Va. Tech president responds, defends university’s actions
Posted on September 4, 2007
A report recently released by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine offers insight and some criticisms about the security response time and past mental health treatment of shooter Seung-Hui Cho in the Virginia Tech tragedy.
After the shootings, Kaine appointed an eight-person panel to study the incident, with special attention to the response time between shootings. Kaine’s panel found that the delayed response between the early morning shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall and the later and more deadly shootings at Norris Hall was a factor in the death toll, according to MSNBC. The report stated that more lives could have been saved if the administration had warned students, faculty and staff of Virginia Tech immediately after the first shooting.
The report has raised questions among many students about the necessity and timing of the reports, the contents of which have been hotly debated.
“I think we should let the situation lie,” JMU senior Patricia Ross said. “You can look back on what we could have done better, but I think it’s pointless to examine it at this point in time.”
The report also delved into past recommendations for mental health screenings for the shooter that were ignored. Cho was previously red-flagged for his behavior and schoolwork throughout his tenure as a student in Fairfax County Public Schools and at Virginia Tech. Although the report chose not to assign blame to these institutions, it said that Cho should have received better treatment for his illnesses, according to The Washington Post. The issue is complicated further by privacy laws, which often hindered access to his records, leaving a lack of a paper trail about his problems.
This issue remains divisive for many, although Virginia Tech officials and others maintain that the immense tragedy was unpredictable, even after the first shootings.
“It was really hard to know what was going on at that time,” Ross said. “He was really elusive, I don’t blame the police for thinking it was an isolated incident.”
The governor’s report was challenged by Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, who continued to adamantly defend the security response time of the parents and students. Steger defended himself and the actions of the university at a press conference, saying that there was no way school officials could have predicted that a massacre of that magnitude would occur after the initial shootings, according to The Post.
Virginia Tech also released a school review earlier this summer, offering safety suggestions for the future, but not blaming any organization for the incident, according to CNN. The report called for focus in three areas: expanding its campus-wide alert system, improving its mental health monitoring and working on providing procedures for emergency situations.
Although the Virginia Tech probes proved painful for some, many students think that the safety measures that resulted from the reports will be sufficient to improve safety at many universities, including JMU.
“I can’t see more than a cell phone alert or siren system changing what happened,” senior Jennifer Bressler said. “This should help us move on from what happened.”
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