Tragedy in the land of the Hokies

[darkstar]

Yeah I hear you Owl.

 

Anytime a tragedy strikes be it a shooting, plane crash, etc you can try to determine what may have worked. Sadly it's always after such events have happened. There really is no way to plan for anything like this.

 

This will surely set off a shit storm in here but I'm gonna say it anyways. The only thing that might have made this less horrible would have been if someone (student, teacher, staff, etc) was carrying a weapon. I'm not gonna get into the gun control aspect of this but if someone had a gun they might have put this sick fuck down a lot quicker. I'm all for someone legally having a concealed weapon and there are many instances where armed civillians have prevented such attrocities.

 

Again not trying to get a gun debate going but seriously who thinks that if someone there yesterday had a gun this may have turned out somewhat different?

 

Just my opinion.....if anyone does not agree that's fine I'm not trying to start a riot just stating my point.

[LouieB]

It's been pointed out that VT is, to a large extent, a commuter campus (something like 11,000 people come from off-campus each day). How do you reach 11,000 people who live off campus?

 

The task may have been monumental, but I still have to question the decision not to at least try to do something to secure the campus after the dorm shooting. Heck, when there's a shooting in Detroit (i.e., every day), they cordon off whole neighborhoods ASAP while they look for the shooter. They couldn't do that here?

 

I'll refrain from further comment, because I simply don't know enough about the circumstances to judge how law enforcement responded. I think it's fair to ask why more wasn't done, but criticism beyond that is premature at this point.

The first shooting occured fairly early in the morning. Once students have already arrived on campus it is difficult to get them to leave, but again, if people start showing up, you send them home, close the parking lots, whatever. There is no perfect answer to this, but not attempting to keep the campus clear didn't make sense (treating this as a domestic disturbance). I have a child on a college campus and to think they wouldn't inform her that someone was murdered on campus and then try and figure out a way to increase security and awareness would not be acceptable.

 

When the basements of downtown buildings here in Chicago started flooding, they sent us home and on 9/11 they sent us home (two hours late but what the heck); large scale evacuation is not impossible. I just don't think it is Monday morning quarterbacking to think that in these days of heightened awareness over security, that this kind of lack of information giving was justifiied. Give the article in the Trib a look. Students were clueless for hours after the first shooting and even after the second. There is no excuse for that.

 

There are no guarantees in life. I work in a government building that could be blown up anytime (Oklahoma City style) and I don't even give it a second thought most days, but if there was some life or death issue that was held back and they did not attempt to evacuate us, I would be pretty damn pissed off.

 

LouieB

[MattZ]

This will surely set off a shit storm in here but I'm gonna say it anyways. The only thing that might have made this less horrible would have been if someone (student, teacher, staff, etc) was carrying a weapon.

 

Just my opinion.....if anyone does not agree that's fine I'm not trying to start a riot just stating my point.

 

After a tragedy like this, I think we are all best served by considering all possible ways to prevent this in the future. The reality of the situation is that this is the worst tragedy in the country's history when it comes to a shooting. I would think that the vast majority of the time (not here obviously), having another nonprofessional pull a gun would only make the situation worse. A lot of standoffs end with no one dead. Or one or two dead (still too many). Having a teacher pull a gun or multiple students pull a gun in response to a madman will more often than not lead to more carnage not less.

 

Just my thoughts. I appreciate you throwing it out there as food for thought even though I don't agree, and even though I bet most people here won't agree with you either.

[LouieB]

There should also be gov't funding for this kind of thing. Even if this one was not a terrorist act, it is obvious that every school is another highly vulnerable place. It still burns me up that we've spent over $200,000,000,000 in Iraq when we could've spent much of that to increase U.S. security and still prevent the "evil-doers" "bad guys" from murdering "here at home."

There are billions of dollars spent on homeland security every year.

Not sure if "commuter campus" is the right word--the majority of off-campus students are probably in apartments or whatever in the immediate vicinity of the campus, but yeah, same difference I guess as far as trying to notify them. Email seems a lousy way of doing it, but I'm not sure how else you go about notifying tens of thousands of people to stay away.

Don't radios work anymore? We all knew about this story yesterday morning when it finally broke. Had the news broken sooner everyone in the local community would have known earlier too.

 

LouieB

[darkstar]

After a tragedy like this, I think we are all best served by considering all possible ways to prevent this in the future. The reality of the situation is that this is the worst tragedy in the country's history when it comes to a shooting. I would think that the vast majority of the time (not here obviously), having another nonprofessional pull a gun would only make the situation worse. A lot of standoffs end with no one dead. Or one or two dead (still too many). Having a teacher pull a gun or multiple students pull a gun in response to a madman will more often than not lead to more carnage not less.

 

Just my thoughts. I appreciate you throwing it out there as food for thought even though I don't agree, and even though I bet most people here won't agree with you either.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Valid concerns to be sure. I look at it this way though. Who would not want a gun in the hands of someone when that dude was busting into classrooms and point blank executing people? At least they might have had a fighting chance.

 

But like I said my opinion and thanks for sharing yours

[owl]

There are billions of dollars spent on homeland security every year.

 

I know, but I'm not going to assume that all of the money is going to the right place.

 

I guarantee you that cost is one reason why many colleges lack the communication systems that would've helped here.

[quarter23cd]

There are no guarantees in life. I work in a government building that could be blown up anytime (Oklahoma City style) and I don't even give it a second thought most days

This comment reminds me a bit of living in the NYC area immediately after 911. After a while, paranoia-fatigue settled in. Because after a while you just couldn't freak out every time you stepped on a train or entered an office building. You'd be looking over your shoulder all the damned time for something that probably wasn't going to happen. After a while there was a grave awareness that something could happen anywhere, at any time, but all the color-coded terror level warnings really became something of a joke.

 

You could draw a correlation here. You can argue about the best way to handle a crisis like this, but (short of precognition or rampant Big Brothering) I have no idea how you'd prevent it. That's the thing--I've visited VT and know numerous people who went to school there and probably none of them would say they ever felt particularly unsafe there. It was less a matter of being in an unsafe place and mostly just a reminder that one determined person can cause a really big mess. Essentially, this could have happened anywhere. And I think that's what is scary about it and I understand people's reaction of "OMG, we need more security!", but really, I'm really not sure what that would be. Because a lot of people calling for more security are probably the same ones who aren't thrilled about things like the Patriot Act or FBI probes into random citizens, but that sort of thing seems the obvious reaction to this. I don't disagree with having improved evacuation/response procedures to something like this, but preventing it seems pretty impossible.

[Mrs. Peel]

What really gets me is that he is said to be a senior there. He's been attending that school for 4 years among the people he killed. For some reason that is the most unfathomable part of this story. It's so much worse than some random nut who enters a random place to take lives....it's someone that has lived and studied along side people that were ultimately his victims. I just can't grasp that.

[Guest Jules]

What really gets me is that he is said to be a senior there. He's been attending that school for 4 years among the people he killed. For some reason that is the most unfathomable part of this story. It's so much worse than some random nut who enters a random place to take lives....it's someone that has lived and studied along side people that were ultimately his victims. I just can't grasp that.

 

He was a senior, but the latest I heard (this morning) was he just came here 18 months ago from China. He was a registered alien. Your point is still valid though.

[Kicking_Television]

This comment reminds me a bit of living in the NYC area immediately after 911. After a while, paranoia-fatigue settled in. Because after a while you just couldn't freak out every time you stepped on a train or entered an office building. You'd be looking over your shoulder all the damned time for something that probably wasn't going to happen. After a while there was a grave awareness that something could happen anywhere, at any time, but all the color-coded terror level warnings really became something of a joke.

 

You could draw a correlation here. You can argue about the best way to handle a crisis like this, but (short of precognition or rampant Big Brothering) I have no idea how you'd prevent it. That's the thing--I've visited VT and know numerous people who went to school there and probably none of them would say they ever felt particularly unsafe there. It was less a matter of being in an unsafe place and mostly just a reminder that one determined person can cause a really big mess. Essentially, this could have happened anywhere. And I think that's what is scary about it and I understand people's reaction of "OMG, we need more security!", but really, I'm really not sure what that would be. Because a lot of people crying for more security are probably the same ones who aren't thrilled about things like the Patriot Act or FBI probes into random citizens, but that sort of thing seems the obvious reaction to this. I don't disagree with having improved evacuation/response procedures to something like this, but preventing it seems pretty impossible.

 

 

Amen. I couldn't have said it better.

[Reni]

He was a senior, but the latest I heard (this morning) was he just came here 18 months ago from China. He was a registered alien. Your point is still valid though.

 

What I am hearing is that he has been in the states since 1992 (from S Korea) and lived in Centreville, VA.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/the_shooter;_yl...Nghesvo0tCs0NUE

[plasticeyeball]

thanks. I'm a strong believer in the melting the guns. have at it.

 

me too

[darkstar]

Hey I respect your opinions.....It's just my feeling. Having a gun has saved my life on more than one occasion (in Iraq) and once here in the mean streets of Nashville. But like I said just my opinion.

[Mrs. Peel]

He was a senior, but the latest I heard (this morning) was he just came here 18 months ago from China. He was a registered alien. Your point is still valid though.

 

I thought he went to high school in Centreville. He's been in the US for a long time.

[Sir Stewart]

Profiles of some of the victims.

"No Earthly Good" by Johnny Cash popped on my iTunes when I started reading these. Man....

 

Erin Peterson, 18, a freshman. Her father Grafton said: "My baby didn't make it."

[owl]

Hey I respect your opinions.....It's just my feeling. Having a gun has saved my life on more than one occasion (in Iraq) and once here in the mean streets of Nashville. But like I said just my opinion.

 

You may find that in certain self-defense situations, a gun might work to your advantage.

 

But when someone is on a suicidal rampage, a gun might also lessen your chances of survival, especially if you're not action-movie accurate.

[tongue-tied lightning]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_on_...a_tech_shooting

 

lots of info on this guy here

[Clouds of Fluff]

Profiles of some of the victims.

"No Earthly Good" by Johnny Cash popped on my iTunes when I started reading these. Man....

 

From the article:

 

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, was an Israeli-born Romanian academic in the Engineering Science & Mechanics Department. He was also a Holocaust survivor and moved to Virginia in 1985.

 

Internationally renowned for his research work, he has been hailed a hero for blocking a doorway to protect his students.

 

His son Joe said he had received e-mails from several students who said he had saved their lives.

 

 

This is all so incredibly sad.

[Lammycat]

VT President defends security/response:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/campus.security/index.html

 

I believe I heard/read that the police responding to the early morning double murder may have thought it to be a murder-suicide initially, too. Which might account for the initial low-key emails. Just throwing that out there.

[darkstar]

You may find that in certain self-defense situations, a gun might work to your advantage.

 

But when someone is on a suicidal rampage, a gun might also lessen your chances of survival, especially if you're not action-movie accurate.

 

 

Yeah....

 

Anyway enough about this debate. Nothing is going to change what happened.....It's just so hard to fathom why someone would do such a thing, thats what gets me. Be interesting to see what they un-earth about this kid.

[Lammycat]

Already being reported that he had some problems and had been referred to campus counseling. There were some quotes from a teacher of his. Also, the letter he left behind was papparently pretty disturbing with mention of paranoid/delusional thoughts. I'll try to find the link.

[Guest Speed Racer]

Addressing Louie's thoughts that not enough was done:

 

- No one listens to the radio on my campus. A few people, but certainly not at 8 in the morning. Radio is no way of getting news out *immediately* on a campus.

 

- A campus email to our entire student/faculty/staff population of 6,000-some takes roughly 6 hours to reach our inboxes. Shows how much campuses invest in their servers.

 

- I visit my school's homepage MAYBE once a day.

 

- I check my email regularly, but most of my friends check it much less frequently than I do. They check their cellphones 50+ times an hour, but that wouldn't have helped them much.

 

- They are COLLEGE STUDENTS. They wake up at 9:30 for a 9:45 class, check their email, brush their teeth, and go to class.

 

- Clearly, remaining in dorms and buildings didn't work. Turning students away at parking lots might have worked, but if kids lived within a few blocks of the campus, they probably wouldn't drive. Expelling pedestrians from campus may have caused a mass exodus that would have provided a shooter with a much larger target base than he ended up with. Expelling residents would lead to perhaps a thousand kids dawdling at cars for an hour, again providing a shooter with a good range of targets.

[OOO]

so a few "campus alert" stations with LED screens and sirens around campus would be pretty easy to do.

 

I know at my campus we get alerts of crime on email and beyond that i dont know whats in place.

[Lammycat]

Is there a campus the size of Vt that could have handled this much differently? I doubt it.

 

How does an institution handle/prepare for a catastrophe like this? Should they run drills for "what ifs" in case of a killer bee infestation? A terrorist attack?

 

I'm not trying to be smarmy about this, but it was an event that cannot possibly be prepared for. I can only assume the best of intentions on the part of the President of the school and the Police department/campus security.

 

Looking back at what should have been done only helps in preparing for future events. I'd hate to see colleges become mini guarded forts, but there probably are better forms of security, or at least ways to get the word of danger out to the campus community more efficiently and effectively.

 

It's been suggested that cell phone numbers could be collected from students and a mass calling (all done with one call that actually connects to all students/staff with cells). Beyond that, how can a mini yet vastly sprawled out community be contacted en masse when something that's never happened before on a campus actually happens?

[Guest Speed Racer]

so a few "campus alert" stations with LED screens and sirens around campus would be pretty easy to do.

 

And a complete waste of money.

 

Looking at just the past 100 years of higher education, this is one of the few mass fatalities to take place on a campus, and one of the only sequential rampages. Most of the incidents that did take place were completely isolated (thinking back, in particular, to the University of Iowa grad student who shot his dissertation committee directly after his defense), and a siren or LED system would only be notifying students of something that 'happened' and wasn't 'happening' anymore.

 

And would it work? The fire alarm goes off in my dorm and twenty kids, at most, evacuate.