Following the slaughter at Virginia Tech, the Governor set
up a blue ribbon panel to analyze the rampage. The net result was a badly
flawed report that does not address
the problems central to the causes behind the shooting. The third and final
version of the report, known as The
Addendum, shies away from making the tough recommendations needed to get at
the heart of the problem and prevent future shootings on school grounds.
Unlike Colorado’s
Columbine report, which was written by the panel members who analyzed that
shooting, Virginia Tech hired a firm that had done business with the state
(Arlington-based TriData) to do the
drafting; a conflict of interest. TriData
was paid around $700,000. Virginia Tech bought and paid for the report it
wanted; a report analyzing the tragedy in such a way to gloss over incompetence
and call no one’s actions or inactions into question.
I have read the
report several times and each time I come away scratching my head. The sheer
size of the report is noteworthy, but its failure to face up to what needs to
be done—hold people accountable for their actions and inactions—makes The Addendum an exercise in futility.
The report did
not address issues such as identifying mistakes in judgment and the individuals
who should be held accountable for their actions or inactions. Indeed, the
report is an amazing exercise in avoiding accountability and legal liability.
The investigating
panel should have written the report in order to avoid any hint of conflict of
interest. It is bad enough that a state panel examined the behavior of state
employees and the state’s largest university to determine if there was any
malfeasance, but not one member of the victims’ families was a panel member.
The state did pay for a family representative and spokesperson on the panel.
But, who was paying the representative and to whom did the representative owe
loyalty? The state—again, a conflict of interest that is hardly conducive to
impartiality.
Several key
players declined to cooperate with the review panel. I find that lack of
cooperation disheartening and puzzling. Specifically, the Virginia State
Police, the ATF, and the gun dealers “declined to provide the panel with copies
of the applications” Seung Hui Cho completed when he bought the weapons that
would eventually kill over thirty innocent people. The report notes that “the
Virginia State Police … did describe the contents of Cho’s gun purchase
applications to members of the panel and its staff.” The state police’s
willingness to “describe” is a limp attempt to explain their failure to
cooperate and provide the panel with documents. This lack of cooperation is a
lethal flaw in the report—it is inexcusable.
The panel was
impeded in its work by the FOIA rules that did not allow more than two members
to meet together or speak by phone without it being considered a public
meeting. This is bureaucracy at its worst. The report needs to be more specific
in detailing the problems this bureaucratic obstacle presented.
The report
sugarcoats glaring errors and problems. For example, the report on page 10,
talks about the findings and recommendations in the report being two different
kinds. One, “What was done well,” and two, “What could have been done better.”
The report should have exposed people in positions of authority failing to do
their jobs—“could have been done better” is backing away from holding
individuals and institutions accountable for their actions.
In this same vein, the report says that the police may have
made an error in reaching the premature conclusion that their initial lead was
a good one and that the person of interest was probably not on campus. May have
made an error? The Virginia Tech Police did
make a very serious error by jumping to a premature conclusion and giving
the wrong impression to school officials. This error should never be glossed
over.
The report appears to make excuses for the failure of the
university’s Policy Group to put out a campus-wide alert following the
discovery of the first two bodies. The previous August, the university had put
out an alert that a convict named William Morva had escaped from a nearby
prison and killed a law enforcement officer and a guard. The alert indicated
that the murderer was on the loose and could be on campus. The university set
its own standard in August of 2006 by issuing that alert, and then violated
that standard in April 2007. Lives would have been saved had that alert gone out;
the report skirts around this critical point.
In sum, The Addendum fails to do its job in
critical areas; it is bland, and raises no real red flags. The report is the
equivalent of reading a book with no thesis. The recommendations indicate this
or that “should” be done. The “shoulds” relate to such things as analyzing,
training, complying with this or that act, police being members of panels, and
so on and so forth. Yes, these “shoulds” need to be done. But, nowhere does the
report say that individuals should be held accountable for their actions or
inactions; that organizations and individuals must be held accountable when
they break their own standards and over 30 lives are lost.
One member of the
Panel reported that from the outset panel members felt under pressure to
produce a report that would not lead to litigation.
The report may be
impressive in size, but it is unimpressive in content. The report falls short
of what it needed to do…make clear that everyone in a position of
responsibility must be held to standards of safety and that failure to meet
those standards will result in stiff penalties. Instead, readers are left
wandering from page to page in an effort to tie ends together and make these
conclusions for themselves. (To be
continued)
