I Said I Wasn't Going To Write About VA Tech Anymore...But
Here we go again with the woulda, coulda, shoulda blame game.
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Tech officials may have been able to save lives if the campus warning system had been implemented more quickly, a panel said in a report issued Thursday.
But the panel also found that the failure of the state's mental health system and the school's lack of information about the shooter's mental health also played a role.
"The dots were not connected, the signals were missed at Virginia Tech," said Gov. Timothy M. Kaine at a press conference Thursday.
I'm assuming that the school was basing their decisions on previous incidents. I'm sure there have been other students shot on and off campus. The shooter(s) usually doesn't stick around and wait for police. They flee immediately. So in 99.9% of the shootings, the shooter(s) is no longer on campus, thus, why the need to shut the school down?
I agree that students should have been notified of the initial shooting earlier in the day. But, you have to think, would it have made a difference? The school would still be open, classes would continue, and doors would remain open. The only way they could've prevented this was shutting the entire campus down and arranging for nearly 30,000 students, faculty, and employees to not come on campus.
The state mental health system should be blamed more than anyone else. They knew he was a danger to himself or others. He was ordered to undergo some type of evaluation, but never showed. I'm not a lawyer, but that seems to be contempt of court and he should have arrested and either put in jail or mental health facility.
Now the governor feels the need to throw his two cents in, "The dots were not connected, the signals were missed at Virginia Tech." It's an educational institution, not the FBI. What dots were they supposed to connect? Most of the time, the "dots" can't be "connected" until after the incident. Once you know the person, you can trackback from there and find the "dots". Seung Hui-Cho had not done anything besides being a weirdo previous to the shooting.
If the university had knowledge of a hit list, or something from Cho saying he was going to kill students, then yes, the university would be at fault for not taking the proper precautions.
