The Virginia Tech Massacre..

[2099net]

Sorry, but there's always a motive. A motive is described as

something that causes a person to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc.; incentive.

The motive could be something that literally happens in an instant - an argument for example, or it could be something that's been building up over a number of days, weeks or years; feelings of inadequacy? not taking medication? not seeking psychological help for earlier problems?

Being as the two incidents were separated by two hours I feel its wrong to say "He just went in there with two pistols killed 32 people and himself". I doubt it was planned in advance, and I doubt he just did it. Most people would see it was connected to the 1st incident in some form.

I think the media does a disservice to the people when reporting on attacks like this. They're keen to shrug off the reasons – either by shrugging their shoulders and saying "there is no real reason, he was clearly insane" or by picking on easy targets "it was the films he watched, the games he played". There never seems to be a proper attempt to get to the real reason.

Life in the 21st century is stressful. Relationships are stressful. Most people, be they in school, college or the workplace are in competition constantly. There is no job security anymore. Doctors and authorities don't have either the time or the money to monitor patients with potential psychiatric problems properly; and anyone with potential problems is normally drugged up with the same trademarked drugs regardless of if they are the best suited for that particular individual or not.

This is an old report but

A newly published study, the most comprehensive to date, found that by 1996, more than 6 percent of children were taking drugs such as Prozac, Ritalin and Risperdal, and the researchers said the trajectory continued to rise through 2000.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... -2003Jan13

From what I have read recently, the trend for the figure to be going up since 2000, not down. So who looks after these children? Do they have regular consultations? Who pays? What happens to the children who are missed? What happens when the children get older?

And I don't want to be funny, but those 6% of kids in 1996 are most probably walking around with guns now. Perhaps not in all states, but in some (I'm not an expert the requirements for buying firearms in various states). But potentially that's 6 people out of 100 who were on drugs which helped them to function in society, and can now get guns.

It's wrong everyone says how shocked that they are when events like yesterday's happen, but then do nothing to address the root issues behind them. Because they know if they do, it may not reflect that well on the modern lifestyle we all have to lead. And it scares them to have to think about that.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

If this is a symptom of something, and I guess it is since we see it more or less regularly these days, this world is indeed getting crazy.

[blackcauldron85]

I hear the 1st shooting was domestic, perhaps his girlfriend.

What I've heard/read is that the school didn't notify the students right after the first shooting because they just assumed that it was a case of domestic violence. Fox News said that maybe the killer liked one of the girls that he shot in the dorms- he had possibly stalked some women for a little while.

[Mason_Ireton]

A classic teen thrill killer syndrome, though I admit the case is rather distrubing, I don't see the domestic in the 1st shooting, obivously the gunman had some serious unclassified issues. This day will live in infemity.

[Jules]

This has me stunned. I heard of it this morning, during a news report on a local Maltese radio station. Like Lazario, the first thing I thought of, was "Again!?"

It's disgusting. It's despicable. It's inhuman. It's sad.

Incidentally, a week ago, I was reading of the Columbine Massacre on the internet (Wikipedia), and my blood tunred blue. I don't get it. These coincidences happen to me all the time. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I never read the article a week ago ... maybe this massacre wouldn't have happened. As silly and naive as these thoughts seem - I actually can't help thinking of them.

BTW, whenever I think of the Columbine Massacre and the other school attacks last year in Colorado, I can't help thinking of Timon/Pumbaa fan. It happened to me last September (or was it October?) when I heard of that attacker in Colorado who killed a girl, and molested some others...

[PapiBear]

I can't believe this one girl I know. She's Asian, and she keeps saying, "I'm glad the student that did it was Asian. It breaks the stereotype that Asian people never do anything wrong." What?!

You're perplexed by her statement (which is, admittedly, poorly worded) because you've likely never had to live under the burden of being a "model minority."

[brotherbear]

Being that I live in VA, (and probably aboud 2-3 hours away or there abouts from Blacksburg), this news really does hit close to home. I know quite a number of people who went to VT after they graduated from my high school and as far as I know, they're ok. It's also REALLY scary because (being a senior in High School), VaTech was one of nine schools that I applied to. (One of only 2 in-state schools). Ironically, they were the only one to turn me down as well. (Which is weird because I got into harder schools than VT). But at this point, my parents and myself are grateful that I got rejected because then it would be utter hell in my house because of the shooting and that they would have been one of my top choices. (Most likely...instate school with prestegious, highly reguarded programs).

Anyway, PLEASE keep the people in VaTech in your thoughts and prayers! (AS WELL AS their family and friends! I know many people who have brothers and sisters at VT and are going through a tough time after this scare!)

-BB

[UmbrellaFish]

I don't live in Virgina, but actually very close to it. I live about 2-4 hours away from the college, so I was extremly shocked. I feel so sorry to all those families and friends who lost loved ones. I thought it was terrible.

[Prudence]

I don't like what I've read about this young man. He was quiet, depressed, and wrote morbid plays. And by quiet, I mean that he wouldn't talk to you if you said anything to him.

Quite frankly, he sounds like he was borderline-autistic and I hate that! I sincerely hope he was not. Everyone will just accuse those on the spectrum of being dangerous and silent now, which is horribly unfair to those who are anything but.

[Mason_Ireton]

What's Borderline Austic? I agree with you bout his personality and playwrights being disturbing and he was singling out women too all were 19. That's just wrong my dear, just wrong.

[Prudence]

By B.-A. I meant that he sounds like a candidate for having a form of autism, but he might not and I hope not.

[Prudence]

A sad update -

Two of my Pi Beta Phi sorority sisters were wounded in the massacre. One has received stitches. The other is still in critical hospitalized condition. If she dies, the death toll will be 34 and I know I'll cry.

This was already awful, but it's now become more personal. Though it's not been determined yet if Cho knew all his victims, the terrorists who attacked America in 9/11/01 certainly did not know all their victims. Monday's record-breaking massacre feels like a 9/11 attack on colleges from an insider (meaning from a student).

Cho just made things a lot harder for Koreans, as well as for people on anti-depressants.

The enormity of it all is overwhelming, and the tragedy becomes worse as more is uncovered.

[Mason_Ireton]

A sad update -

Two of my Pi Beta Phi sorority sisters were wounded in the massacre. One has received stitches. The other is still in critical hospitalized condition. If she dies, the death toll will be 34 and I know I'll cry.

This was already awful, but it's now become more personal. Though it's not been determined yet if Cho knew all his victims, the terrorists who attacked America in 9/11/01 certainly did not know all their victims. Monday's record-breaking massacre feels like a 9/11 attack on colleges from an insider (meaning from a student).

Cho just made things a lot harder for Koreans, as well as for people on anti-depressants.

The enormity of it all is overwhelming, and the tragedy becomes worse as more is uncovered.

Sweetie, I'm so deeply sorry bout your Pi Beta Phi sorority sisters, I'll keep you/them in my prayers and if you need a shoulder to cry on...*Hugs Prue warmly* I'm right here for you whenever you need me. Gon'na help you with this crisis. You're right bout the masscare acting like 9/11 college style, we live in a modern verison of the Great Depression. Again I'll be avaible whenever you need me Prue.

[goofystitch]

My technical writing class took a break from our regular work to talk about this. It was pretty interesting what everyone had to say and what it basically came down to is that there is no single way to stop these cases from happening again. My college has an on campus police department and there are usually two cops on duty, but never inside of the buildings. They are basically glorified meter maids as all they do is write tickets to students parking at the metered spots (we have a lack of parking spaces). We talked about how if one on duty copy would be stationed inside of the building rather than in one of the parking lots, it would make the school much safer. (I should add that my college buildings are almost all connected and in the middle of a park). However, how do you stop a student who enters a class room with a gun with intentions to kill everyone in the room?

One of the issues that is very evident in all of these school shooting cases is that the gun men are more or less outcasts. So one way to limit the ammount of cases that happen would be to prevent people from feeling unconnected with society. That means take the headphones out of your ears and start friggen talking to people. It bugs me so much that students walk around with their iPods constantly. I never bring mine out of my car. And even though the college atmosphere feels less like the click oriented high school I went to, I still see some students being cast out. Reportedly, this shooter was rarely seen with anybody in the halls.

My school doesn't offer many opportunities to meet new people. There is freshman orientation and they have a few poorly advertised dances. Other than that, unless you join a club you have next to no opportunity to get to know your fellow students. It was easy to make friends in high school because there was so much down time in class. There is hardly any of that in college unless you live in the dorms. The shooter reportedly lived in the dorms, so it was the R.A.'s responsibility to at least attempt to get the guy socialized. I mean, he had to have something in common with somebody else at that college. If one person would have opened up to him, this could have been prevented.

Another aspect of it is that VA Tech reportedly has a very close-nit atmosphere. I went to a small private high school freshman year and it was terrible. One "popular" person didn't like me, and before I knew it I was out of the "in crowd" and people were talking down to me. I left when somebody approached me in the hall on September 12th, 2004, and told me they wanted to kill me. When told, the school suspended him for half a day and that was it, so I went to public school. My class was 700 students. I had absolutely no problems and made a ton of friends. If VA Tech has that kind of atmosphere, they need to try to get a mass attitude adjustment. That goes for every other school and person as well. Don't make people feel outcast. You don't have to like everybody, but you also don't have to be rude to them. That's one of the things I hate about American society. We love to kick the little guys.

So to everybody in here, start talking to people. You don't know who they are or what they're going through. They could turn out to be the best friend you've ever had, your future spouse, or they could be having such a rough time that they are thinking some disturbing thoughts and all they really need is one person being nice to them and making them feel included to make those thoughts go away.

[disneyboy20022]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/

I am no expert but I think this case just took a very dramatic and unexpected turn on this emotional rollercoaster of tragicness

Again My prayers go out to the family and friends and all of VA Tech

Sometime after he killed two people in a Virginia university dormitory but before he slaughtered 30 more in a classroom building Monday morning, Cho Seung-Hui mailed NBC News a large package, including photographs and videos, lamenting that “I didn’t have to do this,” the network said Wednesday.

Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the network received the package in Wednesday morning’s mail delivery and immediately turned the materials over to FBI agents in New York.

The package included an 1,800-word manifesto-like statement diatribe in which he expresses rage, resentment and a desire to get even.

The material is “hard-to-follow ... disturbing, very disturbing — very angry, profanity-laced,” Capus said in an interview late Wednesday afternoon.

The material does not include any images of the shootings Monday, but it does contain “vague references,” including “things like ‘this didn’t have to happen,’ ” Capus said.

“You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,” Cho says 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.”

Capus said gloved NBC security personnel handled the package very carefully as soon as it arrived. The network immediately called the FBI and turned it over.

The package bore a U.S. Postal Service stamp recording that it had been received at a Virginia post office at 9:01 a.m. ET Monday, about an hour and 45 minutes after Cho shot two people in the West Ambler Johnston residence hall on the Virginia Tech campus and shortly before Cho entered Norris Hall, where he killed 30 more people.

“We probably would have received the mail earlier had it not been that he had the wrong address and ZIP code,” Capus said.

Shooter speaks on camera
Among the materials are 23 QuickTime video files showing Cho talking directly to the camera, Capus said. He does not name anyone specifically, but he mentions “sin” and “spilling” his blood and talks at length about his hatred of the wealthy.

The production of the videos is uneven, with Cho’s voice so soft that at times it is hard to understand him. But they indicate that Cho had worked on the package for some time, because he not only “took the time to record the videos, but he also broke them down into snippets” that were embedded paragraph by paragraph into the main document, Capus said.

The package also includes 29 photographs. He looks like a normal, smiling college student in only the first two. In the rest, he presents a stern face; in 11, he aims handguns at the camera that are “consistent with what we’ve heard about the guns in this incident,” Capus said.

Other photographs show Cho holding a knife, and some show hollow-point bullets lined up on a table.

“This may be a very new, critical component of this investigation,” said Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of Virginia State Police, the lead agency investigating the shootings. “We’re in the process right now of attempting to analyze and evaluate its worth.”

Detention order issued
As early as 2005, police and school administrators were wrestling with what to do with Cho, who was accused of stalking two female students and was sent to a mental health facility after police obtained a temporary detention order.

The two women complained to campus police that Cho was contacting them with “annoying” telephone calls and e-mail messages in November and December 2005, campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Cho was referred to the university’s disciplinary system, but Flinchum said the woman declined to press charges, and the case apparently never reached a hearing.

However, after the second incident, the department received a call from an acquaintance of Cho’s, who was concerned that he might be suicidal, Flinchum said. Police obtained a temporary detention order from a local magistrate, and in December of that year, Cho was voluntarily but briefly admitted to Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Center in Radford, NBC News’ Jim Popkin reported.

To issue a detention order under Virginia law, a magistrate must find both that the subject is “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or treatment” and that the subject is “an imminent danger to himself or others, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for himself.”

According to a doctor’s report accompanying the order, which was obtained by NBC News, Cho was “depressed,” but “his insight and judgment are normal.” The doctor, a clinical psychologist, noted that Cho “denies suicidal ideations.”

Cho was released, said Dr. Harvey Barker, director of the health center.

“If a person is able, at that moment, to ah persuade a psychiatrist [and] the hospital treating team that they are OK to be released — I imagine sometimes that does happen,” Barker told NBC News.

Under the law, the magistrate could have issued a stronger detention order mandating inpatient treatment, but there was no indication Wednesday that such an order was ever entered. A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans told NBC News that he could not discuss Cho’s case because of patient confidentiality and privacy laws, but he said the hospital was cooperating with the investigation.

Otherwise, Flinchum said, there were no further police incidents involving Cho until the deadly shootings Monday, first in a young woman’s dormitory room and then at a classroom building across campus. Neither of the alleged stalking victims was among the victims Monday.


In addition to the 33 people confirmed dead, including the gunman, nine people remained in hospitals in stable condition, hospital authorities said.

[Prudence]

Did you see him on the news? That is SO scary. This hits too close to home for me. As I said before, I'm moving to Virginia soon. I have a lot of connections to the state. His targets were the affluent and women! MY FRIENDS! MYSELF!

I would stand in front of a stream of bullets if it meant saving the lives of any of my friends.

[Mason_Ireton]

Yeah, the pics were quite disturmbing with a drawling voice to match, it's a shame of how dangerous humans can be to each other, ourselves. *sigsh disgusted* I read the Colmbine High School and felt personaly violated, it was a couple towns away from my cousin's old school, luckly she's 1 year younger then moi, didn't think bout the seriousness of school shooting till I read bout Colmbine, Virgina Tech and other school shootings. Our world is crumbling.


Prue: I would stake my life for you/your friends too even if it ended up costing me my life to a great extent.

[Isidour]

just impressive how can someone change isn't?

the first pictures showed notting about this buy but then...well it was scary

by the way, I might sound cruel but this incidents make me so glad of not living in the US

[Prudence]

I'm grateful for all my friends and for their concerns, but I wish I had not been correct in my assumptions earlier. See below.

~*~

So, a CNN article featured an interview with Cho Seung-Hui's aunt. She said that he was diagnosed as autistic/aspergian. Great. He said he did this for his people.

FOR HIS PEOPLE?! He killed and wounded my people! His targets were the affluent and college girls like me - but he and I are also part of the same neurotic minority group. I know that it did not cross his mind for one second that there could be a hard-working, affluent, capable, popular, intelligent Aspergian college sorority girl with connections to the state of Virginia.

I sincerely hope I am not coming across as stuck-up in this post. I'm not trying to brag on myself; the above descriptions are simply the truth and what I've been called. Yes, I have Asperger's Syndrome like Cho Seung-Hui. So do many people, people that are nothing like him in the least. I am not at all the stereotypical Aspergian. In real life, only my absolute closest friends know of the diagnosis and no one is able to guess. Cho thought he was avenging his "brothers and sisters" who were mistreated. He thought he was doing the right thing because he was rejected and because he was picked on in middle school. Furthermore, he thought that the perfect revenge lay in shedding the blood of the wealthy and successful - in particular, the wealthy and successful young women. If my friends and I attended Virginia Tech, we would have been victims. I would have been one of the first shot.

This tragedy is a record massacre, as has been stated numerous times. A record massacre. And it leaves me feeling so very hurt. Not only does my heart ache for the victims, but I am reminded in the cruelest of ways that the world assumes I do not exist.

[Mason_Ireton]

So, a CNN article featured an interview with Cho Seung-Hui's aunt. She said that he was diagnosed as autistic/aspergian. Great. He said he did this for his people.

FOR HIS PEOPLE?! He killed and wounded my people! His targets were the affluent and college girls like me - but he and I are also part of the same neurotic minority group. I know that it did not cross his mind for one second that there could be a hard-working, affluent, capable, popular, intelligent Aspergian college sorority girl with connections to the state of Virginia.

I sincerely hope I am not coming across as stuck-up in this post. I'm not trying to brag on myself; the above descriptions are simply the truth and what I've been called. Yes, I have Asperger's Syndrome like Cho Seung-Hui. So do many people, people that are nothing like him in the least. I am not at all the stereotypical Aspergian. In real life, only my absolute closest friends know of the diagnosis and no one is able to guess. Cho thought he was avenging his "brothers and sisters" who were mistreated. He thought he was doing the right thing because he was rejected and because he was picked on in middle school. Furthermore, he thought that the perfect revenge lay in shedding the blood of the wealthy and successful - in particular, the wealthy and successful young women. If my friends and I attended Virginia Tech, we would have been victims. I would have been one of the first shot.

This tragedy is a record massacre, as has been stated numerous times. A record massacre. And it leaves me feeling so very hurt. Not only does my heart ache for the victims, but I am reminded in the cruelest of ways that the world assumes I do not exist.

O.M.G what a scandalous news, now I'm really disturb to the point of crying cause..well..I...*thinks what he's bout to say* Let's just say I can relate to Cho but not in a Teen Thrill Killer way *shudders* Thanks for sharing this information darling, really appericate it alot more then you know. It's a shame that people with Austism/Asperger have to open the world's eyes differently. I'm greatful for people like my T.B.C.C, Youth Group and U.D friends accepting People like Prue and I for who we are and giving us chances.

Again thanks for sharing Prue, you're not alone in this battle, got plenty of support backing you up, Prue's SlytherPuff Army

<3 Mason