VIRGINIA TECH: THE GOVERNOR'S REVIEW PANEL REPORT

(AND TRIDATA, THE HIRED GUN)

“The right to search for the truth implies also a duty; one must

 not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth.”

~Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist

“I know of no formula for evil that is surer than sloppy research … ,”

~Sherman Kent, World War II intelligence officer and

 the father of U.S. modern intelligence analysis

By the time it was done, the Governor’s Review Panel Report (the Addendum) on the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech cost the taxpayers around three-quarters of a million dollars. In the final analysis the document is a testimony to the willingness of a large number of Virginians in positions of trust to engage in half-truths and even lies to protect their careers and thwart legal action. The report is specious—it is, in many respects, impotent. On the surface it looks good; the goals, as laid out by the governor, are excellent. But upon close examination, the report is stunningly flawed. Some of the most damning evidence against Virginia Tech, Virginia law enforcement officials, and the politicians in Richmond is missing in the error-ridden report’s content and in the circumstances surrounding its writing. Furthermore, the report writers were at the mercy of Virginia Tech for much of their information. For example, school officials insisted that a case, but somehow this arrangement was accepted when the review panel was set up.

Some might say that small errors and inconsistencies creep in to any large work; however, the report has a basic flaw that is so serious that it undermines the credibility of much of the document and the people who wrote it. This flaw, in and of itself, is a testimony to the lack of thoroughness and professionalism in the document’s research and writing. The flaw is so fundamentally important to the investigation that leaving it uncorrected puts into question whether any investigation was done by TriData at all.  The flaw shows that TriData was not able to even simply record what multiple witnesses reported: the location and time that the killer, Seung Hui Cho, committed suicide.

Survivors were in the room when Cho committed suicide in the front of the French class, right after he heard the police use a shotgun to blast open the lock of a Norris Hall entrance.

Here are excerpts from the Governor’s Review Panel Report 9:45 am timeline entry. “Cho returns to room 211, the French class, and goes up one aisle and down another, shooting people again. Cho shoots Goddard two more times. … Cho (then) tries to enter room 204 where Liviu Librescu is teaching Mechanics. Professor Librescu braces his body against the door yelling for students to head for the windows. He is shot through the door. Students push out screens and jump or drop to grass or bushes below the window. Ten students escape this way. The next two students trying to escape are shot. Cho returns again to room 206 (the graduate engineering class in Advanced Hydraulics) and shoots more students.”

The 9:51 am entry reads: “Cho shoots himself in the head just as the police reach the second floor. …”  The timeline is botched up. Cho did not leave the French class and go to rooms 204 and 206. Cho was in those rooms before he committed suicide in room 211.

A timeline is the most important part of any crime scene analysis. Indeed, all analyses flows from the time-sequence of events. Not knowing where the killer committed suicide implies either incompetence or purposeful blurring of facts, and could indicate an effort to make the report less useful to those who would seek to analyze the crime independently. This error in the Governor’s Review Panel Report is critical and casts serious doubt on the report as a whole.

Here is another example of a flaw in the timeline. This one, being an error of omission, seems even more likely to be an attempt on the part of TriData to keep their clients, Virginia Tech and the state of Virginia, out of trouble:

April 16, 2007:  8:16 am-9:24 am:  Police allow students in West Ambler Johnston Hall to leave; some go to 9:00 am classes in Norris Hall. (The timeline does not specify that students Henry Lee and Rachel Hill were allowed to leave West Ambler Johnston Hall for their 9:05 am class French class in Norris Hall where they were shot and killed. The school’s failure to lockdown West Ambler Johnston Hall and the deaths of Lee and Hill are critical in making a judgment about the school’s reaction to the shooting—a lockdown would have saved those two lives.)

If the above error was not serious enough to cast doubt on the report’s accuracy, stop to think that when it was first published in August 2007. The errors in the initial version were so glaring and the outcry in the media and from the victims’ families so great, that the report was revised—twice. The first revision was published in November of 2009 and the second revision in December of 2009. Even the second revision, the Addendum, did not correct all the mistakes.

The extent and magnitude of the flaws in the initial report were so serious that Governor Kaine had no choice but to go back to TriData to fix the problems. The “fix” was based primarily on the work of the victims’ families—to Mike’s and my knowledge TriData caught none of the errors. To reiterate, the $75,000 was given to the firm to make corrections based on the work others had done. None of these errors seems to have inspired the company to go back and do their own research or fact checking. As far as we can tell, TriData was adept at printing what was handed to them, but less adept at looking at the evidence with a critical eye.

Putting it bluntly, the company that did substandard work in the first place, was then rewarded with another fee to fix what they screwed up. If the first report wasn’t accurate, then TriData ought to have been fined, not rewarded with more money. But that argument assumes that TriData was not doing exactly what it had been paid to do. You have to ask yourself, “Was TriData the hired gun to shoot down truth and accountability?”

The report, even with the revisions, will probably go down in history as a poorly researched, poorly analyzed, and poorly written document. What a shame. Even in the best light, the report can only be seen as a missed opportunity to do something to help prevent school shootings. For example, the Review Panel Report does not address problems central to the causes behind the shooting and shies away from making the tough recommendations needed to get at the heart of the problem and prevent future shootings on school grounds.  In the final analysis, the reader is left with the impression that the incentive to produce a candid and objective report was low. (To be continued)

VIRGINIA TECH: DISHONESTY BLOCKS TRUTH

Truth is the one thing that the families of the victims of school shootings need more than anything else. They need to know what was their loved one was doing or saying before he or she was gunned down. The families need to know things such as who found my child, where was he or she taken, was anything done to try and save him or her. They need to know every little detail. I am not sure why, but it helps the surviving family members if they are able to reconstruct the last few moments of their loved one’s life.

Truth, however, is rarely what the families get. In the case of Virginia Tech, the dishonesty that the Pohles, Goddards, and Whites encountered would only grow. The recognition of the fact was the defining moment. It was not bad enough that their children had been wounded or killed—they were being lied to. With the power and pocket book of the state of Virginia, school officials and politicians almost immediately embarked on what has to be one of the most expensive and widespread cover ups in academic history. It is this cover up, and how the families fought against it, that I will explore in future posts—beginning with the Governor’s Review Panel Report, known as The Addendum. (To be continued)

VIRGINIA TECH: DON'T TAKE ME WHERE HE WAS; DON'T TAKE ME THERE

  

For Tricia and Michael White, who lost their daughter Nicole in Christopher James Bishop’s German class, the morning of April 16^th started much as any other Monday in Tidewater Virginia, with the two heading to their respective jobs. By the end of the day, however, their oldest child would be dead and they would realize they were not being told the truth about how it happened.

In the early hours of that spring morning however, death was the furthest thing from their minds. Both were reflecting on the wonderful weekend they had spent with their two children—Evan and his older sister Nicole. The previous week Evan had been on school vacation and had spent it with his older sister on the Hokie campus. The two were very close. Evan’s best friend was his tall vivacious redheaded sister. Evan reveled in the time he spent with Nicole, and his days with his sister at Tech were special. He went to many of her classes and hung out with his older sister’s friends.

On Sunday the 15^th Tricia and Mike White drove half way to Blacksburg, to Charlottesville, to meet Nicole and Evan. They ate at Applebee’s and throughout the meal Nicole could not stop talking about her future and how much she enjoyed her classes. She especially enjoyed Bishop’s German class. This was the second time Nicole had been in one of the charismatic young instructor’s classes. In fact, she should not have been in that German class; it was closed when she tried to enroll. But Nicole would not be denied, she insisted on being in Bishop’s class and finally convinced him to accept her as a “forced add.”

Christopher James Bishop was the first to be gunned down when Cho entered the German class in room 207. Ironically, had Cho’s murderous rage taken place a week earlier Evan would probably have been in the German class and the Whites might have lost both their children.

Sometime shortly after Tricia arrived at work on the morning of the 16^th, her brother called from Greensboro, North Carolina to tell her that two people had been killed in a dormitory on the Virginia Tech campus. Her first reaction was concern tempered by the fact that Virginia Tech is huge, with around 30,000 students, faculty, and staff. She asked him to keep her posted.

When her brother called back around an hour and a half or so later to say there had been more shootings and multiple deaths her concern became fear. She learned that this time the deaths were in an engineering building. At that point, Tricia did not know Nicole’s schedule or if she had any classes in the engineering building, but she immediately tried to reach her daughter by cell phone and texting—but there was no response.

Alarmed, she called her father in New York and asked him to watch the TV and keep her posted. Her father called back in just a few moments and said, “This is not looking good.” She then called Nicole’s roommate who confirmed that Nicole’s German class was in the engineering building, Norris Hall. In a near panic she called her husband, Mike, who himself had just heard about the shootings. He too had not heard anything from Nicole. They agreed to meet at home and then go to Blacksburg.

By now Tricia’s whole office was aware of the situation, all work had come to a halt and everyone was glued to the news. Tricia’s boss told her she needed to go home; she needed to get to Blacksburg.

A co-worker drove Tricia White home—she was too upset and frightened to drive. All the way she kept denying that her daughter was or could be a victim.  When she arrived at their suburban home in Smithfield, Virginia, Mike was waiting for her. The two deliberated about going to Tech, but what if they were to miss Nicole’s phone call telling them she was all right? They monitored the news and Mike saw TV coverage of someone with red hair being carried out of Norris Hall. At that point he said, “We have to go; we have to go now.”

Before leaving they called the local Smithfield police to tell them where they would be and how to reach them in case they had any news of their daughter. They also left a message on their home phone answering machine telling Nicole or anyone who phoned that they were headed for Blacksburg—Tricia left her cell phone number on the message. Reporters called the White’s home and later used that cell phone number to harass the Whites.

A friend drove Tricia, Mike, and Evan to Blacksburg. The day was dark and rainy. All the way Mike kept saying to himself, “God you are in control now.” He hoped against hope that God would hear him and Nicole would be spared, but inside he had a sinking feeling she was gone. He had a terrible, terrible stifling feeling that he was in the midst of a life-changing event, something from which he might never fully recover. It was suffocating him.

When the Whites got to the campus, they went immediately to the Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center, which had been set up as the focal point for dealing with the crisis. At the reception desk Tricia identified herself and asked to see Nicole. The person behind the reception desk checked some papers and then said, “Please follow us.”

They were taken to a bank of elevators.

Both Tricia and Mike remember the elevator door opening and a man emerged sobbing. Tricia remembers saying, “Please don’t take me there. Don’t take me to where he was; don’t take me there.”

But the Whites were taken there, they were taken to a small room with a table and aluminum chairs. By now, both were in a state of near panic. Neither one can remember how many people were in the room or who they were other than a female doctor.

Tricia kept repeating louder and louder, “Where is someone from Virginia Tech?” They would soon learn, just as the Goddards and the Pohles were learning, that the “someones” from Virginia Tech would be few and far between.  And when the “someone” did come, he was ill equipped to deal with them and the situation.

Mike remembers people trying to calm Tricia down. Nicole’s boyfriend arrived and confirmed that she was in the German class where the shootings took place. A doctor who was present kept trying to reassure Tricia saying, “Maybe she is dazed, traumatized and walking around. Maybe she is with friends seeking comfort.”  The doctor said she would call hospitals to see if there was any word about Nicole.

Tricia and Mike had the sinking feeling that the doctor was just stalling for time and trying to make it look as if something was being done. Deep inside they both knew Nicole was gone, and they knew that everyone in the room knew that. They felt they were being lied to. They would continue to feel that way for months, and feel that way to this day.

Tricia keep getting louder and louder and said if no one had any answers she would go to Norris Hall. She would go there; she would find Nicole. Someone in the room dissuaded her—they don’t remember whom—saying the authorities would not allow anyone into the crime scene. Late that night, Mark McNamee, the Provost, came in, but had next to nothing to say of any value. Captain Chumley of the Virginia State Police then volunteered that there would be no answers that night and suggested they try to get some sleep.

The Whites were taken to a room in the Inn with one king-sized bed for the three of them. It was around 11:30 pm. About one half-hour later, Tricia’s two brothers, Mark Gallagher and Tom Gallagher, arrived and all five stayed in the same room. They would doze briefly, but no one could sleep. Even if they could have slept, there were interruptions. Several times throughout the night, in a callous disregard for the anxiety the family was experiencing, reporters called Tricia’s cell phone asking about their daughter.

Throughout those first hours on April 16th, as the dead were being identified, the families—including the Whites and Pohles—frantically kept trying to reach their children on cell phones. The result was a macabre sound of the dead students’ and faculty members’ cell phones ringing, echoing through the empty corridors of Norris Hall. The smell of gunpowder and death hung in the air. The sound was a pall hanging over the bodies of two beautiful young people, Michael Pohle and Nicole White. Michael had died apparently in a vain effort to shield Nicole White from multiple bullets that tore life from the vivacious, spirited young woman. The two students lay together in death’s embrace, an embrace that would unite the Pohle and White families forever.

On the morning of April 17^th, the Whites were put in a different room. By 10:30 a.m. there was still no word about Nicole. Tricia’s sister, Kathleen Field, had now arrived, as had their minister and their church’s youth pastor. Sometime around 11:00 a.m. the female doctor who had been with them the night before, Provost McNamee, and the police came in the room with the terrible news that Nicole was dead. She had been shot multiple times, including once in the head.

There are no words to describe the impact. The three cried with the depth and intensity that can only be brought about by the death of a child and a beloved sister.

The Whites were on an emotional roller coaster, all the time crying harder than they had ever cried in their lives. Mike kept saying to himself, “This is not fair.” His grief was overpowering, he was grasping for air and felt guilt as he kept asking, “God, why couldn’t this have been someone else? Why a child that is going down the right path? She was doing all the right things.”

For the Whites, much of the rest of that day was lost in a tidal wave of incredible emotional pain. They do remember a meeting for the families with school President Steger late that morning, but there was nothing Steger could say or do that could give them solace. They remember a contrite school president responded to a question from a father whose daughter was among the victims. The man asked, “Who is in charge?” To which Steger responded, “I am.” Then, to the father’s follow-up question, “Who is responsible for all this,” Steger hesitatingly and reluctantly said, “I am,” an answer he would begin to deny and retreat from almost immediately.

The school sent the manager of the school cafeteria to be the official liaison with the Whites. Nicole had worked at the cafeteria and he knew her quite well. The problem was he too was traumatized and ill equipped to answer their questions. Every time they would ask something, he would go away to find the answer. This was not his fault; it was just another example of the school’s poor handling of the families. When the Whites complained, Tech named someone from the Office of Admissions, but even the resulting interaction, while better, was superficial and lacking.

The police explained the delay in identifying Nicole was because she apparently had someone else’s identification in her hand. The Whites remember the doctor theorizing that Nicole, who was a medic, was trying to help someone and therefore had that person’s I.D. in her hand. But, as with so much the Whites were told, this explanation simply did not make sense from the position of the bodies. And indeed one of the investigating police officers later told the Whites that he doubted that story because Nicole’s wounds were so severe, particularly the head wound, she would not have been able to help anyone. The inaccuracies just kept coming.

The Whites were told there would have to be an autopsy. Nicole was an organ donor, but the police said that would not be allowed because this was a crime scene. Was this a fabrication or riding roughshod over family wishes—or both? Was this a lie? When Angela Dales was killed at the Appalachian School of Law five years earlier, her organs had been donated and that was a crime scene.

There were more frustrations, more delays and more meaningless meetings. The police were still not satisfied with the identification of Nicole and wanted more. They wanted fingerprints. Tricia’s two bothers found and took the police to their niece’s car and gave law enforcement officers access to Nicole’s apartment in order to take the prints they needed.

By Thursday, most of the families had left. But the Whites were still waiting; they were waiting for Nicole’s body to be released. The Whites would not leave the campus without their daughter; there had been enough double-talk, they wanted Nicole.  There seemed to be no one who could tell them when they would get their daughter. The inability or unwillingness to provide families with access to accurate information shaped the defining moment for yet another family.

The Whites had been the last of the victims’ families to arrive on campus; they would be the last to leave. (To be continued)

            

VIRGINIA TECH: THE GODDARDS RECOGNIZE THE LIES EARLY

For the Goddard family, the realization that something was amiss, that Virginia Tech was hiding something, came early—in the hours and days immediately following the shooting.

           

Unlike school officials such as Associate Vice President for University Relations Lawrence Hincker, whose memory repeatedly failed him on the witness stand during the Pryde and Petersen families’ trial against Virginia Tech, Andy Goddard remembers. Monday April 16, 2007 in vivid, painful detail. He was at home that day getting ready to take his mother-in-law to the train to return home to New Jersey. When the news of the double shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall came over the television he told his mother-in-law not to worry, that Colin lives off campus in an apartment. But as the news of the Tech tragedy grew steadily worse, Andy’s concern for Colin’s safety turned to fear and then to panic. He tried to console himself by saying what are the odds? On a campus that big, what are the odds Colin had been shot?

           

He clearly recalls phoning his wife’s office only to be told she was on another line talking to Colin, who had been shot. All they knew was that he was in the hospital, was wounded, and apparently would recover. It was not until they got to the hospital and talked to the doctors that the Goddards found out their son had been shot four times and had five wounds—the fifth wound being where a bullet had exited Colin’s body.

           

The hospital Colin had been taken to was not far from the school. As Andy Goddard sat watching his son struggle to deal with his life-threatening wounds, he waited for someone from the school to contact him. But no one came. This absence on the first day, the day of the shooting, was not hard to explain. Andy told himself school officials were busy with the families of the deceased—as they should be. But months later when Andy met with some of the families of the deceased he was shocked to find out they had not been the main focus of the school administration’s attention either. By that afternoon Colin’s friends had found where he was and were at the hospital. Andy could not help but think if students could find Colin certainly the school could—surely someone from the school would show up soon. He waited that evening, yet no one appeared and the school made no attempt to contact the Goddard family or inquire about Colin’s condition.

           

Two professors’ wives did come to the hospital, but it was on their own initiative. As sympathetic and kind as their gesture was, the two women did not represent the school and had no authority to open up a line of communication. Their presence only underscored the school’s inaction and increasingly obvious indifference.

           

On Tuesday, still no contact with the school, but again, Andy assumed they were busy with the families of the dead. As the day progressed, there was no sign of anyone from Virginia Tech—no administrators, no counselors, no faculty, no one. Andy had sent messages through the hospital director and the two faculty wives, asking them to relay his concerns directly to Tech officials. But still there was no word or inquiry from the school, there was no contact point, and no school official came to the hospital or made any attempt to inquire about Colin.

           

For Andy Goddard, an engineer, when something is broken you spend time analyzing the problem and find out what went wrong and what needs to be done to fix it. Usually disasters, such as what occurred at Virginia Tech, are caused by many small things going wrong and by those things coming together with tragic consequences—a confluence of mistakes, missed signals, and sometimes negligence. Andy wanted answers and it did not take him long to realize school officials did not want to talk. Tech officials wanted minimal contact with the families of the dead and wounded; clearly, he thought, someone had gotten to Tech and told them not to talk.

           

By now Andy was not just annoyed, he was angry. He would later find out that the school had contacted none of the families of the wounded and that even three days after the shooting, the school did not know the names of the wounded, where they had been taken, or their conditions. It was as if once the injured were taken off the campus, the school had no responsibility or interest in them.

           

On Wednesday, as Colin was taken to surgery, there was still no official contact with the school. Again Andy turned to the hospital director to help open a line of communication to Tech, but once more the school did not respond.

           

An increasingly agitated Andy then went to the phone, called the school and asked when a school representative would appear at the hospital. The response was that nobody could come because of privacy issues, and they would not be allowed in unless they were family. The excuse was out and out false. President Steger did visit at least one wounded student after hours when the parents were not present. Furthermore, the school official added that Tech did not know names of those in the hospital, much less what hospitals the wounded were in or their conditions. Andy was furious. He wanted to blurt out, but did not, “For god’s sake, Tech has class rosters, the school knows the names of the dead and yet days after the shooting claims to have no idea who the wounded are, where they are, or their condition.”

Adding insult to injury, the school official asked Andy to go around the hospital and gather the names of the other injured and then report that back to him. A livid Andy Goddard refused.

           

At this point Andy lost his temper and demanded that someone representing the school administration come to the hospital. He said he would be at the front door waiting for someone to show up. And wait he did. While Colin lay in the recovery room, Andy Goddard stood for hours at the front door of the hospital, but no one came. What Andy wanted was a contact point, a name or a number to call; he didn’t want answers, he didn’t want apologies, he just wanted a line of communication with school officials. He wanted contact with the people who had been responsible for his son’s education right up to the point when he was loaded into an ambulance and driven away. Those people, however, appeared to have washed their hands of Colin Goddard once he was taken to the hospital.

           

Finally, late in the day some nurses from Tech did appear. By then Andy had no patience, he could only respond, “What we want is an administrator—we have nurses! Has someone told Tech not to find out information, or does the school just not care?” Andy realized that Tech was a big school, and this was a crisis, but it stretched all credibility to think that a school the size of Tech could not find four administrators to send, one each, to the four hospitals where the wounded were being cared for.

           

Andy Goddard’s suspicion of obstruction grew. It was becoming clear; Tech was trying to hide something. It was at that point that Andy realized that Tech had embarked on a campaign to cover up and hide incompetence and bureaucratic inertia. He believed there could be only one explanation for the school’s lack of responsiveness; Virginia Tech had played a role in Cho’s massacre. It remained to be seen just what that role was, but as the evidence and facts surfaced over the succeeding weeks and months, not only would the school’s complicity in enabling Cho to carry out his massacre become clear, but evidence of the lengths to which the Steger administration would go to cover up the school’s negligence would become glaringly apparent.

           

Upon reflection, Andy realized how naïve he had been. He had thought that everyone was in this together; they were all victims—the school and the families. He was finding out just how wrong he was.

           

The school did finally assign a liaison person, and she contacted the Goddards on Friday, April 20th.

Andy stayed in Blacksburg, in Colin’s apartment to help him get back on his feet. After a couple of weeks he asked if he could contact the families of the deceased, or just be given the names, he was told no. Andy was told those families did not want to talk. Andy soon found out that was a lie. Just as he was trying to get the names and contact numbers for the families of the wounded, Joe Samaha, whose daughter had been murdered, was trying to do the same for those whose children and loved ones had been killed. Samaha was also intent on contacting the families of those who survived. The school apparently wanted the families to have as little contact with each other as possible. Tech officials did not want the families talking to each other and comparing notes. Their strategy appeared to be to divide and conquer.

When he got back to Richmond, some three weeks later, Andy again raised the subject of contacting the families of the injured and those killed. The school offered to take the Goddards’ contact information and give it to other families, who could then decide if they wanted to talk to the Goddards. That was the last Andy Goddard would hear on the subject and none of the families he later talked with remember ever being offered the contact information. Clearly the school had lied. 

Again, Andy Goddard took the initiative. He went through press reports and collected the names of the families of the dead and wounded. It took him three or four weeks to draw up a master list of family names and to make his first contact with other families. One by one he began contacting other families and one by one he found them all eager to talk. Andy contacted Joe Samaha and found that he and others were not only anxious, but eager to talk to the families of the survivors. The picture was clear that school officials had lied when they said the families of the deceased did not want to talk to the families of the survivors. There could be no doubt Virginia Tech was hiding something and had been willing to lie to attempt to keep the families apart.

           

For the Goddards then, the defining moment came soon after arriving in Blacksburg—within the first 24 hours. The school’s lack of willingness to send a representative to the hospital alerted Andy Goddard to some sort of nefarious activity on the part of the Steger administration, a suspicion that was confirmed when Andy Goddard found out he had been lied to about the families of the dead not wanting to talk to the families of the wounded. (To be continued)