Lot of good things in that post, Silvan. To touch on a few:

The Chief of Police will go down over this. There have already been numerous stories now that because of the bomb threats made earlier in the week, which do appear to have been the work of the killer, the campus should have been locked down and evacauted after the 2 killings in the dorm. It was badly bungled, not only by the police, but by the campus itself. I give the University President no more than a week or two before he resigns. Consider the following:

- The only warning the students had was an e-mail 2 hours after the first killings.

- The killer had displayed just about every warning sign that he was off his rocker, even to the point that other students felt that he was a danger and complained. Because of his English class writings, which were completely in the realm of evil, they already knew this guy was unbalanced. Teachers had even reccommended he get psychiatric help. Guess someone forgot to follow up.

- The University President, when asked why the campus hadn't been locked down, said that it was "problematic," because everyone was coming in for morning classes. Say what?!? 32 innocent people killed and how many more wounded isn't problematic?!? Reports say that the police had the campus shut down in about 5 minutes after the Norris Hall shooting began. Why the hell didn't they shut down all the roads into the campus and lock down all the buildings after the first murders, since by their own admission, they thought the shooter was still on the loose and may or may not be on campus? They had the manpower already there to do it! Shut the roads down, send your officers into each building at least for a presence until they were 100% certain there was no threat! Doing so would have taken maybe 15 to 20 minutes and most likely have saved those people in Norris Hall or at least cut down the number of dead considerably with armed officers already in the building. And if they were wrong in shutting down the campus and it turned out to be that domestic killing they had hoped? Well, you inconvenience a lot of people for a few hours and they get over it. At least they would be ALIVE to feel inconvenienced and get over it!

Now, you'll hear some people say "well, if the killer was hell-bent on doing this, he could certainly have layed low until the police presence was gone, then gone on his shooting spree. To that, I say "very true." BUT....you wouldn't have parents tearing out their hearts thinking the school and the police let their children down. They could begin the healing a lot sooner, instead of channeling their rage toward those that might possibly have been able to save them.

I swear, this whole thing just makes me sick. It's bad enough when something so truly horrible and evil happens. It's a thousand times worse when it is obvious that it was helped along considerably by official incompetence that borders on criminal.

And that's the difference between man and monster. I personally had a pretty decent childhood. Home life was rough at times (parents getting a bitter divorce), but school was my haven. That is not to say that I didn't have bad days or that there were people that I didn't like. And like you, there were times when I fanatasized taking out my detractors with some pretty high-flying martial arts mayhem. But that's the thing...you work it out in your head and go on with your life. One of those guys that teased me mercilessly back with I was a puny freshman (literally...I was 4'10" and 74 pounds at 14 years old) is now a dear friend of mine. I hated him back then...I would never have shed a tear if he got run over by a cement mixer. Now? I call him a great friend. The point is, every NORMAL person has all those very same vengeance fantasies. That's one of the ways you cope with things in your mind and then you grow up.

This guy was 23....well into early adulthood. It wasn't angst...this was pure, malicious, malevolent, evil. He didn't snap and do this. He planned it out. If he had snapped and shot his ex-girlfriend, then himself, it could possibly be called a crime of passion, terrible and tragic...the Romeo and Juliet syndrome. But it would have been confined to them and those in Norris Hall would have been mercifully spared. But that's not what happened. Instead, he butchered 30 other innocent people out of pure hateful malice. It was his intention to do as much damage and create as much carnage as possible. That's the mark of true evilness.

I think it's more that people just don't value life any more. In my opinion, these spastic murderous ****heads have plenty of impulse control. If they didn't, a lot of people would still be alive today. No, it's impulse control in a very cold-blooded way. It's no coincidence that this happened only a couple days from the Columbine anniversary. And thanks to our ever-present media blitz of death and glamour, it was his way of grabbing the headlines in a deathgrip. He goes out on top as the deadliest school killer in history and the Columbine anniversary is relegated to a footnote today. I could all but guarantee you that was all part of his plan.

Exactly. And because of that, he continues to sow fear, long after he's dead.

Who needs terrorists when we can grow our own.

 

I do agree on both scores. There was gross negligence all the way around this.I didn't catch that part, or his English writings either. I agree, then, that it wasn't some teen angst thing at all.

A terrorist indeed.

 

Based upon what information I have studued, this student DID, in fact have a history of trouble. Apparantly, there was a suspicious dorm fire, and some other altercations with students, but he was never charged.

We'll learn more as events unfold.

 

Interesting addendum to this. Mom teaches self defense for women around here, and she knows dozens of Tech students who were raped, and had the rape swept under the table. She points out that Marcus Vic banged India (that 15-year-old; I know her) and got off scott free, and kept his spot on the team until he stomped that guy on national TV. Tech wants to keep its image clean. That's why they tried to sweep the first shooting under the rug, and it backfired bigtime.

Food for thought. Second hand food too. I have no real opinion about Tech myself, other than screw them for not accepting me as a student once upon a time. I went to RU.

 

It's ridiculous that people want to lay blame on the police chief and the president. The school had no evidence that this was anything BUT an isolated domestic killing. There is no logical reason to close down an entire campus over such a killing when there are no indications that there is somebody wandering around campus with a weapon, or anyone making any specific threats about shooting people, etc. They had a killing at the dorms. They were in the middle of investigating that crime when the other shootings occurred. Even if they had closed down the campus, it would have taken them some time go clear out all the buildings anyways. Where do people expect the students who live on campus to go? The first shooting occurred AT the dorms, where those students would be going.

Lets quit trying to blame everyone but the crackpot who did this shooting.

 

That is what "Monday Morning Quarterbacks" do....make judgements on events that they have no clue about. Blame the shooter, he created this nightmare.

 

Why? I shouldn't lay blame with them because they didn't want to inconvenience a bunch of people? :roll: I consider myself lucky...I don't have a child there. But others did. And they are left with the indescribable horror of knowing that the University and the police COULD possibly have prevented a lot of the carnage by acting sooner, by warning quicker.

Try telling that to the parents of 30 other dead kids.

They were investigating a double-homicide on a week they had received several bomb threats. They had no gunman in custody, therefore logically the gunman was at large. It doesn't take much of a logic train to reach the conclusion that it would be better to be safe than sorry. They gambled with the lives of the students and lost horribly. No matter how you spin it, in the end the University and the police made a decision that was not in the best interest of the students.

I blame the shooter for what he did. I blame the University officials and the police for what they did not do...and I stand in a huge majority on that.

I said this yesterday:
If you haven't seen or heard the follow-up story that broke last night, this P.O.S. stopped at the post office between buildings and mailed a videotape to NBC, who plastered it all over their stations all evening. In that videotape, he talks about how he planned all this and he glorified the "martyrs" Klebold and Harris (Columbine).

Like I said, you don't just snap and do things like this. It takes a mind of pure malicious evil to do something like this. Sad thing is, a lot of people knew it.

 

I know people who are actual STUDENTS there and even they say that there was not locking down the campus was reasonable. Warn studends of what? Did they know that Cho was going to shoot up the campus? Did they have any advance warning that a mass murder was going to take place? No. All they had evidence of was what appeared to be a domestic dispute gone bad. That's all they had.

I would, but I don't have the ability to contact them. They want to blame somebody. They're even sending death threats to the guy who sold the gun, legally I might add.

They recieved BOMB THREATS. A shooting is NOT a bomb threat. There was no reason to think that a double shooting was IN ANY WAY RELATED to any bomb threats.

A huge majority that has no freaking clue about law enforcment other than what they see on prime time TV. Yeah, that's really something to base policy on.

Yeah and NBC got the package a day late due to a wrong Zip code. Day late and a dollar short.

So when you're able to build a "Minority Report" type of machine that will predict the future accurately, let us know, then we can put you on a pedestal as the ultimate armchair quarterback extrodinaire.

 

That's the key right there and it works both ways. Because they did NOT know, more should have been done.

I have no wish to argue, particularly with someone that has a difficult time doing it without getting defensive and borderline insulting. When you can carry on a discussion without feeling the need to belittle those that do not agree with you, then we'll be fine.

Until then, all ANY of us are doing on BOTH sides of the discussion is nothing but hindsite. I believe more could have been done, you believe they did all they could or should. My views are not any more or any less relevant than yours and visa versa. But in the end, what happens as a result of all of this will bear out if things were done right or not.

 

They did not know because there was NO EVIDENCE IT WAS GOING TO OCCUR. That's the key. You can't be expected to act on a whim when you don't even have the whim in the first place.


I don't see where I insulted you in any way other than calling you an armchair quarterback.

In the case where some wacko is going to shoot up people no matter what, there is no "right way to handle it". He was going down and taking people with him come hell or high water.