RA = Save the Prez, Let Students Die

[4Knee Kate]

What's the first thing you do when a mental case starts blasting on campus?  If you are an RA "Gold Standard" monolith like Virginia Tech the answer is obvious:  Call your family and friends first, lock the President's office door, then wait an hour and a half before issuing a campus alert.  

'Inexcusable' actions in Va. Tech killings report

Governor irate over new findings that some officials notified own kin first

updated 12:00 p.m. PT, Fri., Dec . 4, 2009

RICHMOND, Va. - Some Virginia Tech officials warned their own families and the president's office was locked down well before a campus-wide alert was issued in the 2007 slayings of 32 people, according to a revised state report that details new fumbles in the response to the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

The updated report, released Friday, also found that one student survived several hours after being shot without anyone notifying her family until she had died.

At least two officials with a crisis response team called their family members after the first shootings at a dorm and about 90 minutes before the all-campus alert was issued at 9:26 a.m. The president's office was locked down at 8:52 a.m. and two academic buildings were also shut down before the general alert.

The revisions, made partly in response to requests from victims' families, also added details about troubling behavior by Seung-Hui Cho and includes information from his mental-health records. Cho killed 32 people and injured several others before killing himself on April 16, 2007, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Gov. Timothy Kaine said the findings that some school officials called their own family members about the initial shootings in a dorm before an all-campus warning was issued were "inexcusable."

"There is almost never a reason not to provide immediate notification," Kaine told the Associated Press Friday. "If university officials thought it was important enough to notify their own families, they should have let everyone know."

The revised report is likely to bring new scrutiny for university President Charles Steger, who has resisted calls from family members of some victims to resign over the response to the massacre.

"He's got to live with himself," said Dennis Bluhm, who lost his son Brian and said Friday he no longer cares if Steger resigns. "If he's got any heart at all, and I'm not sure he does, he's got a long life to live with this on his brain."

Same recommendations
While new details were added and other portions were corrected or clarified, the original report's conclusions and recommendations were not revised. The first document was critical of communications failures, privacy laws and other factors, and issued suggestions on improving campus emergency procedures and notification systems, mental health regulations, and gun purchase reporting requirements.

Kaine agreed to the revision to correct factual errors and reflect new information that emerged after the panel he appointed to investigate the slayings completed its first document in August 2007. Victims' parents had pressed for corrections, and wanted university officials and others to be held more accountable for their roles.

Virginia Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski said in a statement Friday that "none of the new information merited changes to any of the recommendations in the original report."

On April 16, 2007, two people were killed at a residence hall at about 7:15 a.m. About 2 1/2 hours later, police responded to a 911 call of the shooting at an engineering classroom building about a half-mile away on the opposite end of the 2,600-acre campus.

After the scope of the carnage was clear, angry students and employees demanded to know why the first e-mail warning from police and administrators did not go out to them for more than two hours, even though the killer of two people was at large and would go on to strike a second time.

Delay tied to different policies
The amended report found that Virginia Tech had two different emergency-alert policies in effect when the shootings took place, and that led to a delay in issuing a university-wide alert until nearly two hours after Cho killed his first two victims.

Kaine said he is considering whether legislation requiring immediate notification procedures might be submitted to the General Assembly before he leaves office Jan. 16.

Emily Hilscher, one of the two dorm victims, survived for three hours after she was shot, according to the amended report. But no Virginia Tech officials, police or hospital representatives notified her parents about her injuries or whereabouts until after she died.

The report also adds more information, including Cho's records from the Cook Counseling Center, which were made public earlier this year. It also concludes that university officials and police failed to look into signs about Cho's mental state, including "a long list of frightening writings and aberrant behaviors."

[Dickie Billericay]

Check out the revised report (pdf) at page 28 (pdf page 58).  The first thing the campus police did was cancel bank deposit pick ups!  (8:25 am)

Gotta protect that money!  We can always get new students if a few dozen get slaughtered in French class, but that cash is hard to come by, so protect it first, last and at all costs.  Must be why they call it the "gold standard."  

[ham]

Nothing strange.
During 9-11 the great leader of the even greater nation flew up there on his jet while little hulkamaniacs burned to death...

[Don Dresden]

Nothing strange.
During 9-11 the great leader of the even greater nation flew up there on his jet while little hulkamaniacs burned to death...

Those are not comparable situations.  As evidenced by the attack on the Pentagon and the unsuccessful attack on DC that ended up in a field, the terrorists were aiming at high profile government targets, of which POTUS would be the highest of profiles.  The VT nutjob gave no indication he had the uni pres on his Richard McBeef radar.  In fact the early report was that it was a domestic dispute.  But under any circumstance, if events warrant protecting the admin then why don't they also warrant protecting the students?  At VT the administrative view is "me first" and every man for himself after that.  The captain ain't ever going down with that ship.

Also, on 9-11 nobody was trying to hush up news of the attacks or sweep it under the rug.  Not that they could, with the tallest buildings in the country collapsing into rubble on national TV.  But as you can read in the report, at VT you have specific conversations being quoted where they said "just try to make sure it doesn't get out."  (“Gunman on the loose,” he says, adding “This is not releasable yet.”)  p. 28, 8:45.

Not only were they just not warning students, they were actively trying to prevent students from learning of the dangerous situation.  If the rest of the campus had been sealed off as quickly as the president's office was, a lot of VT students would have lived.  In the 9-11 situation, the fact that there was so much publicity is what allowed the passengers on the 4th plane to foil the hijackers' plan.  If the VT students had known that Mr. Question Mark was wandering around playing with guns they might have been prepared to mount a similar defense.

[ham]

Those are not comparable situations. As evidenced by the attack on the Pentagon and the unsuccessful attack on DC that ended up in a field, the terrorists were aiming at high profile government targets, of which POTUS would be the highest of profiles.

With the White House bunker?
Please...a coward is a coward...period.
A coward laughing all the way to the airport while little hulkamaniacs die wagging their flags...
All these hacks are utter cowards...have you seen Sarkozy tripping as he was running for cover when a Israeli committed suicide?
But you feel free to think they are Clint Eastwood characters acting with integrity in the people's best interest...if I run, I am a coward...if they run, it's strategy...