“Whenever
there is news of a terrible shooting, I wonder why America has so miserably
failed to enact even common-sense gun legislation.”~Jon
Meacham, Pulitzer-prize winning author, executive vice president at Random
House
It was 8:45 a.m. on April 16, 2007, nearly all
of Virginia Tech went about business as usual. The police at West Ambler
Johnston Hall had identified Karl Thornhill, Emily Hilscher’s boyfriend, as a
person of interest and they were focused on him. The Police Chief had
characterized the double homicide as a case of domestic violence, even though
he had never conducted a murder investigation before. The university’s Policy
Group, the only senior leadership body, with the capacity to issue an
electronic warning to the campus, did not actually have the responsibility to
do so, according to three different emergency procedures that were in effect.
However, they had been in session since 8:25 a.m., knew that at least one
student was dead and another was critically wounded. At 8:45 a.m., they were
just beginning to compose a notice to the university community about the
dormitory shootings. At this point, one hour and 35 minutes had passed since
Emily Hilscher and Ryan Clark had been gunned down and the vast majority of the
campus remained uninformed of the events that morning.
The few who did know about the shooting were
taking precautions. Sometime around 8:00 a.m., Virginia Tech’s Center for
Professional and Continuing Education locked down its doors.
President Steger and the university administration
have gone on record saying that there was no way to predict that the double
homicide that morning was going to lead to further violence. That argument
might be believable, if we accept that assuming the murder was “domestic” or
“targeted” was reasonable, and that being “domestic” made further violence less
likely than in any other murder. But that is simply not true. According to the
International Association of Chiefs of Police, between 1996 and 2009, 771 law
enforcement officers were murdered in the line of duty. Of that figure, 106
were killed responding to domestic violence calls. To say that a murderer is
less violent when the motive is a domestic dispute, rather than criminal
activity is simply false. Murderers are murderers. Once they have killed there
is absolutely no reason to believe they are less violent.
Indeed, on April 16, 2007, before the morning
was over, Cho would act out a script he wrote in Professor Ed Falco’s
playwriting class the previous fall. In that script, a young man who hates the
students at his
school plans to kill them and himself. Falco was so upset with what
he read that he brought Cho’s script to the attention of two English Department
colleagues, Professor Lucinda Roy and Lisa Norris. Both told Falco of their
concerns about Cho and the fact that they had alerted Associate Dean Mary Ann
Lewis to Cho and his writings. Who can accept the assertion that Cho’s rampage
was unpredictable, particularly when he had already describe his plans in
writing?
Collective Ignorance and Communication Delays
In the eleven years preceding the spring of
2007, there had been 39 school shootings in this country. With all the
inquiries and investigations following those shootings, it is hard to believe
that Virginia Tech was so oblivious to the familiar warning signs. Furthermore,
the shooting at the Appalachian School of Law, on January 16, 2002 was a scant
130 miles away. The parallels—including the warnings and the killers’ profiles—
between those two shootings are alarming. It is evident that the administration
of Virginia Tech learned nothing from these tragedies.
On April 16, 2007, first-period classes were
coming to an end at 8:50 a.m., just five minutes after Ralph Byers, Virginia
Tech’s Director of Public Relations and Virginia Tech Policy Group member, sent
an email to a colleague in Richmond (for transmittal to the Governor) that one
student was dead and another seriously wounded. According to The Governor’s
Review Panel Report—The Addendum, Byers wrote, “Gunman on the loose,”
adding, “this is not releasable yet.” Four minutes later, The Addendum quotes
Byers reminding a Richmond colleague, “just try to make sure it (news of the
shooting) doesn’t get out.” And indeed it had not gotten out, and it would not
get out for another half hour. At that time, only those in the administration’s
inner circle knew that there was the possibility of a gunman on campus.
Cho had returned to his room in Harper Hall and
no one noticed his blood-spattered clothes. The campus at large had no
information about the shooting at West Ambler Johnston Hall and no reason to be
looking for a murderer on campus. Cho changed his clothes and prepared to mail
a rambling diatribe to NBC News in New York.
Sometime around 8:50 a.m., the Associate Vice
President for University Relations, Larry Hincker, allegedly tried to send a
message through the alert system but couldn’t due to technical difficulties.
Earlier, Hincker had prepared a draft message with specific details of what had
happened, which the Policy Group reviewed and vetoed before 8:50 a.m.
At 8:50 a.m., as the Policy Group sluggishly
worked on a notice, the Blacksburg public schools locked down. Approximately
two minute later, at 8:52 a.m. (according to trial testimony), Ralph Byers—Tech
PR Director and
a Policy Group member—ordered that the doors to his office be locked. His
office is adjacent to school President Steger’s office suite where doors
remained unlocked.
As the Policy Group met and deliberated in the
Burruss Hall boardroom, the Virginia Tech Veterinary College locked its doors.
The Virginia Tech trash collection and bank deposits were cancelled just about
the time that second-period classes began on the campus—including Norris
Hall—and still there was no hint among the general faculty and student body of
anything wrong, still no warning. There is no evidence of what the Policy Group
was talking about, but clearly by 8:50 a.m. at least one message had been
drafted—and vetoed. No adequate explanation has been given as to why it was not
sent out.
Back in his room, Cho cancelled his computer
account and made final preparations for his mass murder.
At 9:01 a.m., four minutes before the start of
the second period, Cho went to the Blacksburg post office and mailed a package
to New York. There is no mention in the Governor’s Review Panel Report as to
whether he had his weapons with him. The report does say however, that a
professor recognized Cho and described him as looking “frightened.” The package
contained pictures of Cho with weapons as well as a rambling 1,800-word
diatribe expressing rage, resentment and a desire to get even with unnamed
oppressors.
At 9:05 a.m., second-period classes began at
Virginia Tech, and the Policy Group continued to hesitate on the substance of
the message.
For Colin Goddard, April 16, 2007, was something
of an unusual morning. He moved about slowly, spending time getting organized
for the day and texting fellow student Kristina Anderson, who was in his French
class. He had made arrangements to take her to class, but was running late when
he picked Kristina up and by the time they got to Norris Hall, the class had
started. They debated whether to skip class, but finally decided to go in. It
was now about 9:08 a.m.
Sometime between 9:15 and 9:30 a.m., Cho walked
unobserved to Norris Hall, a gray stone engineering building in the middle of
campus. It stands next to Burruss Hall, where President Steger and much of the
school’s senior administration have offices. Cho was carrying two handguns;
almost 400 rounds of ammunition most of it in rapid-loading magazines; a knife;
heavy chains; padlocks; and a hammer. Silently and without notice, from inside
Norris Hall, he chained shut some of the doors many of the students used to
enter and exit the building.
Shortly after the doors were chained, a faculty
member found a bomb threat attached to an interior door. She gave the note to a
janitor, asking him to take it to the office of the dean of the Engineering
School on the third floor. According to the Governor’s Review Panel Report,
this was contrary
to university instructions, which specify that all bomb threats be reported
immediately to the police. The standard practice at Virginia Tech, when there
is a bomb threat, is to send officers to the threatened building and
immediately evacuate it. Had the bomb threat been reported immediately, the
campus police would probably have arrived at Norris Hall sooner. Someone in the
dean’s office was just preparing to call the police when the shooting started.
Other students saw the doors chained closed but
did nothing. One young woman left the building for a brief time and when she
returned was unable to enter. The door was chained from the inside and she
thought it had been locked for some reason associated with the construction
nearby. She climbed through a window to get to her first-floor destination—
apparently without telling anyone what she saw.
Around 9:20 a.m., Virginia Tech Police Department
Captain Joe Alberts arrived at the Policy Group meeting in Burruss Hall to act
as law enforcement liaison, per order of Chief Wendell Finchum. He updated the
attendees on the situation, telling them that a gunman was at large and
possibly on foot.
Finally, after deliberating for an hour, at 9:26
a.m., and only two minutes after the police had stopped Karl Thornhill on
Prices Fork Road at the entrance to the campus, the Virginia Tech
administration sent an email to the campus staff, faculty, and students
informing them of a dormitory shooting “incident.” As noted earlier, the
message contained no specifics, no one was made aware that one student had been
killed and another seriously wounded, and there was no hint that a killer might
have been roaming the campus. A subsequent press release, and all initial
timelines, state that all students [were] notified of homicide. That is
simply not true. Four minutes later, at 9:30 a.m., the Governor’s Review
Panel Report writes that Captain Alberts told the Policy Group that Emily
Hirscher’s boyfriend, Karl Thornhill, was probably not the killer.
At Norris Hall, sometime around 9:30 a.m., Colin
Goddard remembered a strange and disturbing thought after Rachael Hill, one of
the best students in the class, came in and sat down in the front row. He
wondered why she had come in when the class was nearly half over. She told the
students seated near her that there had been a shooting in her dorm and the
building was locked down, but she and another student, Henry Lee, had argued
they had to go to class and were finally allowed to leave the dorm. Colin
remembers thinking, “Wow, a shooting on campus and we know nothing about it.”
At 9:40 a.m., fourteen minutes after the email
about the dormitory shooting went out, Cho began his eleven-minute bloodbath at
Norris Hall. (To be continued)
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