RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Shooting at Virginia Tech

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 ?

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.

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

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."

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.

Seung-Hui Cho was a mind-controlled assassin, whether you believe he was under the influence of outside parties or not, the fact is that the cultural brainwashing of violent video games and psychotropic drugs directly contributed, as it does in all these cases, to the carnage at Virginia Tech on Monday morning.

Outside of the obvious culpability of the factors we see in every mass shooting - video games and "antidepressant" drugs, numerous red flags concerning Monday events are beginning to suggest that Cho was more than a heartbroken nutcase with an axe to grind.

Cho was certainly no slouch, in the two hour gap between the first reported shootings and the wider rampage that would occur later in the morning, during which time the University completely failed to warn the students despite having loudspeakers stationed throughout the campus, Cho had time to film a confession video, transfer it to his computer, burn it onto a DVD, package it up, travel to the post office, post the package, and travel back to his dorm room to retrieve his guns and then travel back to the opposite end of the campus to resume the killing spree. The almost inconceivable speed of Cho's actions become more suspicious when we recall initial reports that there were two shooters.

Even if we rule out the fact that Cho had received expert firearms training, the cultural mind control of violent video games and mind-altering psychotropic drugs were themselves a cocktail of brainwashing that directly contributed to the carnage, as they do in nearly all these cases.

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.

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.

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

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.