Paragraph seven of Justice
Powell’s decision to throw out the jury verdict in the Pryde and Peterson
lawsuit against Virginia Tech ends with this:
“… the shootings appeared
targeted, likely domestic in nature, and that the shooter had likely left the
campus.” These words are
particularly repugnant. Judge Powell combines the false assertion of a domestic
crime, with the incorrect use of “targeted” killing, and ends with the
indefensible assertion that “the shooter
had likely left the campus.”
As I pointed out earlier,
there is no way this could have been a domestic crime. Now, Judge Powell
accepts the incorrect use of “targeted” killing. In fact, “targeted killing” is
a concept used by experts and defined as “people far from any battlefield who
are determined to be enemies of the state and are killed without charge or
trial.” For a Virginia Supreme Court justice not to know the definition of
“targeted killings” is troubling.
Judge Powell twists her logic
into a pretzel in order to accept the explanation of Ralph Byers, Virginia
Tech’s Executive Director for Government Relations for backing away from the
8:45 a.m. assertion in an email to the Governor’s office: “gunman on the loose….”
Judge Powell never explains why the school administration was correct in
warning the Governor’s office some 150 miles away, and not warning the campus.
The excuse that the school wanted to notify the next of kin before releasing
information to the public is specious. You can withhold the names of those
killed and still warn the campus. (To be continued)
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