Shooting at Virginia Tech

Threats Rattle Schools in 7 States
By Associated Press
3 hours ago

AUSTIN, Texas - Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities and grade schools in seven states on Tuesday, a day after a Virginia Tech student's shooting rampage killed 33 people.

One threat in Louisiana directly mentioned the massacre in Virginia, while others were reports of suspicious activity in Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan.

In Louisiana, parents picked up hundreds of students from Bogalusa's high school and middle school amid reports that a man had been arrested Tuesday morning for threatening a mass killing in a note that alluded to the murders at Virginia Tech.

Schools Superintendent Jerry Payne said both schools were locked down and police arrested a 53-year-old man who allegedly made the threat in a note he gave to a student headed to the private Bowling Green School in Franklinton. Both towns are in southeastern Louisiana.

"The note referred to what happened at Virginia Tech," Payne said. "It said something like, 'If you think that was bad, then you haven't seen anything yet."

In Rapid City, S.D., schools were locked down after receiving reports of a man with a gun in a parking lot at Central High. No shots were fired and no injuries were reported, police said. The high school students were taken to the nearby Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, where parents were allowed to pick up their children.

In Austin, authorities evacuated buildings at St. Edward's University after a threatening note was found, a school official said.

Police secured the campus perimeter and were searching the buildings, St. Edward's University spokeswoman Mischelle Amador said. She declined to say where the note was found and said its contents were "nonspecific."

Amador said the university's reaction was not influenced by Monday's attack at Virginia Tech.

"No matter what day or when this would have happened, we will always take the necessary precautions to protect our students, our faculty, our staff, the entire university community," she said.

Seven North Dakota State University buildings were evacuated after a duffel bag was found outside a bus shelter in the main part of the campus. NDSU spokesman Dave Wahlberg said the shootings in Virginia reinforced the need to "err on the side of safety."

In Bloomfield Hills, Mich., police attributed a 30-minute lock-down at the exclusive Cranbrook Schools complex in response to jittery nerves following the Virginia slayings.

School officials called police after parents and students reported spotting a 6-foot-tall man in a skirt, high heels, lipstick and a blond wig near a school drop-off area outside Cranbrook's Kingswood Upper School, Lt. Paul Myszenski said. Police were unable to find anyone meeting the man's description.

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, officials ordered three campus administration buildings evacuated for almost two hours Tuesday morning in response to a telephone bomb threat. The city's bomb squad searched the buildings but found nothing, campus spokesman Chuck Cantrell said.

Cantrell said there was no reason to believe the bogus threat was related to the shootings at Virginia Tech, but "we just chose to err on the side of caution today."

The other, at the University of Oklahoma, had started with a report of a man spotted on campus carrying a suspicious object, officials said.

The man was carrying an umbrella, not a weapon, and he later identified himself to authorities, University of Oklahoma President David Boren said in a statement. Boren initially had said the person was believed to carrying a yoga mat.

"We now consider the matter closed," Boren said. "We always want to err on the side of caution in a situation like this."

Well, BSAMS, I acknowledged the validity of your point of view, but also counter-argued that while "as a society we have become accustomed to believing if something offends us destroy it", our society is very selective and arbitrary in what speech it allows, and what speech it destroys.

I argued for a less partisan and more universal standard. If hate speech by Imus or other whites is unacceptable, then similar speech by blacks using black racial slurs should not be allowed either. Otherwise, why condemn any slurs, by Imus or anyone else.

Another Scare Rattles Va. Tech Campus
By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer
1 hour ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Virginia Tech students still on edge after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president's office.

The threat of suspicious activity turned out to be unfounded, said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said, and the building was reopened. But students were rattled.

"They were just screaming, 'Get off the sidewalks,'" said Terryn Wingler-Petty, a junior from Wisconsin. "They seemed very confused about what was going on. They were just trying to get people organized."

One officer was seen escorting a crying young woman out of Burruss Hall, telling her, "It's OK. It's OK."

The student who had killed 32 people in two university buildings on Monday had also killed himself, but he left behind a bomb threat, and the school was investigating whether he had any links to previous bomb threats on campus.

Cho Seung-Hui's roommates and professors on Wednesday described a troubled, very quite young man who rarely spoke to his roommates or made eye contact with them. His bizarre behavior became even less predictable in recent weeks, roommates Joseph Aust and Karan Grewal said.

Grewal said he had pulled an all-nighter on homework before the shootings and saw Cho at around 5 a.m.

"He didn't look me in the eye. Same old thing. I left him alone," He told CNN. He said when he saw Cho that morning and during the weekend, Cho didn't smile, didn't frown and didn't show any signs of anger. Grewal also said he never saw any weapons.

Several students and professors described Cho as a sullen loner. Authorities said he left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News reports said that Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly erratic.

Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings _ pages filled with twisted, violence-drenched writing.

"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of his professors, told CNN Wednesday.

"I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk and jump off buildings," she said. "There was something mean about this boy. It was the meanness _ I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people _ it was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to class and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken out of her class, saying she would quit if he wasn't removed.

Lucinda Roy, a co-director of creative writing at Virginia Tech, said she tutored Cho after that.

"He was so distant and so lonely," she told ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday. "It was almost like talking to a hole, as though he wasn't there most of the time. He wore sunglasses and his hat very low so it was hard to see his face."

Roy also described using a code word with her assistant to call police if she ever felt threatened by Cho, but she said she never used it.

Cho's writing was so disturbing, though, he was referred to the university's counseling service, said Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department.

In screenplays Cho wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall. In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site.

"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of."

He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."

"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling."

Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off.

Cho _ who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaners _ left a note that was found after the bloodbath.

A law enforcement official described it Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rant against rich kids and religion. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"You caused me to do this," the official quoted the note as saying.

Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own religion, and made several references to Christianity, the official said.

The official said the letter was either found in Cho's dorm room or in his backpack. The backpack was found in the hallway of the classroom building where the shootings happened, and contained several rounds of ammunition, the official said.

With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many students left town.

Tuesday night, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty and area residents poured into the center of campus to grieve together. Volunteers passed out thousands of candles in paper cups, donated from around the country. Then, as the flames flickered, speakers urged them to find solace in one another.

As silence spread across the grassy bowl of the drill field, a pair of trumpets began to play taps. A few in the crowd began to sing Amazing Grace.

Afterward, students, some weeping, others holding each other for support, gathered around makeshift memorials, filling banners and plywood boards with messages belying their pain.

"I think this is something that will take a while. It still hasn't hit a lot of people yet," said Amber McGee, a freshman from Wytheville, Va.

Monday's rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart _ first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died. Two handguns _ a 9 mm and a .22-caliber _ were found in the classroom building.

According to court papers, police found a "bomb threat" note _ directed at engineering school buildings _ near the victims in the classroom building. In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit with two other bomb threats. Investigators have not connected those earlier threats to Cho.

Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.

At least one of those killed in the rampage, Reema Samaha, graduated from Westfield High in 2006. But there was no immediate word from authorities on whether Cho knew the young woman and singled her out.

"He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him.

Some classmates said that on the first day of a British literature class last year, the 30 or so students went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.

On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. "Is your name, `Question mark?'" classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked," Poole said.

"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.

Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the Glock and a box of practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571.

"He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any idea at all that a purchase is suspicious," Markell said.

Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But State Police ballistics tests showed one gun was used in both.

And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were on both guns. Their serial numbers had been filed off.

Gov. Tim Kaine said he will appoint a panel at the university's request to review authorities' handling of the disaster. Parents and students bitterly complained that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire and did not do enough to warn people.

Kaine warned against making snap judgments and said he had "nothing but loathing" for those who take the tragedy and "make it their political hobby horse to ride."

"I'm satisfied that the university did everything they felt they needed to do with the heat on the table," Kaine told CBS' "The Early Show" on Wednesday. "Nobody has this in the playbook, there's no manual on this."

___

Quote:

rex said:
Anytime someone like you calls me sock boy or socktard that means you can't admit to being wrong.

And anytime you call someone else a name of any sort, you lose, again.

Quote:

the G-man said:
New York Post:

The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as an English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where Monday's bloodbath began.

Police and university officials offered no clues to his motive in the massacre, but a rambling note was reportedly found in Cho's dorm room.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the note railed against "rich kids" and "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

Sources told the Tribune that the words "ISMAIL AX" were also found written in red ink on the inside of one of Cho's arms.

The reference may be to the Islamic account of the Biblical sacrifice of Abraham, where God commands the patriarch to sacrifice his own son. Abraham begins to comply, but God intervenes at the last moment to save the boy.

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the son is Isaac, father of the Jewish people; in Islam, it is his brother, Ismail (Ishmael in Hebrew).

Abraham uses a knife in most versions of the story, but some accounts have him wielding an ax.

A more obscure reference may be to a passage in the Koran referring to Abraham's destruction of pagan idols; in some accounts, he uses an ax to do so.

Interesting....

So it "may be" a connection or reference to Islam. Wow, that's proof, huh?
Notice you gloss over him having easy access to guns because gun control is a liberal issue.

rex, Pariah, BSAMS, Llance and myself were talking about guns on the first two pages of the thread.

I guess you missed it because there were no YouTube videos posted to those pages.

But try and keep up.

Quote:

the G-man said:
rex, Pariah, BSAMS, Llance and myself were talking about guns on the first two pages of the thread.

I guess you missed it because there were no YouTube videos posted to those pages.

But try and keep up.

the article you linked to spoke heavily about guns and how he got them. The "may be" a reference part was so minor and more opinion and speculation than fact.

Quote:

britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
think about it, as a society we have become accustomed to believing if something offends us destroy it, some people were offended by mere words from Imus and werent satisfied till he his career was destroyed, we dont know all the facts on this jerk but obviously he felt like whatever it was that "wronged him", whether it was taunts, an ex girlfriend, whatever that somehow people deserved to die for his perceived slight. at some point society needs to tell people suck it up, there will be good and bad and grow the fuck up....

It turns out that BSAMS isn't the only one drawing connections between the shootings and Don Imus.

In a speech yesterday, Barack Hussein Obama compared what mass murder at Virginia Tech to Don Imus’s botched joke, calling both a form of "violence."

He also compared the shootings to the outsourcing of jobs. According to Obama, outsourcing is “violence” because “men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country.”

Offering these types of comments while 32 families are grieving? Astonishingly inappropriate at best. “Appalling” probably hits closer to the mark for most people.

i dont think Imus had a botched joke, apparently his audience finds him funny.

my point was the people calling for his ouster arent much different than people who shoot up buildings/people.

My reference to you, was not to imply that you shared Obama's view, BSAMS. It was just noting, with some amusement, that Obama also tried to draw a connection, albeit a piss poor one.

NBC is doing something extremely stupid by running those photos the Virginia Tech shooter sent them.

Are they crazy? This will encourage every publicity seeking loser in the world to do something similar to get himself on TV.

That's right, G - Man.... and, in a sick way, it's almost like MSNBC WANTS people to do just that.... to be able to create MORE news for them to cover.

I was just told that NBC (I think) reported that this kid was almost committed a few years ago. I very much believe this was a preventable event, with enough warning signs far enough in advance that someone could have done something. In hind site, the person who chose not to commit him probably regrets that decision, since it might have prevented the murder of 32 people, and the numerous injuries and lives destroyed.

Brad,I am fairly certain that whoever had the chance to commit Cho and didn't - will feel guilty over that for the rest of her or his life.

Unfortunately, that's just not good enough for the 32 dead victims and their families, and all of the injured.

I know.... and I am worried about the next batch of asshole losers who will copy Cho and cause more suffering...

His parents ought to have had him committed. I was talking to some people at work about this today, with all that WAS known about his chemical imbalances and persistant sociopathic extremism behaviors, and his percieved threat toward other students and facualty -- why DIDN'T they commit him?

Because they are the horrible scum that raised him.

If he was under 18 I'd say they should be put in prison for the rest of their lives.

Way to be a quick judger, Emo. I have yet to hear any information regarding his parents.

They raised a child who ended up killing over 30 innocent people. They are scum.

There was a kid that killed his grandparents after taking Zoloft, IIRC his grandparents weren't bad people.

Were his grandparents raising him? If so then it is partially the grandparents fault.

whatever. people are responsable for their own actions, regardless of circumstances.

I agree with that but I also think parents (or whoever raises a kid) is responsible for their actions until they are 18.

He was 20-something

Then it wasn't their fault and he wasn't a kid. Once you turn 18 you're not a kid anymore.

Quote:

rex said:
Because they are the horrible scum that raised him. If he was under 18 I'd say they should be put in prison for the rest of their lives.

Its not always the case that people are assholes because of their parents. Some people have decent parents and are assholes. Some people have scum parents and rise above their upbringing to become decent human beings.

Quote:

the G-man said:
Quote:

rex said:
Because they are the horrible scum that raised him. If he was under 18 I'd say they should be put in prison for the rest of their lives.

Its not always the case that people are assholes because of their parents. Some people have decent parents and are assholes. Some people have scum parents and rise above their upbringing to become decent human beings.

That is correct, G - Man. One cannot generalize or jump to conclusions in regards to how parenting has affected an individual.

rex, that would be like blaming your parents for you being a unemployed leach that fucks socks. im am almost certain you parents didnt teach you to be so repulsive that you can only find sexual satisfaction in woven wool knowing a lonely pitiful existence, that will never know the touch of a woman. it would be silly to blame them of that.

Quote:

the G-man said:
In a speech yesterday, Barack Hussein Obama compared what mass murder at Virginia Tech to Don Imus’s botched joke, calling both a form of "violence."

that's bullshit (if true, after all you posted it

). There's no excuse for this type of thing. Doesn't matter what religion he is, what he saw on tv, what games he played, or who hurt his feelings. The fucker had it in him to be a monster and everything else is an excuse. I've read plenty of books on criminal psychology (by John Douglas, interesting reads) and I learned one thing: the excuse is just bullshit, they had it in them to do it.
Don Imus was just an old man making a bad joke. Last I checked those "nappy headed ho's" were able to go home afterwards with no injuries other than a few hurt feelings.

If I had hurt feelings everytime someone called me a nappy headed ho...

...I'd just be hurting all the time!

What is sad about this situation is that Cho was, at the very least, not removed from the school system back when all the alarms were going off.

While we haven't heard very much about the Parents I have a sneaking suspicion that they are good people and they are in total shock.

I have read quite a bit of Cho's rambling monologues.

It's .. strange, but he was actually talking about himself when he tells whoever he imagined would be listening to his rants that " Blood is on your hands. "

He refused to deal with his issues directly, so he projected them onto everyone else and blamed them for his behavior.

I'd say that reality and Cho were strangers.

Va. Tech Awarding Degrees to Victims
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Long before he snapped, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in the Washington suburbs, former classmates say.

Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., with Cho in 2003, recalled that the South Korean immigrant almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.

Once, in English class, the teacher had the students read aloud, and when it was Cho's turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled. Finally, after the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said.

"As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said.

The high school classmates' accounts add to the psychological portrait that is beginning to take shape, and could shed light on Cho's state of mind in the video rant he mailed to NBC in the middle of his rampage Monday at Virginia Tech.

He shot 32 people to death and committed suicide in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

In the often-incoherent and disjointed video, the 23-year-old Cho portrays himself as persecuted and rants about rich kids.

"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," says Cho, a South Korean immigrant whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."

Among the victims of the massacre were two other Westfield High graduates: Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson. Both young women graduated from the high school last year. Police said it is not clear whether Cho singled them out.

Stephanie Roberts, 22, a fellow member of Cho's graduating class at Westfield High, said she never witnessed anyone picking on Cho in high school.

"I just remember he was a shy kid who didn't really want to talk to anybody," she said. "I guess a lot of people felt like maybe there was a language barrier."

But she said friends of hers who went to middle school with Cho told her they recalled him getting picked on there.

"There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him," Roberts said Wednesday. "He didn't speak English really well and they would really make fun of him."

Cho came to this country as a boy in 1992. His parents work at a dry cleaners.

Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus _ Christina Lilick _ found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. Lilick went to the same high school as Cho, according to Lilick's Facebook page. Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as "the question mark kid."

"I don't know if she knew that it was him for sure," Heck said. "I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door."

Heck added: "She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite."

Lilick could not immediately be located for comment, via e-mail or telephone.

On Wednesday, NBC received a package containing a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement from Cho, 28 video clips and 43 photos _ many of them showing Cho brandishing handguns. A Postal Service time stamp reads 9:01 a.m. _ between the two attacks on campus.

The package helped explain one mystery: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," a snarling Cho says on video. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said Thursday that the material contained little they did not already know. Flaherty said he was disappointed that NBC decided to broadcast parts of it.

"I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it," he said.

On NBC's "Today" show Thursday, host Meredith Vieira said the decision to air the information "was not taken lightly." Some victims' relatives canceled their plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of the images, she said.

"I saw his picture on TV, and when I did I just got chills," said Kristy Venning, a junior from Franklin County, Va. "There's really no words. It shows he put so much thought into this and I think it's sick."

Some of the pictures in the video package show him smiling; others show him frowning and snarling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backward, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holding a gun to his temple.

There has been some speculation, especially among online forums, that Cho may have been inspired by the South Korean movie "Oldboy." One of the killer's mailed photos shows him brandishing a hammer _ the signature weapon of the protagonist _ and in a pose similar to one from the film.

The film won the Gran Prix prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. It is about a man unjustly imprisoned for 15 years. After escaping, he goes on a rampage against his captor.

Authorities on Thursday disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho had been accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.

The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.

___

Cho was badly picked on.

Okay, this does shed some light on why Cho was so angry. However, a lot of people are picked on during public school.... it's a sad fact of childhood.

I, myself was picked on terribly...almost constantly. I could tell you all here of the things that kids, members of my own family and even a few teachers did to me that you could not handle.

I was a loner for most of my childhood.

I escaped into a world where I wrote and drew my own comics, wrote short stories, read a lot and listened to plenty of music.

In college, it began to change. I finally had friends! I went to parties and enjoyed a bit of actual popularity. I was liked and accepted as "The nice guy. "

I never did anything to get back at or hurt the ones who were cruel to me. That is not my nature. I'm the nice guy. I help at my club socials. I talk. I listen. I give advice.

I went through a lot and I turned out okay. I know I am a good person; that I have friends who care about me, my mom who is good to me, and cats that adore me.

Cho obviously did not get help when he needed it badly.

He did not have friends or a viable support system.

I .. guess I feel a very tiny bit sad for him, as he had choices..get help..take medication.. to not hurt others..

He had the same choices all humans have. Right, wrong, fast, cold, nice, cruel.

But I feel infinitely more sorry for the young lives he snuffed.. for the 76 yr old teacher who died protecting those lives.. and the family and friends who must now live without their sons and daughters.

Because of a senseless act of violence.

Cho always had a choice, although he vehemently denies this in his rambling notes.

Now he'll always be remembered as a sick asshole who murdered innocents.

Brilliant choice, Cho.

Well said BeardGuy!

On a sidenote our local news carried a story where some nutcase has painted "kill Cho's family" across the pavement.

I also just heard a newsbit about some guy in California threatening to make Monday's massacre look like a walk in the park.

What is wrong with these people?

Quote:

LLance said:
...our local news carried a story where some nutcase has painted "kill Cho's family" across the pavement. I also just heard a newsbit about some guy in California threatening to make Monday's massacre look like a walk in the park. What is wrong with these people?

Quote:

the G-man said:
NBC is doing something extremely stupid by running those photos the Virginia Tech shooter sent them.

Are they crazy? This will encourage every publicity seeking loser in the world to do something similar to get himself on TV.

You know something? I look at that picture of Cho w/ two guns waving in the air and all I see is some goofy geek! He's laughable. I hope his dead ass can look down on me and see me laughing at his sad ass. Dumbass.

Schools on lockdown in Yuba City. Another dumbass scaring good people. Let's hope that's all he does. Dumbass.

If I was in charge of a network, I'd tell the news division they can only run photos like that if they had a caption like "Yes: the shooter had a small penis", "probable virgin" or "fag" plastered over them. THAT might help discourage copycats.

I guess the popular contention is that Cho's rhetoric should not have been splashed all over the TV. Was it just too soon? Would it have been alright at some later date on a Biography show maybe? I just watched Biography shows on Tim McVeigh and the Unabomber this past weekend and found them insightful and hopeful that maybe their behavior laid bare for all to see may help prevent future atrocities.

Quote:

LLance said:
Schools on lockdown in Yuba City. Another dumbass scaring good people. Let's hope that's all he does. Dumbass.

I used to live near Yuba City. Its a dump. They had a school shooting in that area years ago (before columbine). They try to claim all the school shootings are because of them, like its something to be proud of.

On a sidenote Neither Tim McVeigh or the Unabomber fared well w/ the opposite sex and this was certainly an underlying element of their feelings and their eventual decision to strike back at a society they felt no part of. I'm sure Cho will fit this pattern as well.

Good Gob Almighty! Have they never heard of a twenty dollar bill and a prostitute?

Quote:

rex said:
Quote:

LLance said:
Schools on lockdown in Yuba City. Another dumbass scaring good people. Let's hope that's all he does. Dumbass.

I used to live near Yuba City. Its a dump. They had a school shooting in that area years ago (before columbine). They try to claim all the school shootings are because of them, like its something to be proud of.

Ah! A city full of dumbasses! I now know where the next family vacation will be!

NEWSFLASH! Cho's second gun bought on-line! WTF!?! Gob Bless the internet!

Here we go:

Long before he snapped, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in the Washington suburbs, former classmates say.

I wonder how many of his victims were ALSO picked on in school?

Quote:

the G-man said:
Here we go:

Long before he snapped, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in the Washington suburbs, former classmates say.

I wonder how many of his victims were ALSO picked on in school?

I was picked on in school and I never shot anyone. I think it's bullshit when people use that excuse. There is no justification for murder...unless he was a Scientologist and he shot alien ilfitrating psychiatrists.

Quote:

Karl Hungus said:
Quote:

the G-man said:
Here we go:

Long before he snapped, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in the Washington suburbs, former classmates say.

I wonder how many of his victims were ALSO picked on in school?

I was picked on in school and I never shot anyone. I think it's bullshit when people use that excuse. There is no justification for murder...

Quote:

Karl Hungus said:
I was picked on in school and I never shot anyone. I think it's bullshit when people use that excuse. There is no justification for murder...unless he was a Scientologist and he shot alien ilfitrating psychiatrists.

It may not be an excuse, but it is a reason.

At first, I thought this was some political thing or a class war (see also: His "rich kids" epithet), but apparently this is Columbine all over again.

I'm probably just giving you guys ammunition here, but if I stayed in public school I probably would have ended up as deluded as him, Reb, and Vodka. Before you think you can stop this kinda stuff by securing schools, you have to get to the root of the problem, which lies in the social interaction between kids.

Grieving Parent: Remember Our Children
By VICKI SMITH, Associated Press Writer
2 hours ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Peter Read wants you to make a choice.

He asks that you turn away from the face of the deranged gunman glaring at the camera. Gaze instead at the face of a bright and bubbly brunette who smiled even when she was unhappy, a face always in the middle of a crowd.

It is the face of Mary Karen Read, the daughter he will now see only in scrapbooks.

Hers is just one of 32 promising lives cut short at Virginia Tech _ the life of a musician, an aspiring schoolteacher, a doting big sister to five siblings. A 19-year-old freshman who had just filed her first tax return and learned, the day before she died, how to make a pumpkin pie.

When you think of the massacre that befell this quiet college town, those are the memories Peter Read wants you to remember.

"We want the world to know and celebrate our children's lives, and we believe that's the central element that brings hope in the midst of great tragedy," Read said Thursday, with his wife, Cathy, at his side. "These kids were the best that their generation has to offer."

As the Reads left Blacksburg on Thursday for their home in Annandale, they were exhausted, pale, heartbroken _ and furious. On television, the overwhelming image of the tragedy was the face of Cho Seung-Hui _ a killer whose name Peter Read cannot bring himself to speak.

"I want to issue a direct personal plea, to all the major media," he told The Associated Press. "For the love of God and our children, stop broadcasting those images and those words. Choose to focus on life and the love and the light that our children brought into the world and not on the darkness and the madness and the death."

Several networks have already heard Read's message loud and clear _ from disgusted viewers. Fox News Channel announced it would no longer run the disturbing audio and images of the gunman. NBC, which aired the material first, and cable outlet MSNBC said they would "severely limit" their use.

Read hopes the focus will swing back to the children. Children such as Paul Turner's daughter Maxine, a 22-year-old chemical engineering major from Vienna who loved beaches, swing dancing and her close-knit circle of friends. She would have graduated soon, and she had already lined up a job in Elkton, Md.

At Virginia Tech, Maxine Turner co-founded a sorority and earned a red belt in Tae Kwon Do. She loved the German band Rammstein and signed up for a language class to understand the lyrics.

It was there that she died.

On Thursday, her body rested at a morgue in Roanoke, where state and U.S. flags were lowered and access was heavily guarded by police. A hearse will arrive sometime this week to carry her home, a scenario that will be repeated many times as parents hold funerals.

Like so many today, the Read family is blended: Peter Read, a 44-year-old Air Force veteran, married Yon Son Yi, of Palisades Park, N.J., who gave birth to Mary Read. But the couple later divorced.

Yi remarried and had a second daughter, Hannah, 4 1/2. Read remarried too, and he and his wife had four children: Stephen, 11; Patrick, 4 1/2; Brendan, 2 1/2; and Colleen, 10 months.

The Reads live in a quiet cul-de-sac in Annandale, where they moved in 2001 from Virginia Beach.

Mary Read made friends fast. She joined the French honor society, the National Honor Society and the marching band. She played lacrosse for two years and moved easily between the cliques that fill high school hallways.

She wanted to teach math and science to elementary school students, and she enrolled at Virginia Tech.

In her dorm room were scrapbooks filled with hundreds of photographs _ at summer band camp, at Myrtle Beach, on the arm of her father as part of the homecoming court.

The end of her freshman year was just weeks away, and she had planned to spend the summer at home, working at a deli and helping care for her siblings.

She came home Easter weekend, staging practice egg hunts for her brothers. Then, the weekend before her death, she came home again.

She divided her time between her friends and her family those two days but was inseparable from her laptop. She sat on the stairs, where the wireless reception was best, to instant message and e-mail her friends. A brother sat nearby, toy computer on his lap.

"He wanted to be like Mary," Peter Read recalled.

On Sunday, Read's wife showed his daughter how to make her favorite dessert, a pumpkin pie. And when Read took her to the bus stop at 4:30 p.m., she had a slab of the pie and a container of Cool Whip in a plastic bag.

Mary Read never called to check in when she reached Blacksburg, but her parents know what she did that night: She had recorded her favorite TV show, "House," on DVDs and watched them on her laptop during the 4 1/2-hour ride.

The next morning, she had French class in Norris Hall, where gunman Cho Seung-Hui took her life.

When news of the shootings broke, Peter Read started calling his daughter, hoping she would pick up. Then he called her roommate. The hours wore on, without word.

When Read learned that the parents of his daughter's longtime friend Danielle Waters were driving to Blacksburg late that afternoon to find their daughter, he asked to ride along.

On the drive, Olga and John Waters learned their daughter was alive. Around 9:30 p.m., Read's cell phone rang. It was his wife, and the state police were at their door.

The Reads won't talk about their grief over these past few days. It's too painful, too personal. The time is not yet right.

But they share the photos and drawings from their daughter's dorm room, which was just as she had left it.

In a plastic bag was the empty container that had held her pie. And on her desk was a calendar Mary Read's grandmother had given her years ago, each day offering a quote from a famous woman.

On April 16, the words were from a teacher, Helen Keller:

"When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."

___

I was just transposing in my mind this Cho kid, who took out 30 people, and Boston singer Brad Delp, who committed suicide a few weeks ago.

Delp traumatized his family and friends by taking his own life, which I described as a selfish act, and a cruelty to those who knew and loved him.

But Cho...

How much more twisted and selfish, to ruin not only his own life, but 30 others, and traumatize all their families and loved ones as well ?

Quote:

Pariah said:
Before you think you can stop this kinda stuff by securing schools, you have to get to the root of the problem, which lies in the social interaction between kids.

Or we could round up all kids that fit the criteria and kill them because they're prone to violence, even if most of them are innocent. I mean, addressing the root of the problem in a civilized manner, Pariah? That's just crazy.

Who let all this riffraff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint, and another with spots!
If I had my way I'd have all of ya shot.

Quote:

rex said:
At least 22 dead, 28 injured. The worst school related shooting in US history.

This is sorta true, but not exactly. In Bath, Michigan in 1927 a disgruntled School board member lost his farm due to a foreclosure after the board elected to raise property taxes. He, over the course of a month, planted an explosive compound throughout the school. He killed his wife, went to the school and started flinging dynamite igniting the compounds to make the explosions worse. When rescue workers and volunteers arrived to help out he blew up his car, himself in it, which was laced with extra schrapnel killing many more. By the time he was done 58 people were injured badly and 40+ were killed (mostly teachers and children).

I have to defend sockboy. He said "worst school shooting."
The incident you described involved bombs and dynamite, not shooting, Piggy.

Quote:

the G-man said:
I have to defend sockboy. He said "worst school shooting."
The incident you described involved bombs and dynamite, not shooting, Piggy.

I think he had a gun as well. I also said sorta.

I suppose my main point though was that the media was describing it as the most people killed in a school killing spree-they weren't always saying firearms or shooting.

It was more directed at the mainstream media not doing their homework again-not so much rex.

I've read like five articles bitching that the NBC showed the pictures and videos of the shooter. All of these articles show the same pictures the NBC did, including G-man's post. Maybe a stretch and maybe coincidental.

Or maybe not.

Colo. Mourns Columbine, Va. Tech Victims
By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer
40 minutes ago

LITTLETON, Colo. - As they marked the eighth anniversary of the Columbine school shooting and mourned the recent victims at Virginia Tech, many Littleton families were also questioning a judge's decision to seal information about the killers.

Columbine High School was closed Friday, as it had been every April 20 since the 1999 attack in which two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.

Gov. Bill Ritter asked state residents to join a bell-ringing and moment of silence for the Virginia Tech victims on Friday.

In the years since Columbine, Colorado has become a better place, Ritter said during a solemn ceremony outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, moments before the cathedral bells tolled.

"It's a place of healing, it's a place of unity, a place of hope because we got there together," the governor said.

Some relatives of the Columbine victims haven't been pleased with federal Judge Lewis Babcock's decision earlier this month to seal for 20 years the testimony of Harris' and Klebold's parents about the boys' home lives. They feel the information could help prevent future school rampages.

"I don't think you can stop every crazy person. But some of the things Babcock locked up show what these crazy kids did," said Don Fleming, whose 16-year-old daughter, Kelly, was killed in the attack. "It's no use to anybody if it is locked up."

"If society knew, it could possibly prevent future shootings," Fleming said. "We're finding out that everything that the latest killer did is similar to what Klebold and Harris did."

Other relatives of the Columbine victims expressed similar displeasure over Babcock's decision.

"How much more blood must be spilled?" said Brian Rohrbough, who lost his 15-year-old son, Danny.

Speaking to reporters in Golden, Rohrbough called on the Jefferson County sheriff, the Columbine principal and Babcock to release all information on the killings immediately.

Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus on Monday before taking his own life, called Harris and Klebold "martyrs" in a videotape he mailed to NBC.

Michael Shoels, father of Columbine victim Isaiah Shoels, was at Virginia Tech on Friday to urge officials there to avoid secrecy and keep families informed during the investigation.

"I don't want them to get caught up in what we got caught up in Colorado," he said. "They need to let these parents know that they are going to do whatever they can to get to the bottom of this."

That may not only prevent some lawsuits, but it will help other schools learn and change, he said.

"The child that killed their children, he's dead also. There's no prosecution here. So why not open up and let it be a lesson to everyone?" he said.

In the Columbine records ruling, Babcock cited a need for confidentiality and concerns that releasing the testimony from the killers' parents could encourage copycat crimes. The judge declined to comment.

The Harrises and Klebolds commented publicly only through their lawyers. Michael Montgomery, an attorney who represented the Harris family, said the judge made an appropriate decision.

Much information about the Columbine killers is available on the Internet. Authorities learned that Harris and Klebold played violent games, made violent videos at school, and were bullied.

Researchers into school-related violence support the Columbine families' position on releasing the tapes, noting the relative frequency of campus violence. The Centers for Disease Control in 2002 reported 220 school-related shootings from 1994 to 1999, resulting in 253 deaths.

"The judge said the tapes were incendiary. We have plenty of things already that stimulate violence," said sociologist Ralph Larkin, author of "Comprehending Columbine."

Quote:

Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:
Or we could round up all kids that fit the criteria and kill them because they're prone to violence, even if most of them are innocent. I mean, addressing the root of the problem in a civilized manner, Pariah? That's just crazy.

Wow. That was tasteless. Public schools aren't a cultural problem; they're an organization problem.

I was thinking more along the lines of making private education more accessible so shitty public schools won't cause so many problems. The second thing would be to get rid of Zero Tolerance within said shitty public schools.

You have to cut Mxy some slack, Pariah. As a socialist, executing innocent people in the name of some utopian ideal is right up his alley.

It didn't take long for the Black Helicopter Brigades to pin the Virginia Tech massacre on the CIA.

Quote:

the G-man said:

From the very first reports of the shootings we predicted the killer would be on prozac, would have recently been in psychiatric care and would have regularly played violent video games and that has precisely turned out to be accurate in all three instances.

Uh huh, yeah... and had he actually been treated while in psychiatric care, instead of released, then none of this would have happened. But maybe that's too obvious a point to mention here.

Quote:

the G-man said:
You have to Mxy some slack, Pariah.

"To Mxy some slack"? I can't follow your hipster slang, G-man.

Quote:

As a socialist, executing innocent people in the name of some utopian ideal is right up his alley.

Yes, I only wish all them kids lived in the same village, so I could just drop a bomb on 'em, you know? Also, maybe they could have like, the same pigmentation or something, so they were easier to recognize.

You have to G-man some slack, Mxy. As a conservative, executing innocent people in the name of some capitalism is right up his alley.

Quote:

Pariah said:
Wow. That was tasteless. Public schools aren't a cultural problem; they're an organization problem.

Ohhhhhhhhh, mass killing of innocents is only allowed for cultural, um, I mean, cultural problems. Gotcha.

Quote:

I was thinking more along the lines of making private education more accessible so shitty public schools won't cause so many problems. The second thing would be to get rid of Zero Tolerance within said shitty public schools.

I don't think that's the root of the problem. Over here, private education is pretty accesible, but it's also quite shitty. I had a friend in highschool who came from a poor family and got some random scholarship (he wasn't a good student or anything), but he constantly got picked on for being poor. As a result, he hated rich kids with passion, and ended up being expelled for stealing a cellphone (only to destroy it).

Va. Gunman's Family Feels Hopeless, Lost
By ALLEN G. BREED and AARON BEARD, Associated Press Writer
31 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The family of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho told The Associated Press on Friday that they feel "hopeless, helpless and lost," and "never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."

"He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare," said a statement issued by Cho's sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, on the family's behalf.

It was the Chos' first public comment since the 23-year-old student killed 32 people and committed suicide Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

Raleigh, N.C., lawyer Wade Smith provided the statement to the AP after the Cho family reached out to him. Smith said the family would not answer any questions, and neither would he.

"Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us," said Sun-Kyung Cho, a 2004 Princeton University graduate who works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees American aid for Iraq.

"We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced," she said. "Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act."

Authorities are in frequent contact with Cho's family, but have not placed them in protective custody, said Assistant FBI Director Joe Persichini, who oversees the bureau's local Washington office. Authorities believe they remain in the Washington area, but are staying with friends and relatives.

Persichini said the FBI and Fairfax County Police have assured Cho's parents that they will investigate any hate crimes directed at the family if and when they ever return to their Centreville home.

The family statement was issued during a statewide day of mourning for the victims. Silence fell across the Virginia Tech campus at noon and bells tolled in churches nationwide in memory of the victims.

"We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," Cho's sister said. "We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."

She said her family will cooperate fully and "do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well."

Wendy Adams, whose niece, Leslie Sherman, was killed in the massacre, said of the family's statement: "I'm not so generous to be able to forgive him for what he did. But I do feel for the family. I do feel sorry for them."

"I do believe they're living a nightmare," she added.

Robert Jeffers of Idaho Falls, Idaho, a friend of slain 25-year-old student Brian Bluhm, said: "I hope people can see that the right action to take from all of this is love, not hate."

"Based on this sorrowful statement, it is apparent that the family grieves with everyone in the world," Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said.

Cho's name was given as "Cho Seung-Hui" by police and school officials earlier this week. But the the South Korean immigrant family said their preference was "Seung-Hui Cho." Many Asian immigrant families Americanize their names by reversing them and putting their surnames last.

While Cho clearly was seething and had been taken to a psychiatric hospital more than a year ago as a threat to himself, investigators are still trying to establish exactly what set him off, why he chose a dormitory and a classroom building for the rampage and how he selected his victims.

"The why and the how are the crux of the investigation," Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said. "The why may never be determined because the person responsible is deceased."

During the campus memorial, hundreds of somber students and area residents, most wearing the school's maroon and orange, stood with heads bowed on the parade ground in front of Norris Hall, the classrooom building where all but two of the victims died. Along with the bouquets and candles was a sign reading, "Never forgotten."

"It's good to feel the love of people around you," said Alice Lo, a Virginia Tech graduate and friend of Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor killed in the rampage. "With this evil, there is still goodness."

The mourners gathered in front of stone memorials, each adorned with a basket of tulips and an American flag. There were 33 stones _ one for each victim and Cho.

"His family is suffering just as much as the other families," said Elizabeth Lineberry, who will be a freshman at Virginia Tech in the fall.

In a city park in Frederick, Md., student Claire Moblard rang a 3,400-pound bell once for each of the slain. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland asked state residents to observe a moment of silence. And in Baltimore, Mayor Sheila Dixon and about 100 city employees paused silently at City Hall while bells tolled at Zion Lutheran Church and the Baltimore Basilica.

Near Richmond, Va., a dozen Tech alumni gathered at dawn at an intersection, waving school flags and banners and holding signs asking motorists to honk. The blare of car horns was deafening, and some drivers lowered their windows and raised their arms in a thumbs-up or V-for-victory salute.

President Bush wore an orange and maroon tie in a show of support. The White House said he also asked top officials at the Justice, Health and Human Services and Education Departments to travel the country, talk to educators, mental health experts and others and compile a report on how to prevent similar tragedies.

Seven people hurt in the rampage remained hospitalized, at least one in serious condition.

___

Aaron Beard contributed to this story from Raleigh, N.C.

Re: Collumbine

First, no Colorado is NOT better since Collumbine. Hell, there were three well-armed kids arrested just yesterday for trying to copy-cat Cho (and two arrested for suspicous activity). One even boasted about trying for 100 to show Cho up. That kid had his guns in his car (Highschool). Another at Intellitec Telecomunications College (or something) was strapped to the teeth but tackled by a security guard and a bunch of other students. The third armed one sent his friend an e-mail about his plans and an intelligent and vigilant father looked at his son's e-mail and saw the message and reported the friend.***

Second, the sealing of the Harris and Klebold testimonies is a good thing, I figure. It protects the surviving members of the family's personal information, for one. Also, not one of these kids has a cookie-cutter answer for "what makes a person do these things." Reading about really personal details is more a voyeurism path than a "for the good of the children" thought process. Knowing what type of cereal Dylan and Eric ate will not stop Cho from killing 33 people.

***Uh, yeah, if parents spend more time looking at what their stupid kids are doing, and less time trying to be 'the cool parent,' there'd be a lot less internet child-rape cases and a lot more other stupid shit (that all kids try, admit it -- we're all stupid when we're kids) would be stopped.

Anyway, one thing that really bothered me about the Cho massacre is that he used handguns. And every victim had at least three bullets in them. Nothing was automatic, he Shot every last one of those bullets. It was all very very much on purpose. The intensity of his selfish narcisistic disrespect for other humans is what really gets my stomach twisted.

Virginia Tech shooting autopsy released:Seung-Hui Cho fired enough bullets to cause more than 100 wounds before putting a bullet in his own head

Virginia Tech Holds Graduation

Life goes on.

Even when a loved one is killed.

I'm glad the murdered kids got posthumous diplomas, and that the families got a class ring.

I hope the famlies will be able to move on and not let the sudden, senseless death of a loved one destroy them.

Burn in hell Cho!

Chinese Student Decapitated at Virginia Tech: By a fellow student in a campus cafe. A police officer on the scene reported the alleged killer was holding the victim's head in his hand.

If it's been a shooting it would have been front-page news.

when will there be enough adequate kitchen knife control laws on the books?

when kitchen knives are outlawed only outlaws will use kitchen knives...

Virginia Tech is the new new orleans. If you're still there, its your own damn fault.

We should also blame Bush for people not defending themselves.