April 19, 2007

The mass murderer, Cho Seung Hui, who took his own life after taking the lives of 32 others at Virginia Tech, was a ticking time bomb, as his history at the school indicates.

This happened to be the worst shooting massacre at any US school ever, but school shootings have become more common. At this point it is mandatory to look at the events in retrospect, to find out how this happened, and how similar acts of violence might be prevented in the future.

Previously, Cho had frightened students and teachers with disturbing writings. One story involved an adolescent plotting to murder his stepfather, who ends up murdering the stepson. Another story included students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

Some of his classmates, in fact, had joked that they were waiting to hear when Cho would become a school shooter or other violent offender. It seems they waited too long.

His neighbors referred to him as an antisocial loner who did not talk to anyone and would not return greetings. The killer had also set a fire in a dorm room, stalked several women on campus, and was thought to be suicidal by an acquaintance.

This behavior landed him in counseling, and subsequently in court. The magistrate found that he was an imminent danger to others, and placed him in a mental institution for temporary detention. After that visit, he was allowed to not only remain in school for 2 more years, but buy guns.

In a true community, this type of man would be met with an intervention by his neighbors, telling him that they were worried about him. This would at least send the signal that they had their eye on him. Whatever happened to neighborhood watch?

But left to his own devices, on Monday, Cho murdered two students in the West AJ dormitory. One of these was a resident advisor who was killed because of his immediate response to the shooting.

Then he proceeded back to his room, put the final touches on his media package, and headed off to the post office. No campus lockdown, no warning, not even a suspect.

Instead the police acted on an incorrect assumption that it was an isolated, “domestic” event, despite the random killing of the RA who probably had nothing to do with other victim, other than living down the hall. Apparently Cho was not a suspect. Two and half hours later, they had a mass murder in Norris Hall.

Was it inevitable that he would get to the breakpoint? Possibly, but that’s what mental institutions are for.

The point is that there were ample opportunities to defuse this ticking time bomb, but the police force, the university, and the VT “community”, are not set up for crime prevention.

The police at VT, like at other college campuses, are purposed to control underage drinking, issue parking tickets and speeding tickets (of which Cho got one). They also excel at directing traffic and keeping the peace on the day of a football game.

The police dept is NOT configured to protect the lives of unarmed, defenseless students against random acts of violence. But I believe that it should be. Good investigative work could have derailed Cho even before the first set of murders at AJ.

Police departments everywhere should study and learn from this tragedy, to find out what they should be doing to prevent murders and massacres in the future. With help from communities, they need to reorient their mission from crime reaction to crime prevention.