Memo from hell: people will admire me

I hesitate to even post this photo, because it's so chilling, eerie and macabre. The above photo, a screen shot made from a video sent to NBC by Cho Seung-Hui and broadcast yesterday, shows the Virginia Tech gunman at his psychotic and sickening worst. The video was part of a package apparently mailed to NBC on Monday, April 16, between Cho's first and second attacks on the Virginia Tech campus. NBC said yesterday that a time stamp on the package, which contained photos, videos and a manifesto, indicated it was mailed during the two-hour window between the first and second attacks.

I still can't get over the fact that Cho was able to mount a second attack in Norris Hall that killed 30 people, two hours after the first attack. Our TVs are now filled with people from Virginia Tech full of self-congratulatory pap, claiming that they responded in a timely fashion and that everything was "well-organized" and that the university "has a specific plan in place to deal with incidents just like this."

If that's Virginia Tech's plan, they'd best put it in the round filing cabinet and start over. Two of the responders were on Today the morning following the attacks, stopping just short of bragging about how they responded. I realize that the two men, "interviewed" by Meredith Vieira, don't set policy, but Vieira could have at least asked the question, "Why did Cho have two hours to mount a second attack on the campus?"

I realize that Vieira is not really a journalist, but that's the question that everyone in America, most of all the parents and friends of these victims, wants answered, NOW.

In today's New York Times:

Campus authorities were aware 17 months ago of the troubled mental state of the student who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, an imbalance graphically on display in vengeful videos and a manifesto he mailed to NBC News in the time between the two sets of shootings.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, said in one video mailed shortly before the shooting at a classroom and his suicide. "Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

NBC, which received the package on Wednesday and quickly turned it over to the authorities, broadcast video excerpts on "The NBC Nightly News."

The hostility in the videos was foreshadowed in 2005, when Mr. Cho's sullen and aggressive behavior culminated in an unsuccessful effort by the campus police to have him involuntarily committed to a mental institution in December.

For all the interventions by the police and faculty members, Mr. Cho was allowed to remain on campus and live with other students. There is no evidence that the police monitored him and no indication that the authorities or fellow students were aware of any incident that pushed him to his rampage.

Despite Mr. Cho's time in the mental health system, when an English professor was disturbed by his writings last fall and contacted the associate dean of students, the dean told the professor that there was no record of any problems and that nothing could be done, said the instructor, Lisa Norris. [Emphasis Mine]

I certainly hope the victims' families, friends and loved ones get the answers from Virginia Tech they deserve, or at least an explanation as to why Cho fell through the university's cracks, and why so much time elapsed between the first and second attacks.

Incidentally, it's not lost on me that NBC made sure its logo appears on the photos released and the video that was broadcast yesterday. Let's never miss an opportunity to have an exclusive!

This massacre is so stunning and shocking, it's been hard for me to put it out of my mind this week, especially since I teach at a university.

I do applaud Virginia Tech for one thing, and that's shutting down classes for the entire week and for giving students, faculty and staff the resources they need to cope with the tragedy. VT at some point needs to return to the business of being an institution of higher learning, the aftermath of the tragedy was no time to be worried about academics.

I acknowledge that I don't know all of the facts surrounding this tragedy, and as they unfold, maybe VT did many things right, but the bottom line is that a more proactive approach to a double murder on its campus may very well have saved the lives of the 30 students and faculty members who died in the second attack.

Photo from AP via NBC