbing."

Word is that poritions of the tapes will be aired on Nightly News tonight.

Is there anything he could have mailed in between the shootings that NBC would not find disturbing?

Fan mail to the cast of Heroes?

Either that or a contract signing over the movie rights.

I think my real issue is that it pisses me off that the media is making it their job to force blame upon the school. I was flipping to Dateline between innings of the Sox game last night, and I saw an interview with the father of a girl who died. Besides the fact that such an interview is pure exploitation of a family's grief that has no news-worthy value, the interviewer was trying to push the father into saying bad things about the school.

At one point, he asked if the school called him to tell him about his daughter. They didn't, as he had to go through the police to find out. The interviewer then asked "No phone calls...not your cell phone, text message...anything?". Thing is, the school only knows who died and can only talk about it AFTER the police tell them. For obvious reasons, the police aren't going to release lists of who died until they're 100% sure of who it happened to. Once that's done, it's not the school's job to call the parents, it's the police's. The school should get involved afterwards in talking to the parents, to show condolences, but that's it.

I agree that the news is being typically overzealous, but that doesn't mean legitimate questions can't be raised, and I don't think anyone here has been on a blood hunt for the campus administration.

I gotta say, "When in doubt, lockdown," seems an entirely reasonable policy, but that's entirely hindsight. Suggest that a week ago, and nobody, not police, administrators, students, or campus security, would have thought it was a sensible plan.

I would just like to say that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been super-classy with this whole thing. Yesterday's headline read, "BLOODBATH" and today the lead story was making sure you're scared shitless that it will happen somewhere else because no college is prepared for this kind of tragedy.

The long version of what I meant to say was "When in doubt as to whether or not there a killer is still on campus, lockdown." I don't think anyone would have objected to that a week ago.

MSNBC is showing the photos sent to them. Mutherfucker thought he was Neo.

The one with the hammer would be funny if it wasn't so damn disturbing.

The MSNBC site has a gallery with a bunch of photos. At first #8 was my favorite but then I saw him posing with a hammer in #11 and I had to change my mind.

I like his Castor Troy impression in #10.

I went to a school that was in a shitty neighborhood and shootings happened just outside of campus, and a few times students were assaulted on campus at night. That doesn't mean any students would be pleased with a campus lockdown every time there was a gunshot fired within hearing distance of town or if a store was robbed down the street (a gunman on the run is pretty fucking dangerous). Hell, on kid was beat within an inch of his life, and only spared because the Campus Police Golf-Cart Assault Vehicle started making rounds in the area, yet at no point after that did students or parents show a willingness to pay for a real police presence on campus.

As you're saying, it's really easy after the worst spree-killing in US history to say 'when in doubt...', but where is this line drawn? What is 'doubt'? Gunshots? You thought you heard gunshots? What about stabbings?

I wish something more would have been done, but with what they had at the time, I understand why it wasn't.

I wont believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You're always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And its the same the whole world round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebody's unholy hoax,
And if you're up there you'll perceive,
That my hearts here upon my sleeve.
If theres one thing I don't believe in...

Its you,
Dear god.

Get ready for them to blame Oldboy for this.

Did he quote XTC in his "manifesto" or was this from you?

It's the first thing I thought of when I saw that pic.

Ah. First thing I thought was "this kid's a fucking douche" but then I've been thinking that since it happened.

Let's not forget his obsession with SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN"T SEEN OLDBOY incest

I like how MSNBC's article criticizes the production values of the video as if they expected more from a mentally unbalanced murderer.

Well, I just checked out the photos and read some of his writings. That's some shit. So far, I've been able to laugh and make jokes, but seeing him holding those guns, knowing he was about to kill 30 college kids - just put knots in my stomach, Maybe it's having kids... I duuno. Man, dude was fucking insane.

I've been able to watch this thread from afar with some grudging amusement. I mean that in a congratulatory way to some of the folks who have managed to bring a little relief to an otherwise overwrought situation.

My proximity to this event and the fact that I have family of friends and friends who have gone to and go to Tech made this a rather surreal situation. As the final names of victims are released it has become impossible not to at least have some connection to one of the victims, wounded or deceased.

The worst part is that we all know kids like the shooter. The self destructive type, overtly awkward in society. The inclination after Columbine for many was to blame "bullying" and other forms of derogatory social interaction. It is somewhat of a relief that instead of making excuses for this douche we are instead clear on the fact that he was bat shit loco. People tried to help him and apparently even reach out to him, but he was mentally unstable in a very textbook way.

The people who barricaded the doors and used action to thwart the shooter were heroes. In the other classrooms the poor kids were too paralyzed with shock to do anything as he methodically moved through the room shooting them. Who knows what anyone of us would do. Someone bursting into a place like a classroom with a weapon isn't normal for most of us. Being shocked and diving out of the way is an honest reaction. The shooter got the best of everyone because there was no reason or actual provocation for his actions.

It's all a shame.

What are we supposed to be relieved about again? The upside of this event eludes me.

Hey, it only took three days to come up with a ribbon (black and orange) and a bullshit slogan ("Today we are all Hokies!") Good work, America!

Calm down Nancy.

The relief was that instead of media and others jumping to conclusions and blaming students for what this whack job did, people seem to be pretty clear that he was a prick It would be a bit unnerving to hear about how we failed poor Cho.

When the villainous Seung took that hammer up to the checkout at K-Mart, the checkout operator should have seen the warning signs immediately. When someone buys a hammer, logic dictates they will inevitably go on a kill-crazy rampage. That checkout operator should have arranged to have dorms "locked down" all over the East Coast. It's just common sense, really!

I blame K-Mart's lax hiring policy and lack of hammer-awareness on this whole tragedy. After all, I have to blame somebody! Don't I?

Ah, gotcha Mary. It is a relief that a "whack job" bought numerous firearms legally.