A school rocked by violence in the biggest killing in U.S. history.
BY KARLI VEZINA
Although the world kept turning on April 16th, 2007, those who heard the afternoon news carried on with heavy hearts. At about 3 p.m. that afternoon, the news came out that an unnamed person at Virginia Tech University had killed 21 and injured 11.
By evening, South Korean Immigrant Seung-Hui Cho had been identified as a senior Virginia Tech English Major who had killed 33, including himself. The State of Virginia and the rest of the world were left with too many questions and not enough answers.
One point in the story has been receiving much scrutiny. At 7:15 that morning, Virginia Tech police got a 911 call about shots being fired at the West Ambler dormitory. The body of one male and one female were found in their dorm room but no word was passed on the school officials or the press. Classes continued as usual.
An hour and a half later, Cho sent his package containing photos and videos with his speech to NBC. Somewhere within that timeframe he was also believed to have returned to his dorm to reload his guns. Some say that if the school had been closed after the first shooting, the other 30 students and faculty would still be alive today.
At 9:15 that same morning, police were interviewing a person of interest about the double murder when they heard gunshots being fired at the Norris Hall engineering building. A half hour later, police made it across campus to find the front doors to Norris Hall chained from inside.
On the second floor, shots were firing like clockwork and once inside, bodies were found scattered in four rooms and the stairwell. Cho’s body was among them. Two guns were found next to his body with their serial numbers filed off. Despite this tactic, it was quickly established that one of those guns was used in the first killing in the West Ambler dormitory.
The few who survived the massacre said that he calmly and methodically walked up and down the isles of the classrooms he invaded, shooting each student, sometimes more than once, as he passed. The sound was rhythmic one said, like he had it all planned out, stopping only to reload.
Due to Cho’s incorrect mailing address to NBC, his manifesto package arrived at NBC two days later, on April 18th. His video footage was hostile and sporadic.
“You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,” Cho said on one of the videos, “but you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.”
Today officials and faculty of Virginia Tech are left trying to put the pieces of this macabre puzzle together. Teachers have noted his disturbing writing, behavior and attitude through out the last semester, but without a crime committed, there wasn’t much they could do aside from gently suggesting counseling and trying to be supportive.
Roommates say he didn’t talk much, was often seen “staring at nothing” and was bothersome to the female students he pursued. His English wasn’t the best, said the few who knew him from class, he saved his skill for pen and paper, often writing of death and revenge. In his manifesto he mentioned his hatred for rich kids and their “debauchery” but named no one in particular for his killing spree.
His parents came out of hiding two days later to issue a statement of remorse and prayers for the families who had also lost a loved one. They said they never expected Cho to unleash so much violence and are grieving with all those involved in the tragedy.
In the weeks to come, just as during the Columbine killings unfolded, the media will scrape over Cho’s life with a fine-toothed comb, searching for the beginning, the trigger and where it all went wrong.
Virginia Tech has already asked the media to back off from the school while classes resumed on Monday, April 23rd. The near future will be a delicate balance of the media keeping fresh wounds open while the entire state and university attempts to heal. iT!
With files from www.thestar.com
Copyright © 2010 · Open Reel Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved ·
